What is it meant to find your purpose? I know I have asked this before but it can always be good to reassess a topic from time to time. Why is having a purpose important for you to achieve your goals and to fulfill your dreams? That is one of the questions I plan on answering today. Why you want to have a purpose. How do you develop a sense of purpose? When does that sense of purpose become useful?
What is your purpose?
To answer those questions we need to look at what do I mean by your purpose? What I see as a purpose is your drive. Why do you get out of bed each mornin’ to do what you do? You may seem to go through a whole lot of headaches yet you are smiling on the other side. What leaves other people to sit around and scratch their heads as you are whistling in the middle of your toil?
That is your purpose. That driving force that causes you to not beagle to sit still till you achieve that goal. When you aren’t physically working on it you are thinking about it. You are pondering every little detail about that project. If people ask you why. You have an answer for them, though they may not understand why you would want to do such a thing. That my good sir is your purpose.
That purpose is you are able to look at every detail of your goal. You can see, smell, and taste. You have a damn good idea as to how you will feel when that goal is reached. Interestingly enough, You could be ok with not ever reaching that goal. You love the process so much and the benefit you create for those on your path that you can keep doing it each and every day.
That purpose isn’t always a destination. Sometimes it is a process. What drives me to do the Relaxed Male? My desire to help men to reach their dreams so they can connect with their sons. Am I ever going to reach the end of that dream? No, there are new men coming of age each and every day. Some men will have their dreams set firmly in their minds. They will fight and suffer through some major pains to realize their dream. Sadly man others will have lost their dreams stuffed them way back in the back of their minds. They will neglect their dream because they were told it was impractical or stupid. These are the men I aim to help because down the road they will find themselves unfulfilled and questioning what is going wrong. Why can’t they find the happiness they are pursuing? Relaxed Male will help them.
Why do you need to find a purpose?
Why go through all the trouble of finding a purpose? You are comfortable right where you are now. Yeah, that may be the case. You may not have a desire to step out of your comfort zone. That is fine. It is completely up to you if you want to stay comfortable and not go through the rigamarole of looking and maybe even completely overturning your quiet life. You may just want to be a hobbit sitting in your hobbit hole and not have a quest to go on. You may like to have that predictable life where you get up, you go to work, you come home, eat, then kiss the wife and go to bed. That maybe you.
Then again look at Bilbo Baggins That is what he thought he wanted until his purpose came knocking on his door. Then he had a grand adventure, he outwitted Smaug, he made many new friends, and lived a very full life. Boring is for some people while others grow and become better. They are not afraid of failure. These people want to reach for their quest they thirst and hunger for it. Which one are you? Are you a boring hobbit, or are you an adventurer out to find their purpose and pursue it to their fullest?
Not only do you have a purpose if you go searching for it. You also have many other benefits that are a part of the whole package.
It Makes you Happier
What if you were able to find a reason to be happy? Now nothing makes you happy this is true. Yet, you can do things that bring happy inducing thoughts into your life. You can see things from a brighter perspective. You can build gratitude and your whole attitude towards life has a sunnier disposition.
When you have a purpose and you are on your path, you find that you and more content with what life hands you. Yeah, it can be a crap sandwich with olive and you will handle it with relative ease. It may not be fun but you can see the solution. Perhaps, if you don’t rightly know the answer you have no problem going out and looking for the answer to that problem.
You know that there is a solution and the joy you get is knowing you will find the solution to whatever the block is. You may find that you actually relish in the ability to conquer your obstacles.
You will understand what Conan was saying about what is good in life.
The obstacles in your life become your enemy and you get to defeat them when you find the solution to your problem.
You Make More Money
When you have a purpose that adds value to other people’s lives people are drawn to you. They want to give you their money because you have helped them. Because of this people who have a purpose draw other people who see your purpose as a means of helping themselves.
In other words, you become a beacon for other people and they want to pay you for the service of being their beacon. There are countless studies done as to how positive people have more money.
Your solutions to the problems you solve help people who are having those very problems. They see your solutions as their solutions and so they will pay you to have your help.
