5 Reasons You Should Have a Life Purpose

What is a life purpose? Is it a fantasy that only meditators get? What exactly is it? There are multiple interpretations of what a life purpose is. It is simply your life’s message that you wish to drive in the world during your time on Earth. An example of a life purpose is “ inspire everyone to achieve success”  or “ relieve every living being of suffering”.as you wish to live a more meaningful and conscious life, a life purpose is for you.

Why should we have a life purpose?

1. Purpose is the starting point of life:

Perhaps you’re reading this article because you see the importance of personal growth. Deep inside, you’re passionate about living your best life, and you feel that the content here may help you do that.

A life purpose is the first step to live your most conscious life. You can be busy with a million tasks everyday, but when you don’t have a clear purpose, you may be in the wrong path. That’s because your goals may have nothing to do with your purpose, which means that you can pursue your current goals for the next 10 or 20 years to realize that this isn’t what you wanted after all.

As Stephen Covey once said, “If the ladder is not leaning against the right wall, every step we take just gets us to the wrong place faster.”

On the other hand, when you have a life purpose, conscious living begins. It doesn’t mean that all your problems disappear, at least you know what you want in this world. With a clear purpose, you can then set the right goals and plans and take the right daily steps to create your most meaningful life.

In short, no purpose in life means existence of vague endeavours or lack thereof. This means making vague plans or not making final plans, and then taking random daily actions, procrastination, or being constantly preoccupied with others’ agendas, which is wrong.

Having a clear purpose in life means pursuing clear endeavours, and then making clear plans which in turn leads to clear daily actions, and that is the right thing.  You want to make sure that your ladder is leaning against the right wall first, then climb up the ladder. Make sure you get the big picture right first, then perfect your goals, plans, and daily actions. This big picture is your life purpose.

2. Clarity on what’s important vs. Unimportant:

When you know your purpose, it helps you differentiate between the important and unimportant. Most people today are so caught up in so many things that ultimately do not make a difference in their lives, such as earning more money, getting houses, or getting cars. When you have a purpose, you can immediately see which goals are important and which don’tinterfere with your long-term life path. You can get through things that don’t matter and get right to the things that matter.

For example, after you found your purpose, you realized that almost all the goals that you had been working towards previously were pointless.

The great thing is that investing a few months of your life to discover your purpose will allow you to work on it right away. So, instead of wasting some years of your life pursuing things that you think you want and need, you can start paving the path towards your highest life even if you can’t act on it right away.

We often hear about the 80/20 Pareto principle, where you focus on the 20% big rocks to get maximum change. However, you can’t know what your 20% big rocks are unless you are clear about what’s truly important to you. This starts with knowing your life purpose. When you discover your purpose, you can direct your focus to the really important things. Instead of wasting your time on the inconsequential stuff, you can focus on your 20% big rocks; That is, big rocks that matter not to others, not to the society, but to you.

3. Live a meaningful life:

When you pursue your purpose, your life becomes filled with direction and meaning. As opposed to wasting your time in a job you don’t love, now you can work towards a career that better fits your purpose. As opposed to being around toxic people who are incompatible with you, now you can find people who share the same values to build your highest life. As opposed to living a random existence, now you can create your life of the highest meaning.

One of the client who received coaching to find her purpose explains that after she had found her life purpose, she began her ideal life. Even though she started off in an unideal place, she was working in a job she didn’t like. She quickly identified her long-term plan to pursue her purpose. She took a certification course to build her right skills, started her Facebook business page, built her blog, and found her tribe. Just recently, she submitted her resignation to pursuer this full time.

This client says: “I feel like I was a fish and for the first time in my life, I’ve jumped into the ocean to swim with my fish friends.”

It doesn’t mean that life thrive once you find your purpose. You still need to put in the hard work to make things happen, but now you have the right direction to set you forward.

4. Constant drive and passion:

When you pursue your purpose, you gain an incredible burst of energy that keeps you going. On the other hand, when you aren’t living your purpose, days become a drag. Weekdays come and you do what’s needed. Weekends approach and you look forward to them. Then the week starts and you wake up to start your work again, waiting for weekends to come again.

If you look forward to weekends and vacations as opposed to what you do each day, it’s time to think about whether your work is something you really care about, or whether it is simply a means to an end. Pursue something of the highest meaning to you. To do this, you need to first start with what is your purpose.

5. Achieve success in your terms:

Many people look for success as an end in itself. However, success is an effect of doing what you love and having clear plans, goals, skills. That talent isn’t inborn as much as it’s something that cultivated through time. Whether it takes 10000 or 20000 hours of hard work, the point is that everyone starts from somewhere, and it’s through consistent work we become talented in an area.

Spending 10000 or 20000 hours in something is no easy feat. If you are spending 4-5 hours a day not including admin work and distractions, that’s about 8.5 years to clock 10000 hours to develop talent, which may help you achieve success in your field. But who have the energy to go to work everyday and thrive in a field they don’t care about for 8.5 years?

Instead of pursuing success as an end in itself, it would make more sense to first identify what you truly care about, and then direct your energy to make this a reality. This is where your purpose comes in when you discover your true purpose.

• You will naturally want to devote your life to pursue it because it gives you the most fulfilment.
• You will naturally want to spend time doing it because you care.
• You will naturally get better at it, even you are starting from ground zero because the time you spend on it will give you the experience and skills to succeed.

Because of that, success is imminent. You will excel in whatever you set out to do.