When you wake up in the morning, does your heart sing at the thought of a new day about to unfold? If not, it may help your baseline level of contentment to put some effort into trying to find your life purpose.
You will be surprised how much of an impact it can have to discover what you were born to do.
While it may not get your heart singing instantly, when you find your life purpose, you will begin to get closer to that resting state of “I love my life!” that we all want.
And it’s never too late to try.
No matter how many decades you have already clocked, it will always be worth it to make future years as fulfilling as possible.
But figuring out something as significant as your life purpose can be daunting.
How To Find Your Life Purpose: Simplified
So, let’s break it down into smaller, manageable areas to think about.
It may help to think about the innate gifts we have; because when we recognize, honor and utilize our unique gifts, chances are, we are moving closer to our passion.
The reverse may be true, too. When we don’t get the opportunity to use our gifts for too long, it can become more and more difficult to be positive, take initiative, or motivate others. We begin to doubt ourselves.
One way to think about this is, if we feel like a fish out of water for too long, we begin to wonder if we ever really knew how to swim!
We all need to get back in the water to fulfill our purpose.
Some have a natural instinct that guides them to their passion, but many of us don’t.
What’s the best way to figure out where our passions lie?
Is there any easy way to begin to understand what would help us to truly “come alive”?
How can we come up with a list to know ourselves better, and to understand what truly “makes us tick”?
How to Find Your Life Purpose Thought Prompts
To jump-start your imagination, try these journalling prompts:
- List your gifts: Are you a good listener? Are you good with children or the elderly? Can you make people laugh? Do you like to mentor or teach? Are you a great shopper? Do you have an eye for design? Decorating? Organizing? Anything we do well easily and love to do is a gift.
- List your skills: These are things you’ve learned how to do that you also do well. Sometimes it’s hard to differentiate between gifts and skills, but don’t sweat it – just capture it all. Skills are things like social networking, computer graphics, gardening, party planning, editing, balancing a budget, public speaking, painting, pottery, or sewing.
- List your interests: What topics can you not read enough about? Happiness and psychology are my favorites, but there are tons of others too. Health, history, real estate, fitness, different cultures, politics, cooking? If you were to read a non-fiction book, what would it likely be about? What types of TV shows or movies do you enjoy?
- For more inspiration, read: 7 Life Coaching Questions to Empower You.
Connecting the items on your lists may highlight areas of opportunity to identify and get in touch with your passion.
- For example, are you gifted in noticing beautiful things around you?
- Are you skilled in using a camera?
- Interested in nature?
Perhaps your calling is to be a photographer who specializes in animals or flowers or landscapes.
If you find a connection, try it out one day and see what happens.
More Journal Prompts
Are you still stumped? Try these:
- Think back to when you were a child. What did you dream of becoming “when you grew up”? For more inspiration, check out: 7 Journal Prompts to Help Connect with Your Inner Child.
- Over the course of your life, when have been the most fulfilled and content? What were you doing?
- In the last week, name three instances where you lost track of time. What were you doing?
Getting closer to figuring out your life’s purpose? I hope so.
Finding Your Life Purpose Can Make Your Heart Sing
Does your heart sing? Because we’re all at our best when our hearts sing.
Imagine how we could change the world if all our hearts were singing.
Wouldn’t that be a thing of wonder?
Need more inspiration? You may find it here: Positive Affirmations.
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Joan Senio is the founder of KindCompassCoach. Her career includes 20+ years as a private sector corporate executive and 15 years as a consultant. The common thread through her professional life has been a commitment to compassionate coaching and leadership, including mentoring early and mid-career professionals as well as current and future executives and leaders. KindCompassCoach articles are backed by research and include facts and advice from relevant experts. Joan is a member of the International Organization of Life Coaches, serves as a thought-leader for KuelLife.com and is a regular contributor to PsychReg and Sixty and Me.
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13 Responses
After years of confusion I’ve finally realized that I’m the happiest when I’m learning and helping people learn. I feel a sense of purpose when I’m sharing knowledge. That’s why I’m now working towards getting a lecturer job at a university. The academic environment gives me a buzz. I must say that you can’t find your life’s purpose unless you’ve faced challenging circumstances. The ones that make you rethink your definition of success and happiness. Great post.
Komal – http://www.thehamsterball.com
I really enjoyed reading this post! It is so important to live our best life. It really is so short. You have given some great advice! I especially like the idea of listing our gifts and skills. Thanks for sharing this post!
~ Ray
Beautiful post. I liked the line, “If we feel like a fish out of water for too long we begin to wonder if we ever really knew how to swim!” it helped me really reflect on my own life.
Joan this is such an inspiring post. I believe people do need to find out what their passions are and pursue them because it will make them happier. Just the idea of waking up in the morning with the intention to be my best and excel in the things I enjoy is great motivation to stretch my passion in new directions.
Natonya |http://www.justnatonya.wordpress.com
Finding one’s passion truly takes permission to oneself to explore and experiment. I enjoy many things, but nothing more than writing, and it took me 10 years to go from declaring myself a writer to finally sit down and write the story as if I believed in it. I had to give myself permission to believe in myself. This fish can still swim!
Hi Mackenzie! Thank you so much for reading and commenting and congratulations on sticking with your passion!
Hi Joan – Another post that I love! It makes my heart sing every Sunday when I get all the love from my posts on facebook .. so I must be heading in the right direction. xo
Thanks for this wonderful post. I totally agree with you that if all hearts sing together, this world will an amazing place to live in. How wonderful it would be to see smiles everywhere on each face!
Hi Joan,
Thanks so much for sharing these ideas with us. I’ve always been passionate about helping other people discover their gift and one of the things that brings me great joy is seeing others thrive. That being said, to include skills and interests is new to me and has been really helpful. I know that I am a writer. I also know that I come alive when I am surrounded by creative people of every genre. You have inspired me to go out and find my tribe!
Olivia
Hi Olivia, Thank you so much for sharing your comment. I’m always thrilled to hear if a post sparks inspiration! Good luck in finding others in your tribe. Twitter’s #writingcommunity is a great place to begin!
I love the idea of thinking back to when you were a kid and happy. I do this often and it always seems to clarify something.
Nice post. Always good to be reminded about flipping attitude.
This post was very practical and inspiring. The Frederick Beuchner quote drew me right in. Have you read any of his autobiographies? They are amazing!