There comes a time in every person’s life when they ask themselves:
Is this it? Is this everything that my life was meant to be? Am I living to the fullest extent possible?
And perhaps even more importantly:
Is there some greater purpose to me being alive?
The truth of the matter is that every single one of these questions has an answer.
But they may not be the answers you would expect.
We live in a world where, all too often, people suffer from a lack of purpose in their lives.
We live in a culture where goal setting and creating a vision for your future—where you receive proper instruction on how to turn your dreams into goals—just isn’t covered.
So in today’s post, you’re going to learn how to effectively live your life on purpose.
My research and experiences over the past 40 years have shown that people who pursue their purpose tend to live a more fulfilled life.
Let’s talk about how to do it.
Why Should We Live A Life Of Purpose?
We should live a life of purpose because we only have so much time to live.
That may sound like a dark answer, but it’s actually not.
The truth is that you have an incredible amount of potential.
You have natural born passions and interests that excite you and fill your life with meaning.
There’s an energy that engages you when you engage your passion.
But far too many people walk away from their passions.
Some people never truly discover them.
Or worse yet, people discover them only to flirt with them continually—without ever giving themselves full permission to pursue them to the fullest extent of their talent and abilities.
This is a sad reality for many people.
Why is it sad?
Because there’s nothing as powerful in this world as human potential.
Every single person in this world is unique.
Every single one of us has something potently valuable to offer the world.
But without a purpose, and without learning how to effectively turn our dreams into goals, you’ll be more likely to feel like you’re wandering listlessly and directionless…
…Like a ship adrift at sea without a rudder.
What happens to a ship adrift at sea?
If it doesn’t have a destination or a map for how to reach a safe harbor, it just continues to sail in circles—the crew never understanding whether or not they’re even going in the right direction.
Eventually, the ship succumbs to the natural forces of life, and gives out.
It never makes it to its destined harbor, because there was never a map or anyone steering to give it a chance to get there.
This is what purpose is to our lives.
It’s a roadmap.
It’s a beacon and a destination that serves to help guide us on our journey of life.
And our purpose here at JayOdonnell.com is to help people dream about a life they want to live, and then teach them how to turn those dreams into specific goals.
Does Life Have A Purpose?
This is a complicated question.
But the answer is always yes.
Life is filled with purpose and meaning.
Of course, people derive their purpose from different places.
- Some people find purpose in God, in religion, or in a higher power.
- Some people create their own purpose in life, and pursue it because they find it deeply meaningful.
- Some people have their purpose thrust upon them by circumstances greater than themselves.
- Some identify their purpose by finding the biggest problem in sight, and then setting themselves to the task of solving it to make the world a better place.
- Some people find their purpose by pursuing things that interest them, and by engaging their passions.
- Some people find their purpose in creating a work life where they truly enjoy what they do, and find meaning and fulfillment in performing their work to the best of their ability.
There are many ways to find your purpose in life.
But the answer to the question of whether or not life has a purpose is always yes.
Do We Need A Purpose In Life?
The answer to this question is also absolutely undoubtedly always a yes.
When we don’t have a purpose in life, we’re just like that ship without the rudder.
We drift in circles through life, listlessly wandering—not ever knowing whether or not we’re headed for a safe harbor.
Unfortunately, far too many incredible human lives fall into this cycle, and they end up spinning like this for their entire existence.
But this doesn’t have to be your destiny.
Because you have the power to embrace true purpose in life—and to live with intention.
You have the power to create a roadmap for yourself that’ll help to take you from where you are now to where you truly want to be in the future.
Imagine:
- Having whatever kind of life you want to have.
- Having the career of your dreams.
- Earning the kind of money you’ve always wanted to earn.
- Being able to provide for your family like you’ve always dreamed of providing for them.
- Succeeding at accomplishing big things—things beyond your current wildest expectation.
All of this is possible.
But it’s only possible if you have a vision for your life and you set yourself upon your purpose.
To live a great destiny, and to find your true purpose in life, it’s important to put together a roadmap to guide you.
And the only way to create that roadmap for yourself is by identifying your goals to help you reach it.
Next, you’re going to learn 11 ways to get started on this process today.
If you’re confused about how to identify your purpose and aren’t sure what to do to start living your life on purpose, these 11 steps will assist you in figuring out how to begin this process for yourself.
How Do You Live On Purpose? 11 Ways To Get Started Today
1. Find Your Passion
Your passion is best described as the thing in life that excites you the most—the thing that truly engages your interest and pulls you toward it with magnetic energy.
