How to find your life purpose in 5 minutes

The engraving on my iPad reads: The Purpose of Life is a Life of Purpose.

The majority of people we know are not happy with their lives and I often find that the ones that live a fulfilling life do so because they have found and live their purpose.

Having asked a number of people if they have already found their purpose, only few to none answered they did with most replying that they don’t know what their life is all about. Is it that difficult to discover your purpose? How does one’s life change knowing it?

What if it is much easier to find our purpose in life than we think it is? I will now share with you 5 questions which will help you find it in 5 minutes.

If you do some research you will find out that successful and motivated people living a life filled with fulfilment all have one thing in common. They know:

- Who they are?

- What they do?

- Who they do it for?

- What those people want or need?

- What they get out of it or what changes as a result?

To find your purpose in life you have to answer the 5 questions above for you.

1. Who you are? This question can be answered with your name, your occupation or any other way you identify yourself.

2. What you do? What do you love to do? What is the one thing you feel supremely qualified right now to teach other people?

3. Who you do it for? This will give you the recipients of the benefits you provide.

4. What those people want or need? This will help you validate if the value added to the recipients is wanted or needed.

5. How those people changed as a result? What is the value you bring to others? The answer to this question will give you a sense of significance that what you do matters to and is needed by others.

Why is this formulation so powerful? Because only 2 out of these 5 things are about you and yourself. The other 3 are about other people. This formulation forces you to be outward facing.

Happy people know who they serve, what these people needed and how they changed as a result. And you may already know that the most successful people always focus more on the people they serve more than how they are being served. If you make other people happy, life teaches us that we will be taken care of too.

Why is it important to find your purpose? Knowing and living your purpose will help you stay focused and motivated while serving others. Under our protective shells to please ourselves is an undying need to feel we matter and that we are needed by others. In fact this the quickest remedy to depression or as I call it: the Me disease. Focusing too much on ourselves and too little on what and how we can contribute is the root cause of depressive states.

A small tip when you meet someone new and they ask you what you do - just call out the last thing you answered under Question 5. Most people will ask you how do you do that and in this way you will get to share your life purpose with them while also allowing them to understand how they could find theirs.

Live your purpose with passion.

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