NOTE: "Life Purpose" here also means the same as "living authentically", "your calling", "your purpose", "your divine urge", "life course", etc.

Transcription

1 Quick Guide to Finding Your Life Purpose This guide is based on the book Be Yourself - Evolving the World Through Personal Empowerment by Mark Gilbert. This guide pulls content from the book as well as expands upon it in a simple to use format. The intent here is not to convince you of the importance of finding your life purpose but simply to guide you through some easy steps to help decide what it might be! NOTE: "Life Purpose" here also means the same as "living authentically", "your calling", "your purpose", "your divine urge", "life course", etc. Step One Review your outer life and look for patterns. Take a large piece of paper and draw a horizontal line across it. This represents the timeline of your life. At the end of the line on the left side, write the word "my birth". At the end of the line on the right side, write the word "present day". On the space on the timeline between your birth and now, label the appropriate points of time and any necessary descriptive words in response to these questions: Indicate the major crossroads in your life when you made a choice that move you in a new direction. Indicate the major roads not taken in your life that is, the points when you could have made a major choice but you stayed in place. Indicate the major crises that have occurred in your life, whatever they may be to you. Label what you learned from that crisis. Indicate the major successes that have occurred in your life. Label what you gained from that success. Indicate any major milestones in life not are ready listed. Label what you got from that milestone. Page 1

2 Now take a moment and look back over your timeline. Do you see any trends? Any messages? Has your life been redirecting you to similar kinds of experiences or learning? What does any of this have to say about the purpose of your life? Step Two Listen to your intuition. First, consider the question "what is my purpose for this lifetime?" (The wording is not important, if you have a question that resonates better for you, use it). Second, while holding that question in mind, sit quietly in silence. Be open to any guidance which comes forth. As thoughts flow through your awareness, simply notice them. Don't dwell on any thoughts or subjects. Simply note the content in your mind and return to being open with the question. Third, as you come out of the silence, take a piece of paper or journal and write about the thoughts that came flowing by you. If in writing about the thoughts you experienced new thoughts come about, write them down too. Simply allow your words to flow on the paper. Don't judge where the thoughts were the words come from simply allow them to flow. When your complete, look for any trends or messages. Tapping this inner guidance takes practice and should be repeated a number of times until you feel comfortable with it. However know that you can always this inner awareness. Step Three Use some pointed questions to tap both your life experiences and intuition. Below is a list of some questions that might guide you to discovering your purpose. You can go through all of the questions or just some of them. Note that there are additional questions to ponder in Part Four of Be Yourself. Again, I would suggest that you take some quiet time and reflect upon and journal your thoughts to these specific questions: What makes you smile? What are your favorite things to do in the past? What about now? What activities make you lose track of time? What makes you feel great about yourself? Page 2

3 Who inspires you most? (Can be people you know in person or not.) What is it about each person that inspires you? What are your strengths? What are you naturally good at? (Skills, abilities, gifts etc.) When you re relaxing with friends, what do you love talking about? What do people typically ask you for help in? If you had to teach something, what would you teach? What interest or passion are you most afraid of admitting? Maybe it s something you think other people might scoff at. Or maybe you fear that your passion sounds too grandiose? What would you regret not fully doing, being or having in your life? What were some challenges, difficulties and hardships you ve overcome or are in the process of overcoming? How did you do it? What causes do you strongly believe in? Connect with? If you could get a message across to a large group of people. Who would those people be? What would your message be? Given your talents, passions and values. How could you use these resources to serve, to help, to contribute? ( to people, beings, causes, organization, environment, planet, etc.) What did you want to become as a child? What childhood dreams did you have about your life? What do you secretly love about yourself? What would you do if you knew you wouldn t fail? If you knew you couldn t fail, what would you do? How would you like to make the world a better place for yourself and others? What would you do if money was no barrier? As you consider getting older and looking back at your life and all that you ve achieved and acquired, all the relationships you ve developed; what matters to you most? What would you regret on your deathbed if you hadn t done it? Imagine that you are dying. What would you feel you ve missed out on? What would you regret not having done? Page 3

4 Optional exercise: What hidden clues does your home reveal? Walk around your home as if you were a detective. What clues to your passions do you find? What do the photos or pictures on the wall reveal? What about books or mementos on the shelves? If you did not know this person, what would you guess about his or her passion in life? Step Four Bring them all together. ***Note--Be Yourself has even other exercises that you can use!*** After studying your life's patterns, checking in with your intuition and journaling, or reflecting upon some key questions, you should begin to have some common factors starting to show up. Take some time to sit and reflect upon these common themes. On a sheet of paper, write out what these themes are. Step Five Summarize it briefly. Complete the following sentence: "The reason I came to earth at this time and place as this person is so that I could " However you completed that sentence should give you a good sense of what your life purpose is! Letting Go of Limitations Next Considerations There is a 3 step process in Be Yourself to guide you through identifying and letting go of your limitations. To assist you here, please consider your answers to the following questions: What is your greatest barrier to following your dream? What is it that holds you back? Fear of failure? Fear of ridicule? There seems to be no opportunity? Do you think you lack talent? How do you label yourself and how does that restrict you? This question reveals another barrier to finding your life purpose. What kind of labels do you stick on to yourself? Check out in which way these labels hinder your development. Are gender, age, talent or other issues a limiting concern for you? Page 4

5 Note that the goal here is to (1) identify your limiting thoughts and beliefs; (2) determine what a new replacement belief would be; and (3) reprogram yourself with the new beliefs. Acting Upon Your Life Purpose In addition to letting go of any limiting beliefs, the other thing that is useful to do is to start putting your life purpose into play in your life. Here is a simple process to get you started: Review your life purpose and list out several (at least 3) action steps that you can begin doing right now to be living on purpose. Where some action seems too large, break it down into smaller steps and consider what the first one would be. Make sure that at least one of your actions relates to being of service to others to begin feeding that aspect of your life. Take your action steps and give yourself a due date to complete them. Put them on your personal calendar if need be. As you complete any actions, take time to create a new task for yourself. Tell some person what you are doing and ask them to check in with you to make sure you are making progress on your actions. Final suggestion: Have fun! Page 5