Welcome to How to Find Happiness in 10 Weeks or Less, Week 4: What Is My Purpose? Answers to the Most Important Question Ever.

Discovering what we were born to do is highly motivating and a key to improving our well-being.

When we discover our life purpose, everything we do has more meaning, and even daily tasks become more fulfilling.

Locking in on our true purpose in life brings other benefits, too.

Knowing our life purpose provides context for each choice and every decision we make. It also helps us understand our future potential legacy, and act accordingly.

In short, life gets better, all around.

So, let’s challenge ourselves to figure out the elusive answers to those critical questions: Why am I here? Is there something specific I was born to do? What Is My Purpose?

What is My Purpose?

This post includes exercises to help us recognize our personal gifts, skills, and interests, and to help us ultimately, get closer to the answer to the question: What Is My Purpose?

One way we will do this is to begin to understand the qualities of a future life that will help us to achieve a resting state of contentment and happiness.

We will also learn how to tap into our own power. How?

By teaching ourselves easy ways to make choices and decisions consistent with the best future life we envision.

Last but not least, we will explore the essential role of our heart in our own personal growth journey and best future life.

So, let’s get into the search for the answer to the all-important question: What Is My Purpose?

Discovering Your Personal Gifts – “Superpowers”

A great place to begins to identify and explore our own unique personal gifts. I like to call these “superpowers”. I’m referring to things that come more easily to us than they do to others. For example, I’m good at cooking for large groups; and I’m a great “gift-picker-outer.” I’m also a good public speaker.

Not everyone is good at these things.

And other people are naturally really good at things I struggle with.

We each have our own set of superpowers. I recently read an article in Prevention Magazine (January 2021) that referred to these gifts as our “signature strengths”.

Why Start With “Superpowers”?

Why is identifying our superpowers (or “signature strengths”) a great place to begin?

• When we’re tapping into our superpowers, we often achieve flow;
• Understanding our superpowers can help us discover our life purpose and to find our voice.
• Achieving flow and understanding our life purpose are two important keys to a happy and fulfilled life;
• The more time we spend in activities that align with our superpowers, the more likely we are to be content and also to grow into being our best selves. So it’s best to get really clear on what our own individual superpowers are.
• Another reason to identify our superpowers is because we can feel drained and uninspired when we are not using them. We may also feel unfulfilled and frustrated when we’re trying to bring superpowers to the table that we just don’t have.

To begin this exercise, draw three columns on a piece of paper.

Label the first “My Superpowers”. Some examples of superpowers include: bravery, forgiveness, gratitude, honesty, hope, humility, perspective, kindness, creativity, or perseverance.

But there are so many more. Just jot down the ideas that immediately come to mind.

What Is My Purpose? Questions Regarding Superpowers

If you are stumped, the questions below may help:

• Are you a good listener? Naturally friendly? Compassionate?
• Are you good with children or the elderly?
• Do you make people laugh or feel at ease?
• Do you excel at finding efficiency in space, time or budget?
• Visualizing a different world, a new invention, or a work of art?
• Do people remark at your ability to network socially?
• How well do you empathize with others?
• Can you magically pull together a dinner party for 10?
• Do you like to mentor or teach?
• Are you a great shopper?
• Do you have an eye for design? Decorating? Organizing?
• Are you an effective communicator? One who always seems to find the right words to convey a message?

Each of these things are nearly impossible for some people to do. If you do them well, they may view you as a superhero and you may not even know it.

From now on, when thinking about how to spend time either at work or at home, consider this.

Will this activity allow me to better leverage my superpowers? Will it help me focus my energy and effort on activities that fulfill me and align with my purpose?

We each have our own unique set of magical superpowers. Let’s figure out ours and seek every opportunity to use them.

What Is My Purpose? Discovering Our Skills

We may uncover a second set of clues to our best future lives by thinking about our skills.

Let’s use the second column on the paper to list those.

Skills are things we’ve learned how to do that we do well.

Sometimes it’s hard to differentiate between superpowers and skills, but don’t sweat it – just capture it all.

Skills can be things like being adept at social media, computer graphics, gardening, cooking, party planning, editing, balancing a budget, public speaking, painting, pottery, or sewing.

Examples of Skills

• Are you active on social media?
• Do you find it easy to network with colleagues and friends?
• Can you easily master computer skills, coding, software development, graphics, etc.?
• Are you a good gardener? Do your houseplants or vegetables or landscapes thrive?
• Do you find it easy to balance a budget?
• Have you mastered effective public speaking?
• What about the arts? Do you play a musical instrument? Paint? Draw? Make pottery? Sew?