Less stress
Now I never said that people who have a purpose don’t stress at all. You will always have different levels of stress. Those problems that you are addressed with are points of stress. Yet, because you are happier all around and you generally have a more positive mindset, you stress a lot less. You may have a sleepless night working on a problem but that problem isn’t keeping you up with worry. You are up because you are committed to finding a solution.
That may sound like I am saying the same thing but actually I am not. If you are stressing about not having enough money for your house payment. You may stay up worrying about that very problem. Then again you may need to make some extra money so instead of worrying about what you don’t have you are putting in a late-night because you are looking for more clients to sign up. You approach the problem with an abundant mindset and not a scarcity mindset. The difference? The type of stress and the amount of stress it contains.
Better sleep
Because of the problems you are facing in your purpose, your mindset is going to be different. WIth that different mindset, you will be able to sleep better. You are spending all of your energy pursuing your goal and so at the end of the day, you are spent. You are able to sleep better and deeper giving you a more complete rest.
Better sex
I got your attention on that one, didn’t I? Yeah if you are more confident and you have a purpose your spouse has a tendency to be more attracted to you. When you are busy and not walking around acting like a wounded child you have more sex appeal.
Come on think about this a little. Are you attracted to someone who is boring? No, you want someone who has a fire in their eyes they are out to conquer the world. Your spouse doesn’t want a man who is playing it small. They want that pioneer, that Viking that is going after what he wants. You can be that if you decide to get out of your comfort zone and find your purpose.
Less chance of a heart attack
Because of the lack of stress, you are less likely to have a heart attack. Which means that you are able to live longer. You have time freed up so that you can take care of your body. You can eat better food. You want to honor your body for the great work it does for you. So you will want to take care of it.
Since you are taking care of your body by exercising and moving a whole lot more you can expect your heart to beagle to pump better. This again reduces your stress levels, and the stress you are experiencing is the positive mindset approach to solving the problems at hand. You see that you have a solution in the resources you have and so you don’t have to anguish over what you don’t have.
Allows you to help more people
What if your purpose allows you to provide more help for those people who can’t help themselves? That sounds like a noble quest, right? Well finding your vision and your purpose allows you to do just that. As you realize your purpose, and you start working towards it. You start to bring in more money. As that money comes in you are able to help other people with that money.
This is just a natural progression of a capitalistic society. As people get richer they share their wealth to help others. Andrew Carnegie would have never been able to have all those libraries built if he hadn’t pursued his purpose of making the best steel product his customer needed.
His purpose was to provide the best steel at the lowest price. Because he pursued that purpose, you are able to go all around the US and find the Carnegie Library. Andrew Carnegie saw that man has to have the knowledge and that knowledge is found in the written word. He shared his vision with the world.
How do you find your purpose?
This is where so many men get hung up. I don’t know if it is because they expect the clouds to open up and a host of seraphim are supposed to come down and celebrate your discovery, but it doesn’t happen like that. Yet you feel it. You feel it deep down with each new discovery about yourself. Yet, this doesn’t explain how one goes about and finds its purpose.
There are many different ways you can actually find your purpose but the center of finding your path or your vision or whatever you want to call your calling or purpose, it takes experimentation. It takes failing and learning why that failure happened. Maybe you will find something that gets you excited and after a while, the passion dies down. This can happen for a couple of reasons and they are telltale signs as to why your calling is not in alignment with you.
Take the lessons you learn and keep going. Right now your purpose is to find your purpose. Seek out what drives you what gets you excited to keep trying no matter what failure happens.
Some places you can start are listed below.
Write out what interests you
Yes, it sounds simple but if you take a piece of paper and start writing out all the interests you have you will start to see a pattern. Maybe you like RC planes or Model Trains. Maybe you find motorcycles interesting. Maybe the outdoors really gets your creative juices flowing.
Get your interests out on paper. Then look through that list and start numbering them from least interesting to the most interesting. From here you can start exploring more about why you like those particular topics. You can start to distill down your whys and see what it is about those topics.