- This is probably the thing that you’re most tempted to pursue in your spare time.
- This is the thing that ‘lights you up’ when you get to talk about it.
When you find the object of your passion, you’ll doubtlessly feel driven to pursue it.
It could be a sport, a skill, a creative talent, some kind of topic that interests and excites you, etc.
Your passion may also shift and evolve throughout your life. This is very normal.
How To Find Your Passion
Finding your passion isn’t always easy.
Sometimes you have to experiment a lot to figure out what truly engages you and sparks that ‘fire’ within you.
It’s also true that some people are just more passionate in general than other people are, but everyone has a passion.
The vast majority of people only pursue their passion as a hobby, and not to any serious degree.
But the first step is to find your passion, identify it, and write it down.
2. Examine Your Interests
Alongside your passion, you’ll also have many varied interests in life.
- Some of these interests will be stronger than the others.
- Some of them may also overlap with your passion, and some of them may not quite be that strong.
- Some of them may come alongside your passion.
- Others may have very little to do with it.
Examining your interests is a great way to find your passion, but it’s also a great way to find out what your purpose in life might be.
When you deeply examine your interests, what you’re basically doing is laying open the contents of the things you care the most about in life.
And this is very valuable information.
See, engaging your passion and your interests is vitally important when you’re trying to figure out what your purpose is, because only your passions and your interests will give you the kind of incredible life energy and effort you’ll need to succeed at your goals.
People who try to set goals that don’t engage their passion or interests often hit a wall—a lack of motivation and inspiration.
Then, in lacking motivation, they struggle with this great question:
Is the effort I’m putting into this interest or purpose really worth it?
If you’re passionate about something, you’ll be much more likely to answer ‘yes’ to that question every single time.
And this is a vital key to success.
3. Start Getting Serious About The Things You Love
Once you identify your passion and your interests, the next step is to start getting serious about them.
- If they’re hobbies, start pursuing them a bit more seriously.
- Start putting more effort into getting better at them and learning more about them.
- If your passion or interest is very broad, explore it so that you can narrow it down further.
The more specific you can get with being serious about the things you love, the more your purpose in life will become clear to you.
Jay Shetty speaks about this in dynamic fashion in this video:
Pay close attention to what he says:
“We’ve always been told that life, and jobs, and careers are like boxes and containers. There’s only a finite number of options… People say ‘follow your passions.’ I say forget that. I say invest in your passions. If you’re passionate about something, go and become the best at it.”
But the only way to narrow down your range of vision and focus is to continue to put effort and energy into these things.
4. Care About Something Greater Than Yourself
Our interests and passions will often lead to the foundations of our purpose.
But it’s also true that our true purpose will likely involve something that’s greater than us.
Our true purpose in life should call us to be a part of something that’s bigger than just our singular isolated lives.
You could call this contributing to the greater good, giving back the community, etc.
Perhaps you feel that a part of your purpose is to start a family.
This is a wonderful purpose because it’s most definitely bigger than just you.
Maybe your purpose is to start a specific type of business.
This is another great example of a purpose that’s bigger than yourself.
Maybe your purpose is to start a non-profit organization to help teach people vital skills, or to become a craftsman who makes incredible products that other people can utilize and enjoy.
All of these things would qualify as candidates for being a grand life purpose, because all of them add up to things that are bigger than just you.
All of these things give back to the world and contribute to making life better for others.
Any purpose that you create for yourself should make the world a better place.
5. Level Up Your Skills
As you begin to discover your purpose in life, you’re most likely going to realize that you don’t possess all of the skills necessary to fully pursue it.
This is where education comes in.
- Some people may want to go to college as a means of pursuing their purpose.
- Some may need to go to trade school.
- Maybe you’ll need to take a leadership course.
- Maybe you need to level up your skills in an art, a vocation, or in something else.
It’s vital that you invest in yourself as you discover your purpose and strive to pursue it, because the ultimate realization of your purpose will require you to achieve a certain level of mastery in key relevant skills.
And mastery only comes as a result of lifelong commitment to personal development and a commitment to excellence at your purpose’s required skill sets.
6. Start Dreaming And Visualizing Your Future
As you begin to discover your purpose, you should also start to look forward in life to the future that awaits you.
I would encourage you to think about your future in two ways.
On one hand, think about how grand and optimistic your future would look if you were very successful in applying yourself to pursuing your purpose.
- What would that look like?
- What kinds of things would you achieve?
- How would you touch people’s lives?
- What kind of positive impact could you have on the world?
