No, I don’t mean what are you doing sitting down and reading my blog – although that’s a very smart decision you’ve made today and I thank you for it – I mean what is your purpose in life?
It’s a deep bottomless pit, I know, challenging the meaning of the life, the universe and everything ( and everyone knows the answer to that is 42, right?), but if you were able to fast forward for a moment to the end of your life and take a good long look back, what would you say your life has been about? What has been your gift to those around you or the world at large?
Many of us are so busy leading our day to day lives we don’t take time to plan where we’re going or what we want to get out of life. Yet, if we were a company, we’d have a mission statement, goals, strategies and action plans and, what’s more, we’d be measuring our success against this criteria and adjusting our plan to ensure success.
Take the 25-Minute Challenge:
How can we answer this huge question and find our own inner purpose? Firstly we need to break the question down into more manageable chunks. When you’re ready with pen and paper, and you know you won’t be interrupted, we can get started!
1. What makes you feel energised and excited?
Take some time to think of a time when you really felt enthusiastic, energised and, at the end of the day felt happy and complete. This may be an experience from as far back as your childhood; if we go back far enough we all have times when we felt completely ‘in the flow’ and everything came easily and was enjoyable. For some this is achieved through task-orientated activity, others creativity, or maybe connecting with people. Spend some time quietly thinking about this and write down all the ideas that come up. Don’t worry if your mind goes blank. That’s quite normal. Persevere and something will fill the void, eventually. Now, complete this sentence: “ When I do ……………………………………………… I feel alive, enthusiastic and excited about life”
2. What’s your unique gift?
If you were a product or service you would have a USP ( unique selling point). We all have something that makes us special and is different from other people. What’s your gift? Complete this sentence: “When I allow my gift of …………………………………………… to shine out I feel I am being wholly authentic and sharing the real ‘me’ with the world”
3. Write down all the ideas you can think of to show how you could weave more of your answers to question 1 into your life. These needn’t be life changing events, although if it is for you that’s fine. Just empty you head and write down everything that comes up.
4. Which of these ideas would be using your unique gifts identified in 2?
5. Using the answers above complete this sentence:
“ My purpose in life is to……………………………………………………………………. The way I will honour that is to do…………………………………………… using my unique gift of……………………………………………………….”
When we live a life where our unique selves can be authentically expressed we come alive in an amazing and powerful way, and the most wonderful thing about this is that, in doing so, those around us come alive too!
Please feel free to share your ideas and discoveries with me. ‘Your’ world will thank you for letting your greatness out!
Here’s to an amazing life!
Cheers
Sarah
Photography by Federico Stevanin http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=149
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