***What is Our Life Purpose?

Each person on the planet is born with a higher purpose. Our purpose--which is to say, our soul’s purpose--is to grow, to evolve, and to experience joy. The soul chooses to experience and create in the physical world in order to know itself better. Higher purpose is about serving in some way or growing spiritually.

You are Unique
You are a unique individual with a gift to give the world that only you can give in your particular way. As you discover and begin to express your purpose, you also evolve yourself. Don’t worry if there are many other talented people in your field. Each person brings their own voice to what they do, and each will resonate with the particular people they are meant to serve. You are probably already serving and growing in ways that you don’t realize. Everything we do has the seeds within it of our purpose. If you think back on your life, you will begin to see that each experience, job and relationship caused you to grow in some way or to develop skills you will need later on down the road.

As Steve Jobs so famously said in his commencement speech at Stanford University,”....it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later. Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something--your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”

Steve was referring to his choice to drop out of college in order to save his parents’ life savings and then audit the classes he was truly interested in. He followed his heart and his intuition. He made choices based on what he was drawn to, what felt good, even when there was no way for him to know at the time how some of these classes would prepare him for his future. That practice served him well, to put it mildly!

Knowing Your Purpose
So, how do we discover our highest purpose in this lifetime? Your purpose involves your life’s work. It will always be something you love to do, that excites you and energizes you. When you are “on purpose” you feel more of a sense of aliveness. We were not meant to struggle and toil at work we don’t like. We do our greatest service by utilizing our natural talents and interests. One mistake people make is trying to fit themselves into what they think the world needs, rather than looking within to see what they feel excited about. The world needs more people loving what they do. When you love what you do, you put forth your best effort and you radiate more joy. That joy alone, is of greater service than you can imagine.

Here are some steps you can take to get started:
1. Think about what you like to do in your spare time, what hobbies you enjoy, or what you dreamed about when you were younger. What are you passionate about? What would you do even if you didn’t get paid for it? Don’t censor this, even if what you like to do is sit and read or walk in nature. Remember, Steve Jobs had no idea how his calligraphy classes would later serve him when developing the fonts for his Macs.

2. Create a picture in your mind of what your life would look like if you were following your highest path. How do you expect to feel? A greater sense of aliveness? Freedom? Self-esteem? Joy? Allow that feeling to come into y our body now. where do you feel it most?

3. Write the story of living your highest purpose. Even if you don’t have all the details or know how it could happen, just allow yourself to start writing, including the feelings you have. Start general and more ideas will come later. This is something that you can continue to add to as more pictures and ideas come to you. Put it near your bed and read it before falling asleep.

But I Need to Pay the Bills..
If you find yourself currently in a position of doing work you don’t enjoy in order to pay the bills, think what the positive aspects are of your situation. You can’t leave something until you love it. This doesn’t mean you have to pretend to like something you don’t. It simply means to focus your attention on what is good about your current job and don’t focus on what you don’t like. There is always something you can find that you can appreciate. You don’t have to take a drastic step to leave what you are doing. You can stay where you are as you begin to take action on your new ideas. You may need to take a class, find a mentor who is doing what you want to do, or begin setting up a business while still at your job. As you shift your energy around your work, opportunities show up. Act on them!

Beyond Your Life’s Work
Not only do we have a higher purpose for a lifetime, but each day, each relationship, each project we undertake all have a higher purpose. Practice honing your intuition by getting quiet and asking for guidance and assistance from the higher forces (your guide, angels, your soul) to know what the higher purpose of each day is. You may not receive anything like a message, but as you tune in during the day before you begin each task, or when you have a quiet moment, ideas may occur to you or you may get a feeling sense about what you are about to do. As you work with this and act on what you feel, you will begin to learn what your true intuition feels like. You growing spiritually!