Join some groups that you find some interest in.
Groups are great sources of knowledge and can help you come to understand more about topics that you find interesting. Maybe you find a civic group or maybe a meetup. You can find more details from people and see how your passion for a topic can be received by those people.
Get curious and ask yourself some power questions
You can also do some introspection on yourself. What do you like to do? What are some topics that you simply can talk all day about? Is there a topic that your friends simply tell you enough? Maybe that is a sign that you are on the right path for your purpose.
Look at your hobbies
If you have a hobby that you are extremely passionate about then that is a great clue to your purpose. Now that may not mean it is your purpose but you can find out why you are so driven to do that activity. Hobbies can often lead to your purpose. I have heard many people who started out making archery bows because it was fun to do and suddenly people started pounding on their door because they love the style of the bows they created.
What interested you as a child
What did you like to do as a child? I was always listening and trying to find ways to cheer people up. Help them find the brighter side of life. Maybe you had a skill when you were a 10, 11, 12, or up that you were just always drawn to. This is often a great clue as to what your calling is. You might ask your parents what you liked to do when you were a child. Ask your old friends what they remember of you. You may just be surprised.
Start taking action, any action
The best way to find out what your calling is, is to try something. Take massive action. You will be closer than anyone else in your community if you only try something. If it doesn’t work? Then you know that wasn’t it. Try something else. Try try and try again. With each failure, you are closer to finding your calling. YOu can find your purpose only after you get started.
Things to know about searching for your purpose
Now for anything worth doing there is some risk involved. How many people have this drama about risk when in all reality that drama may just be putting yourself out in front of people. They may part of the risk is yeah you may lose everything. There’s always that possibility yet that fear is often not going to happen.
Failing
You are going to fail. Accept this fact, no matter what you do, you are going to hit a brick wall and you are going to fail. Yet so many people are afraid of failing that they refuse to start. This fear may show itself in procrastination or just excuses for why it won’t work. How will you know till you do try?
It’s going to Suck
It isn’t going to be rainbows and unicorn farts. You are going to have late nights of frustration and stressful situations. Those times are a part of the package. Getting uncomfortable is needed for you to grow. You come across an uncomfortable situation that is like saying you have a lesson to learn here. Get to work, do the work, and get past it. Learn what is needed to be learned and then you can celebrate your success of getting past that obstacle.
Much like working your muscles, you have to work your growing talents. As you follow your dream there are going to be efforts. You will find it does not have to be easy, it just has to be worth it. If you are ok with that you will be OK with the discomfort of your journey.
School is forever in session
Life is a hard teacher but if you pay attention you can learn what needs to be taught. If you don’t learn then life will simply have you repeat the scenario over and over until you do learn the lesson at hand. You can’t advance until that lesson is mastered. It sounds like hard work and that is because it can be. Especially if you are as slow at learning as I am. Yet when you get the mindset down you spring further than you could possibly imagine. Yet when you get bigger your problem increases in difficulty level. You are never done learning when you stop learning you start dying.
You are going to grow
Now that may not sound like that big problem, yet wait till you hear that your friends say that you aren’t who they thought they knew. That can become a huge problem for your self-confidence. You don’t want to lose your friends. You want to bring them along with you. You may be able to bring one or maybe none. They have to learn the same lessons as you did in the same order. You can provide some assistance but in the end, they have to do the work.
This work may become too much and take them too far from their comfort zone. If that is the case you have to be OK with letting them stay behind as you progress. You can try to carry them but like a drowning person if you aren’t careful they will drag you back down with them. You are going to grow and change and that can be scary to some people. Yet if you can tough it out you will have new friends who will support you on your journey till they don’t provide any benefit and you move one again.
Finding your purpose is an exciting trip. You learn so much about yourself and what you are capable of achieving. You have to put in the work but the rewards are there for the taking. You have to be brave enough to not worry about what might have happened and focus on the destination. Learn and learn again you become a better person all because you find your purpose and you follow it.
