Stop Searching for Your Purpose

Are you feeling confused about what your Purpose is? Are you perplexed as to how to find it? Or where to even begin looking for it?  

There are many inspirational teachers, speakers and healers out there telling you that you should go find your purpose. I may once written something along these lines myself.  And I have received many similar marketing messages … promises to solve my existential crisis, leading me to face-palm myself at the seeming simplicity of it all.

It usually goes something like this… It’s so easy to find your purpose. Let me break it down for you in a step-by-step guide. Do what I have done. Just take this course. Just buy these ingredients. Just follow this recipe. No, not really. Please, let’s stop this purpose-hunting madness. You can relax. Your secret, shameful purposelessness is safe here.

Your purpose isn’t a tangible thing to find, to capture, to label and to put in your pocket. Finding your purpose not a task to check off from your list of things to do. It is not a lost artifact that you go on an expedition to dig for. And even if you could satisfy your seeking by capturing it for a moment, that would not last. Your Purpose is dynamic; it changes.

Ultimately, Purpose is expressed in the way you live. Not in what you do.

What does that mean to be on-purpose?

  1. You are aware. You are able to see yourself, your patterns, your habits, your triggers. You can observe the interactions between yourself and others, and the dynamics between yourself and your environment, with a level of detachment.
     
  2. You are intentional. You have clear desires and clear boundaries. You know what you want to have in your life, and what you don’t want to have in your life.
     
  3. You are choosing. You embody discernment as you fast-filter things that come into your experience, and you make choices to focus your energy on what is important.

When we feel free, it means we are living in a perpetual state of choice. And when our choices are fueled by love not fear, our contribution to the world will become a natural outpouring from being in that state. Making a positive impact is not something that we have to make an effort to do. Our gifts will be fully expressed and positive impact will happen — naturally, easily — when we free ourselves from expectations, obligations, shame, guilt and resentment…

The work we need to do isn’t about searching for purpose. The work we need to do is to free ourselves from fear. Fear of not having enough money. Fear of what other people will think about us. It means cutting cords that bind us and keep us small.

When you are resting in awareness, and intentionally choosing the people, the projects, the environments that make you light up from within, you simply will not be able to help it, you will be in service. That is what it means to be on-purpose.

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