Recently, I’ve worked with several clients struggling with how to define their purpose. They explain that despite their strong desire and the time they’ve spent thinking about it, they find themselves still struggling. Interestingly, it is often when we are not thinking that the deeper connections to the best parts of ourselves appear.
For most people, defining our purpose is a long, and in some cases a lifelong journey. There are several steps that can be helpful in the process, beginning with defining what we stand for and the legacy we want to leave the world. The next step is to live these values more consistently in our every day behaviour. From an energy perspective, living our values in every day behaviour makes a difference because it simply makes us feel better about ourselves.
To get a clearer sense of your values, try reflecting on the following questions:
1. Think of a person whom you deeply respect. What are the qualities in this person that you admire?
2. What are the qualities in others do you not like? Now list their opposites. These are typically the qualities you DO value.
Once you identify the values that are most important to you, try to engage in activities that ‘feed’ these values and that connect you to the best part of yourself. The goal of these activities is to stay connected to who you are and who you want to be. We refer to these activities as spiritual renewal. This is highly individual. It could mean spending time in nature, through exercise such as running or yoga or dance, from a spiritual practice that might involve prayer or meditation.
In each of these activities, you are quieting the mind and moving out of your “thinking” brain, the left hemisphere, and shifting to a more open-ended, imaginative brain, the right hemisphere, where you can connect to your most deeply-held values.
This can be a challenge given the world we live in, where the focus is always on doing, and everything is moving at an extremely fast pace. Be patient with yourself. If you create positive habits, specific behaviours that become automatic over time, it will become easier to connect to what is most important to you.
Sometimes, if your work does not relate to your purpose, we have to start with small behaviours we do every day that fuel us with a sense of purpose and meaning. It can be as simple as how we treat people, or why we are working. For example, your purpose at work may be related to providing for your family. Spiritual energy is derived from serving something beyond yourself and aligning what you say is important to you with how you actually live.
You might start by simply addressing these two questions:
1. How can I add more value to others?
2. What are the gaps between what I say is important and how I actually live?