What Is My Purpose? Discovering Our Interests

Now let’s repeat the process above to identify our interests. Is there a topic you never tire of reading about? Happiness and Psychology? (Those are mine.) Health? History? Real estate? Fitness? 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?

Use your third column to list out the topics that interest you the most.

Drawing Connections to Find Our Life Purpose

Connecting our superpowers, skills and interests can be the tactic that allows us to identify our life purpose.

And understanding what we were born to do can be the key that unlocks a future filled with contentment.

So, let’s tie our lists together and identify areas of opportunity that will help us get in touch with our passion.

Here are some examples of how we may connect a gift, a skill and an area of interest:

• Are you gifted in noticing beautiful things around 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.
• Are you gifted in helping others solve problems? Skilled in public speaking? Interested in the study of motivation and psychology? Perhaps you would thrive as a motivational speaker or coach.
• Do you have an eye for design? Skilled at gardening? Interested in learning everything you can about trees, flowers, plants? Perhaps you were meant to be a landscape architect.

If you find a connection, try it out for fun one day and see what happens.

Just pretend. Let your mind wander and imagine a future life that revolves around your new life purpose and focus. Does it feel right? Does your heart sing?

What is My Purpose? Envisioning Your Best Future Life

So we now have a better idea of our gifts, skills and interests, and we are beginning to get a sense of what our life purpose may be.

These are great places to begin our exploration, but we need to continue to our discovery.

So let’s spend some time thinking about what our best future life feels like and looks like up close.

Do you have a vision of your future happy, contented life? A real, crystal-clear vision?

Describing our best future life to ourselves can be affirming, and can help us actualize those dreams.

This is another key part of our exercises for this week.

To complete this exercise, we will each write down phrases that describe how we want to feel in our future life. And we will do it in the present tense.

For example, whether or not these statements are true, we could write:

• I love myself as much as I love my children.
• I am healthy and fit and full of energy.
• I’m financially secure.
• I work because I want to but can retire whenever I choose.
• When I look in the mirror, I see a happy, contented person.
• I have learned to live in the moment, and I spend less time dwelling on the past or worrying about the future.

Writing a few statements like this every day that concretely articulate the qualities of our desired life, and the feelings we wish to experience in that life can help them become reality.

Some people are skeptical about the impact of this kind of positive thinking. But science backs up the claims that our thinking can have a significant impact on future events. Physicists have even proven that the thoughts of physicists conducting experiments can influence the outcome of those experiments.

What is My Purpose? Owning Our Own Power

So let’s accept that we can channel positivity into our lives and make the most of it.

Let’s write words and statements on our lists, but let’s also take it one step further. How about we create a vision board of our own?

An old-school corkboard works, but so does a virtual board on Pinterest or elsewhere – whatever works best for you.

Begin to collect pictures, photos, inspiring quotes, and symbols. Anything that helps not only verbalize our future, but visualize it, too.

As our description of our desired future begins to be better articulated in our words, and as our image for the future becomes vivid through pictures, we will each begin to develop a much more powerful impression of the future life we want to live.

This impression can be motivational and inspirational. But it can also become a source of data to help inform our hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, or once-in-a-lifetime decisions.

What is My Purpose? How to Make Decisions That Align with Our Best Future Life

We all know how it feels when we have a tough decision to make. We find ourselves lying awake, dwelling on it for hours. Should I? Or shouldn’t I?

Making choices of all kinds are especially difficult when we are adrift, and don’t have a clear sense of direction for our future.

But the work we are doing together will help us make better decisions going forward.

And better decisions will help us in our journey to contentment and happiness.

As we begin to appreciate our gifts, skills and interests, and catch a glimpse of our true-life purpose; and as we begin describing our future life in words, pictures, and all other forms of inspiration, all decisions will become much easier to make. Why?

Because all we have to do is ask ourselves one question.

If I do this thing …. does it take me closer to my future best life? Or does it take me further away?

For example:

• I have stated my best future life includes financial security – but I am considering buying a luxurious new car.
• I have stated my aspiration to be fit, healthy and energetic. But I’m tempted to order a large dessert and eat it all myself!
• My future life includes me loving myself as much as I love my children, and being as kind to myself as I am to them. However, I’m choosing to berate myself for a simple mistake I made yesterday, over and over.
• When I visualize my best future life it includes healthy, harmonious relationships. But my current partner does not honor my vision of the future and often incites conflict with my family. I have to make a choice – to stay with her and keep trying to work it out, or walk away.

Our Future Is in Our Own Hands

We truly do hold much of our future in our own hands. We may choose to get bold, clear and ambitious with our visions. Then, we may decide to get bossy, disciplined, and committed. Commit to keep our promises to ourselves. Act the ways that will help us achieve our visions. Own that we are the single most powerful force in our own lives and make amazing things happen.