- How successful could you become if it all went really well, and if you continued to apply yourself—right up to the finish line?
Now, I want you to imagine your future in the opposite direction.
- What would your life look like if you abandoned your purpose and stopped working on your goals?
- What would your life look like if you stopped applying the effort necessary to move forward toward your life’s vision?
For many people, thinking about this alternative side of life is very terrifying.
This is, for many, the literal definition of failure.
What would your life look like if you allowed it to become a failure?
Think about growing old and reaching the finish line of life—and contrast how it would look at the extreme end of both of these possibilities.
I guarantee you that one of these is going to look better to you than the other.
Nobody wants to think about what their life would be like if it were to become a failure.
There’s a reason for why pursuing your purpose is important.
And visualizing your future and what you want it to look like is crucial to keeping you motivated and helping you to maintain perspective.
It’s vitally important to understand how crucial your life’s purpose is.
This isn’t just a small detail to be overlooked.
Your purpose is a great life calling that deserves to be pondered deeply, with tremendous gravity.
And living your life on purpose will play a significant role in dictating how successful you become in life.
7. Start Writing Down Your Goals
There are many goal setting systems in the world.
But here’s the truth.
The system itself isn’t as important as just getting started with writing down some goals.
You don’t have to go super deep on this.
Just take out a journal, a daily planner, or even a blank notebook, and start writing down some goals.
- Start with some daily goals or weekly goals. (Using our weekly goal planning form might help you with this)
- Then, try writing down some long-term goals for yourself (career goals, education goals, ideas for businesses you’d like to start, how much money you’d like to earn, etc).
- Try to be as specific as possible.
But at first, just get started by writing stuff down.
You’d be amazed at how writing down some simple goals for yourself on a daily basis can help you in figuring out what your purpose is.
This process can also help you to start living your life on purpose, because it’ll give you the power to take ownership over your time and effort to live with true intention.
8. Create A Vision For Your Life
I have a goal setting student who got started with their ‘life vision’ by writing down just one sentence.
I want to help people increase their happiness and reduce their suffering.
See, he didn’t quite know what he wanted to do with his life.
All he knew was that this goal and purpose was important to him.
Then, he started trying things out.
He started a blog, started podcasting, started writing, and eventually started to flesh out the specific details of what he wanted his life to look like.
Through experience and forward motion, he became more intimately acquainted with a vision for what he wanted his future to look like. And he kept honing and refining this vision as he learned about himself and narrowed his frame of focus.
Today, he has not only started two different businesses, but also has in-depth goals for 5 more businesses all plotted out and strategized. He has even created a vision for what he wants his life to look like in retirement—right down to the design of the house he wants to build to retire in!
See, when you create a vision for your life, the guesswork all gets taken out of the equation.
Because you know what you want.
At that point, all that’s required is to live your life on purpose by making a list of goals and milestones that’ll eventually take you to the future where that vision is a reality.
9. Think About What You Want To Achieve
Many people make the mistake of only making lists of the things they wish to accumulate in life.
There’s nothing wrong with wanting money, fame, social status, prestige, success, etc.
These are all excellent things to desire and pursue.
But it’s also important to think about what you want to achieve in life, both for yourself and for others.
It’s important to think about how you want to give back and make the world a better place beyond yourself and the material things you wish to acquire.
One of my students practices an exercise where he imagines what he would like people to say about him at his funeral.
He even imagines how elaborate he would like his funeral to be, and how grand he would like his tombstone to look.
He visualizes the types of people who might attend his funeral.
Are there important people at his funeral? People who have made a huge difference in the world?
If so, that must mean that he had made a big enough difference to be worthy of such admiration.
And this is a huge motivator to help determine the level of impact that he should strive to create for his community and for the rest of the world in his life.
I really like this exercise because it demonstrates something that far too many people overlook.
Their contribution to the world, and the level to which they’ve impacted the world to leave a lasting legacy of greatness.
Thinking about what you want to achieve in life, and not being afraid to ‘aim high,’ puts you in a prime position to discover your purpose. It also motivates you to pursue it.
10. Identify A Problem You Want To Help Solve In The World
This goes right in line with our last point, but it’s more specific.
Yes, you need to think about how you want to impact the world in a greater sense. But you should also get very specific with this.
You should think specifically about which individual problems you’d like to solve, and use those aspirations to help guide you toward a potential future purpose for your life.
- Maybe there’s a certain type of legislation you’d like to present in Congress one day.
- Maybe you’d like to be the doctor responsible for solving or curing a certain virus or disease.
