Self discovery: Find your life purpose

Hi, welcome to the sixth day of The Leads Intellectual challenge: a 30-day challenge with Fatai Kareem. If you would like to know your personality traits, read the fifth day challenge here.

Today, he will be discussing how to you can find your life purpose. If you want to live a fulfilled, happy and contented life; experience inner peace and fulfillment; it is important that you learn how to find your life purpose. If you have been asking yourself what is the essence of your being without being able to answer yourself, then read to the end. What is your life purpose?

Your life purpose is what gives meaning to your life; it is the reason for your being "ikigai". It is what you would like to spend your life doing, which ultimately makes you feel fulfilled and happy. It is what makes you live a meaningful life by impacting the lives of other people. It makes you dream and gives you hope about the future. It is like a map, guiding your actions and decisions in life. It keeps you centered, focused and clear on what you really want out of life and how you will get to your destination. Every person is born with a life purpose. Some discover theirs easily while it is obscured to some people. Then, how can you find your life purpose?

1. Know your passion

Knowing your passion involves discovering what you love doing and learning. This is something you are passionate about and interested in doing and learning. You can spend so much time doing it and learning about it without getting tired. You are always happy doing it and you would like to know about it so that you can do it better. Without being paid, you don't get exhausted or down doing it. You do it and learn about it because you love it. You are willing to sacrifice other things for it.

List all the activities you are passionate about and interested in doing and learning. Then ask yourself "which one gives me joy the most and makes me feel fulfilled?", "Which one do I do that impact the lives of other people the most?". Based on your answers, arrange those activities according to how fulfilled and impactful they make you feel. And take note of the top 3 activities.

2. Find out your strength and skills

Knowing what you are good at doing well and having the ability to overcome obstacles that come your way while doing those things is the key to finding out your strength and skills. Your strength and skills, which may occur to you naturally or learnt, make you feel adequate about yourself; give you a sense of competence, which ultimately makes you to take actions towards doing some things you believe you are good at doing well. When obstacles come your way, they help you survive and achieve your goals. What you need to know is that all the skills and strength you have are meant for achieving your purpose. This will make you to see every challenge as an avenue to learn something new, acquire new skills and discover your strength.

List out your skills and strength. Then ask yourself "what are the problems these skills and strength can solve? "Who are those having the problems?" "How can you help them with your skills and strength?". After getting answers to these questions,  then relate your answers to what you are passionate about. This will make you to be willing to take actions because you love doing it.

3. Reflect on your painful experience

Pains, injustice or unhappiness make us feel bad and hurt, which we would like to stop. There are times you find yourself in situations that make you feel bad and hurt; these maybe those sufferings, difficulties, injustice, unhappiness or problems you have had, or which you see other people going through, which you would like to stop by helping them out of the pains. See everything around you as an avenue to get inspired and make an impact. At times, you have to feel so much pains to be driven to stop it.

List out those painful situations you have had or see other people struggling with. Then ask yourself "will I like it to continue or stop?". If you find out that you don't want one or more situations to continue, then ask yourself, "how can I use my skills, strength and experience to stop it?", "which skills and weakness do I need to improve in order to stop it", "what skills, experience or strength do I need to develop in order to stop it".

List out how you can stop those painful situations, take necessary actions for developing your skills, strength and experience, and build your passion for stopping it.

4. Challenge your fears

Knowing what you want to do with your life is one thing while doing those things is another thing. You might have found a purpose for life, yet you may still be living an unfulfilled life because you don't take actions towards fulfilling the purpose. This is the case when you allow your fears to lead your actions and decisions. Take your time to understand what is stopping you from fulfilling your purpose; achieving your dreams and hopes. This will help you to know what you need to do to overcome those things and be fulfilled.

List out your dreams and hopes and problems you would like to solve or stop, then ask yourself "why have I not achieve my dreams?", "why have I not taken actions towards solving or stopping these problems or painful situations?" "what are obstacles coming my ways?", "how can I overcome these obstacles?". 

Then, list out those things stopping you from achieving your purpose and how you can overcome them. Build your passion for doing it and learning about it. Be with positive people from whom you can get motivated and learn. Find those people from whom you can get inspired and focused to stop their problems. And fight your fears.

5. Work with your motivation

Knowing what keeps you moving is necessary for achieving your dreams and fulfilling your purpose. In your journey to fulfill your purpose, there are obstacles and challenges that might discourage you, yet your motivation will keep you moving. This involves knowing those things you need to be passionate about while working towards fulfilling your purpose, and you do them. This serves to be your driver moving you forward no matter the circumstances. You can fulfill your life purpose when what you do and what you want to fulfill align with what drives you.

List out those things you value and passionate about, which ultimately drive you to do more. Then ask yourself "how can I align them with things I want to live my life for?"

If being with people that are suffering drive you, then think of how you can have more social interactions with them.

If inspiring others to achieve their goals drive you, then think of how you can be in leadership position to set targets and deadline for other people and help them to achieve their goals. 

If achievement drives you, then think of how you can have more competition in what you do, so that you can strive to achieve it.

Whatever you want to achieve, always work with your motivation.

6. Set your goals and achieve them

See your life purpose as a goal that needs to be achieved. You can do this by having short term goals that will lead to a greater goals, hence give your life the true happiness and fulfillment you desire. Ensure that each short term goal contribute to that long term goal. Define those goals around what drive you and you are passionate about, which will help you to live a happy, fulfilled and meaningful life.

List out those little and greater things you need to achieve that will make your life to be fulfilled and meaningful. Follow the steps above. Align them with your passion, skills and strength, and motivation. Then, take necessary actions towards achieving them.

If you still don't know your life purpose, you can take purpose test here.

If you don't know your strength, you can find out here.

If you don't know what is keeping you back, you can take well being quiz to find out.

Case study

1. Beauty is a compassionate lady who is attracted to pains of orphanage. She gets sad every time she sees an orphan suffering. By chance, she learns how to take good care of children and those in needs.  Yet, she still doesn't know her purpose. As her guardian, what advice can you give to her?

2. King is an intelligent and physically challenged guy. He always finds himself in situations that undermine physically challenged people. This usually makes him feel sad and drives him to speak up for himself and other people like him. He is frustrated because things doesn't work out as he expects. He wants to quiz thinking maybe that is not his purpose; meanwhile he has helped 10 people like him to get admitted into high school. Is he right? How can he do better and fulfill his purpose? 

Disclaimer: All names used are for illustration purpose.

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