Today could be the first day of the most incredible, challenging, inspiring, exciting journey towards your future destiny. What do you want your future to hold?

What Is My Purpose? Learn To Follow Our Heart

Each day, we make choices. So many choices. Many seem insignificant: what to eat, what to wear, where to shop. But simple choices that help us to feel fulfilled and happier can ultimately change the course and quality of our lives. Just choosing to do things that bring us joy. And choosing not to do things that don’t. Or deciding to do things that bring us closer to achieving a personal goal.

Those type of choices, repeated over and over, can change everything.

So, let’s train and empower ourselves to make those choices, every chance we get.

And slowly get closer to the answer to the question:

What Is My Purpose?

It can start with a choice to indulge in a hobby a few times a week. Or a decision to cook healthy food, just for you.

• How about watching a movie of your own choosing?
• Or deciding to go for a walk in the rain?
• Or just doing something frivolous that makes you smile.

These are examples of small choices we can make that may help us to begin to tune into our heart when it speaks.

What Is My Purpose? The Road to Discovery Starts with Baby Steps

It may seem unrealistic, but the fact is, learning to see opportunities to make choices like these and then deciding to seize them can be the gateway to making better life choices, and ultimately, living a more fulfilled and happy life.

Think of these opportunities as initial baby steps.

Make these choices and take these chances – and watch how your world begins to change. Because this is the start.

The beginning of learning that it’s okay to do something “just because”.

The joy we feel when we do will soon become its own reward. And it will reinforce our new behaviors.

And it’s essential that it does. Because it’s important for us to learn and remember that when we follow our hearts, we find joy. And get closer to know the answer to the question:

What is My Purpose?

Making Big Decisions: Always Give Your Heart a Vote

It’s especially important to “give our hearts a vote” when we’re contemplating the bigger stuff. There’s slightly bigger stuff, and then there’s the major, mammoth stuff:

• Maybe it’s about making a commitment to stick with something you’ve started, or deciding to start something new?
• Are you contemplating a job or career change or are you considering retirement?
• Facing an ethical dilemma at work or at home?
• Thinking about moving to a new area? Or buying a new home where you currently live?
• Trying to decide whether to enter or exit a relationship?
• Do you face difficult decisions related to your finances, or your health?

It’s also important to accept that we do not need to explain or justify the choices we make.

If our hearts tell us to do something, we do not need to convince anyone else that our choices are correct, right or “for the best”. Our hearts should get the deciding vote, always.

Whether it is a choice we make at work, at home, in a relationship, regarding our children.

It is essential that we know what our hearts are saying. That we allow ourselves to hear our hearts above all the chatter coming from other places.

What Is My Purpose: How It All Fits Together

Hopefully, all the exercises we have done have given you more insight into who you are and what your heart is saying. And perhaps, you’ve gotten closer to the answer to that puzzling question: What is my purpose?

Your gifts, skills, interests and ideas. Affirmations that illustrate the kind of life you aspire to lead and the type of person you want to be. Having a purpose driven, heart-full attitude toward your own self as well as all of those around you.

Let’s Wrap It Up!

These questions may help you continue to explore possible answers to the question: What is my purpose?

What are my superpowers?	Am I using my superpowers enough in my daily life? If not, which ones should I use more often?
Are there things I struggle to do that others may be able to do more easily?	What are my skills?
Am I using my skills in my everyday life?	Which skills do I have that I would like to use more often?
What topics interest me most?	How can I satisfy my natural curiosity about these topics more often?
When I think of my gifts, skills, and interests does it help me imagine my life purpose?	Can I compose statements that clearly describe my best future life?
Are there choices I make each day that take me closer to my best future life or take me further away from it?	What tactics can I use to remind myself to be conscious as I make those choices?
What 3 things can I do this week to help me move towards happiness and contentment?	Who can I reach out to when I need help to stay motivated and on track with my decision making and activities?
Do the significant others in my life appreciate and support me in embracing my own unique gifts?	Are there specific relationships I need to assess or invest energy in to become better positioned for my best future life? What actions can I take to improve the quality of those relationships?

Do you feel like you have a clearer picture of your gifts, skills, and interests?

Has it helped you get a sense of your true-life purpose?

What affirmations did you choose to describe your best future life?

Do you have a few concrete ideas about specific actions you can take to begin to move closer to what you are born to do?

Please leave a comment and share what you are learning with all the rest of us.

After all, we are all on this journey together – and we are all so much more than enough.

We’re going to relieve ourselves of some baggage in Week 5.

When you’re ready for it, here it is: How to Find Happiness in 10 Weeks or Less, Week 5, Shame: How to Uncover, Overcome and Release It.

Thank you, as always, for reading.

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