1
Keep a purpose journal. Journaling is a useful tool for making any changes to your life or your perspective. Create a dedicated journal that will help you write down and explore your thoughts about your life’s purpose, your passions, and your joys.[1]
- Do not worry about how your writing sounds; this journal is just for you, and no one else will read it. It’s important that you are completely open and honest, not that the writing is particularly good.
2
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Question yourself. To begin assessing your life’s purpose, it’s important to assess what you love to do, what you currently do, and what needs to change to live a more purposeful life. Some questions to consider are:[2][3]
- When have you been happiest in your life?
- What has made you truly proud of yourself?
- What qualities do you most admire in other people?
- What makes you feel really alive and energized?
- How happy do you feel on an everyday basis?
- If you had one week to live, how would you spend that week?
- What “shoulds” are overriding your “want tos”?
- If you could change one thing about the world,
3
List your interests and passions. Write down the things that you enjoy spending time doing. These can be related to your work, your personal life, or your home life. They should be things that make you happy, that you really enjoy doing. These are things that you enjoy doing without getting paid to do them,[4] and they are likely things that cause you to lose track of time.
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Find your joy. This is similar to your interests and passions, but finding your joy is a little more focused.[7] To find your joy, think about what makes you feel blissfully happy. Think about the last time you laughed so hard your sides hurt, or smiled so much that your cheeks were sore.
- It can be useful to think about the type of play you most enjoyed as a child.[8] Does similar play (or work that mimics that sort of play) bring you a childlike joy?
6
Use backwards planning. Imagine yourself at 90 years old. Imagine that you are looking back on your life, and you are completely content that you lived a meaningful, wonderful life.[9] Imagine what the specifics of that life are, then work backwards through time to determine what you need to do by each decade between now and 90 in order to live that complete life.
- For example, say that you picture yourself 90 years old, surrounded by great-grandchildren, happily retired after a successful career helping your community, living in your own home with a lot of land.
- This tells you that you want to have a family, that you’d like to have a career helping others, and that you would like to live independently in a rural setting.
- Your backwards planning could lead you to determine that you should start having children when you are 28, you’d like to find a position as a social worker by 25, and you should maintain your health constantly so that you can continue to live independently in old age.
7
Stop trying to please other people. Even if your purpose has a social element to it, trying to please people around you on a daily basis is likely to hinder, not help, your overall purpose. Be sure that the actions you’re taking in your life are your choice, not the choices of other people around you.
- Often, people do not know what is likely to make them truly happy, so even if your goal is to bring happiness to yourself and others, meeting the immediate demands of others won’t help you live your purpose.
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8
Revisit your journal. Be sure to go back and read your purpose journal and related lists periodically to make changes, add to it, or remind yourself of your purpose. After some time has passed, you may find yourself drifting back into the comfortable familiarity of your daily life. While there is nothing wrong with this, you will likely feel more fulfilled generally if you are working toward your now-established life’s purpose.
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