I have noticed lately that there are tons of articles on social media wanting to connect me to my purpose in life. A lot of these take a step further and offer me a 10 step plan as a means of finding it, in exchange for a fee of course. I also find the pressure to monetize this purpose, should I find it, to be a huge part of the offers available in terms of personal growth.
The truth is, no one can tell you what your life purpose is but you sure can spend lots of money and energy chasing after it. The reason we fail in finding purpose has to do with looking in all the wrong places for something we would not recognize if it hit us upside the head. You probably won't recognize it, because seeing it requires a vision that you still have to acquire. For the same reason that we can identify crucial pieces of our life path puzzle really well in hindsight, it is hard for us to identify a complete picture of purpose from our current vantage point. As I see it, we need to grow into a version of ourselves that is capable of recognizing and expressing our ultimate purpose.
When people claim to have found their life's purpose, I do believe that they are sincere. I think they designed their lives in a way that caused them to live into their purpose. When they arrive at the point in their journey where they can finally identify the larger purpose for themselves they get so excited that they understate the 'living into it' part and forget that they now have the liberty of hindsight vision.
Where does this leave you?
In the position of power actually, because purpose is what you say it is. As life unfolds before you moment by moment you are faced with a multitude of decisions. Every choice you make will either align with your core wants and values, moving you towards meaning and purpose, or alternately it will not honour your highest truth and create distance between you and a meaningful existence. The way you grow into purpose is by consistently choosing to align your actions with your core values. The more you reinforce this way of self expression the more traction you will create and the more those values will be reflected back to you in concrete life situations and experiences. Keep doing this day after day, month after month and you can bet your bottom dollar that you will start spotting patterns and connecting dots.
We are seeking help in identifying our purpose when we may really need assistance in recognizing and following our own inner wisdom. The biggest pitfall as I perceive it, is that one can get a bit jaded from being stuck on autopilot for too long. It can become hard to distinguish the whispers of your soul amidst the shouting of the world. All the millions of messages we are bombarded with every day, things that we should and should not want, must and must not be, get so loud that we can and do become lost in them. Instead of aligning with our truth we are drifters in a sea of people that fell asleep to the still small voice inside them and are blown about by the winds of industry and marketing machines with bottomless pockets.
We do not have to seek our purpose, instead we can wake up out of our habitual ways of doing things and become choosers of the life that lights us up. Every single day, choice by choice, so that we may live into the brightest version of ourselves. When we choose to do things that truly light us up, those choices will illuminate the path to our purpose. You are alive now, life invites you let go of grandiosity and embrace your truth in the small things. It asks you to be the most authentic version of yourself in this very moment. Honour your own truest expression and live life with abandon. Let self expression gift you with a vision that is honed to recognize purpose.
