Do you sometimes wonder why you are here? Do you say to yourself “what’s the point to my life?” I used to wonder this too. Ironically, it wasn’t till I went blind that I got clarity about my life purpose. That plus a heap of coaching of course. It’s all about sitting up and taking notice of the things that work in your life so sit up, grab yourself a pen and paper and begin making sense of your life with the following questions:
1. Key values: Values are the things that are important to us like humour, love, creativity, simplicity, learn, inspire... Write a list of all the values that are important to you, writing as many as you can come up with. Eliminate the less important ones from the list, dropping it down to just six key values – these are your top six that are really important to you. These act as the foundation of your purpose. Go back to the beginning of this question to check out mine!
2. What are you passionate about? Write down a list of things that really get you energised or motivated. What are they? For me this was telling my story. First it was through speaking, then writing my book. What do you feel passionate about? If someone rang you up and said “Would you like to…” – what would that be to get you excited?
3. What do people acknowledge you for? “You’re so…” or “You’re such a great ..." For me this was “You’re so inspiring.”
4. What experience do other people get from you? Think about how you leave people feeling? Happy? Motivated to learn? They feel loved? Important? For me, once again, it was I left people feeling inspired.
5. What do you think your purpose is? Dig deep, think about What it is you are here to do. You may know but just to scared to say it out loud. Try and condense it into a simple statement like “to inspire others beyond their own limits” (that’s mine).
6. Try these for size? To empower, to enlighten, to enable, to love, to nurture, to inspire? Do any of these sound like what you might be here to do?
7. What came out? After mixing all the above into a pot, what comes out? Are you any clearer on the purpose of your life? Remember – this is a big question so it may not become obvious straight away. Go away and sit in a quiet place, rest your head on a pillow and think about what your purpose may be.
Julie Woods
www.thatblindwoman.co.nz