By If your life is becoming repetitive and unsatisfactory, it may be time to discover and pursue your life’s purpose.
Why should you find and follow your life purpose?
Life can be an incredible adventure or a grueling challenge, yet it is nothing more than a monotonous, automatic routine for most people.
Get up, work, eat, care for the kids, watch TV, go to bed, and repeat the process. It does not appear to be a very encouraging prospect, especially when confronted with great adversity. We must discover and follow our life purpose to escape the inertia of boredom or hopelessness.
But what is this concept, exactly? We’ve all looked for it at one point or another and frequently battle with existential issues such as “What is life?” “What am I here for?” and “What is the aim of it all?” especially throughout adolescence. Teens — and people in general — are interested in searching for the meaning of their life and exploring the world. In truth, every one of us is responsible for creating our particular meaning.
What is life purpose?
The intention, meaning, or objective that a person gives to his or her existence is referred to as life’s purpose. As a result, it encompasses a desire to live, a belief that life is valuable, and a drive to grow it in a specific way.
Different authors and currents have attempted to explain this topic in different ways. For example, you may have heard of ikigai, a Japanese term that could be translated as “reason for living.”
It is a mission or a motivation that provides the desire and courage to get up every morning and face the day. The ikigai is the common ground between what you are good at, what you take pleasure in doing, and what can bring value to the world. If you identify the characteristics of your case, you will have found a life engine.
Another interesting approach is that of Viktor Frankl’s logotherapy. After being a prisoner in several concentration camps and suffering in his flesh the horrors of the Nazi holocaust, this Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist developed a therapeutic current that focused its action on helping people find the meaning of their lives to heal them integrally.
Finding and following your life purpose:
It may seem to you that finding your life purpose is something incredibly complicated and irrelevant; but in reality, beyond philosophical questions, having this motivation brings multiple benefits:
- Several studies back up the assumption that having a life purpose lowers the risk of death by 17 to 33 percent and lowers the likelihood of cardiovascular accidents.
- Those who have found a meaningful or important mission live better lives and do less risky things.
- They’re also better at managing and dealing with stressful events, which negatively impact their health.
- Increases a person’s sense of personal competence, making them feel more capable of dealing with obstacles and difficulties.
- Accepting life as it is, with its obstacles and limits, and seeing it as equally valuable minimizes states of decay and affective disorders. Similarly, there is a stronger capacity to seek out rewarding and revitalizing events that add to good feelings.
- It encourages people to form close, fulfilling, and enriching social and emotional bonds.
In summary, there is a deeper sense of fulfillment and dedication to life.
How to identify life purpose?
As we mentioned at the beginning, the purpose of life is not common to all human beings but deeply personal. Moreover, this can vary according to each stage and evolutionary moment and has a vital will component. That is to say, for some people, this purpose becomes clear and clear early on, but more often, it is necessary to build and develop it.
To get some clues, ask yourself the following questions:
When you were a kid, what did you enjoy doing the most?
What drives you to get out of bed every morning?
What activity would you willingly engage in if you weren’t expecting anything in return?
What do people come to you for because they believe you are uniquely qualified in that field? It does not have to be related to your work and could be more about your personality characteristics.
Which of your personal experiences has impacted you most, and what have you learned from them?
What would you like to do with your life if there were no obstacles?
Try to go beyond the material and superficial and look for what would make you feel full and fulfilled as an individual.
With the above guidelines, try to set a goal and divide it into small achievable goals in the short-medium term. As we have said, life’s purpose is not received but built.
Thus, every day you have an opportunity to get closer to it, to its understanding and its realization. And remember that this may vary over time depending on your own experiences; therefore, do not limit yourself.
Nellie Burges is a blogger, a writing tutor, an essay writer who provides a “pay for paper” service. She writes about psychology, education, and philosophy for web magazines and educational portals. Self-development and emotional intelligence are the main areas of the author’s interests. Nellie likes to read classic literature and play board games with her friends.