- Maybe you want to be the social engineer who ends world hunger.
- Maybe you envision yourself as the scientist responsible for discovering the key to immortality, the achievement of cold fusion, or the secret to artificial intelligence.
These may sound like big dreams.
And you might even think to yourself:
Big dreams aren’t for everyone. Most people aren’t ‘extraordinary’, and don’t ever accomplish big things. What’s the point in trying to accomplish such big things if I’m just going to turn out ordinary?
These are some of the best questions you could possibly ask, because they get right to the heart of the issue.
You’re Not Born ‘Exceptional’ Or ‘Ordinary’
You’re just born.
Then, you live and make choices.
And the choices you make in this life are absolutely 100% responsible for whether you become extraordinary, or whether you remain ordinary.
This is a choice that every person in the world gets to make for themselves, to some level and to some degree.
Now, it’s also true that you don’t have to accomplish anything astronomically important to live a purpose-filled life.
Any purpose that’s greater than yourself is a worthy purpose.
But the key is to dream big.
As Norman Vincent Peale once said:
“Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.”
11. Start Taking Intentional Steps Forward On A Daily Basis
At this point, if you’ve taken all of these steps seriously, you’ll already be started down the path of:
- Finding your passion
- Examining your interests
- Getting serious about the things you love
- Caring about something greater than yourself
- Leveling up your skills
- Dreaming and visualizing your future
- Writing down your goals
- Creating a vision for your life
- Thinking about what you want to achieve
- Identifying a problem you want to help solve in the world
If you’ve started making forward movement toward performing these vital steps, then you’ve already taken more steps toward determining your life’s purpose and living a purpose driven life that most people ever do.
If you work on those 10 steps every single day, you’re going to make such dramatic forward progress that you’ll be likely to find your life’s purpose sooner than you ever would have realized.
But here’s the magic ingredient:
Effort.
- You can’t change the world unless you get up and go to work.
- You can’t learn a new skill unless you apply yourself, learn, and practice.
- You can’t achieve goals unless you write them down first.
- You can’t follow your dreams without getting out of bed in the morning and leaving your house to chase them.
Every single step in this list is going to require you to work hard, challenge yourself, and apply elbow grease to the problems.
But in the words of the great Lao Tzu:
“The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.”
You don’t have to get it all done today.
But you do have the choice to start today, by taking intentional steps forward on a daily basis to help carry you toward your purpose.
This is where the rubber meets the road.
This is where extraordinary people realize that it’s time to part ways with the ‘ordinary’ version of themselves, and embark upon the journey of turning their dreams into goals.
How Do You Live A Purpose Driven Life?
By the time you’ve succeeded at putting effort into the 11 steps listed above—and by the time you’ve gotten some practice at pursuing your dreams, turning those dreams into goals, and then writing down those goals to create a roadmap for success—the way to live a purpose driven life will become clear to you.
You live a purpose driven life by identifying your purpose and relentlessly pursuing it to the greatest extent that your talents and passions will allow, on a day to day, habitual basis.
How Do I Begin To Live My Life?
To begin, you simply get started.
Start by taking out a journal or notebook and writing down a to-do list for the day.
Today, right now, you have the option and the opportunity to get started by applying real, tangible work and effort to your purpose in life.
You can think about it and strategize all day long. But that’s not going to get you from point A to point B.
- You have the opportunity to start taking steps.
- You’ve been blessed with the option to start doing the work.
- You have the chance of a lifetime—to get started today.
And it all starts with putting pen to paper, and writing down some basic goals for yourself.
Conclusion – Are You Living Your Life On Purpose?
By now, you probably have at least a decent answer to the question of whether or not you’re truly living your life on purpose.
Some of you might think:
“Yes, I’m doing it. And this article has helped to motivate me to continue onward.”
If so, that’s awesome! You’re already on your way.
But some of you might be thinking to yourself:
“Gosh, this post has made me realize that I don’t even know what my purpose is. And it has definitely made me realize that I haven’t been pursuing my purpose. I actually feel quite lost, and am not sure what to do.”
Well, if your answer was closer to the second one, that’s excellent news as well.
Why?
Because now you’ve figured out what to do next.
It all comes back to goal setting, and putting pen to paper to write down your goals so that you can create a true roadmap for how to live your life on purpose.
All that’s left now is to get to work.
You’ve got this.
Now get out there and get started.
Best wishes,
Jay O’Donnell & Co.
Through successful strategies and emphasis on written goals, Jay empowers individuals to achieve meaningful objectives.
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