“The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.” —Pablo Picasso
One of the most universal feelings in human life is the desire to find a meaning and a purpose for why you exist.
As far as I can tell, this is a universal human desire. We want to know this because we want to know if there’s a reason for all of this. But we also want to know because we want to succeed in our lifetime.
It’s a question that humans have been seeking the answer to since the dawn of time.
In the quote above, which is often attributed to Pablo Picasso, it is said that the meaning of life is to find your gift, and that the purpose of life is to give it away.
This sentiment resonates strongly with me, and I believe that it’s the truth.
But what does it mean to find your gift?
And is this truly the path to discovering the meaning of life?
In this post, you’re going to learn three crucial steps to answering this question for yourself.
Perhaps most importantly, you’re going to learn how to find the meaning of your life so that you can begin to turn your dreams into goals, and create the destiny you’ve always dreamed of for yourself.
Let’s dive in.
3 Steps To Finding The Meaning Of Your Life
1. Identify What You’re Passionate About
If the meaning of life is to find your gift, then it all starts with identifying your passion.
I like to define passion as that thing in life that motivates and inspires you to intensely desire forward momentum toward it.
One very interesting thing about humans is that we’re all incredibly different.
Due to a mixture of nature and nurture, we all find our passion in different things.
Some people find their passion through the arts.
Others find their passion through entrepreneurship.
Some find it through a skill or a trade.
For some teaching, is what brings out their life’s passion.
According to the quote, the meaning of life is to find your gift.
I can tell you from experience that if you want to find your gift, the first place to look is at the thing, idea, topic, or subject that truly excites and invigorates you.
What topics do you think about when you’re free to think about whatever you want?
Which facets of life capture your imagination, and cause you to daydream about the future?
As you move through life, you’re going to find yourself drawn to certain things.
At first, these things will probably become topics of interest or hobbies.
But eventually, you may come to find that you have a legitimate passion for them.
You’ll feel highly motivated to pursue them, and this will give you what often feels like boundless energy.
For many people, this is the difference between spending a drudging eight hours of work that feels like an eternity at a job they don’t like, and then coming home to spend three hours doing something they enjoy, but having those three hours flash by as if it were five minutes.
This is the difference between normalcy and passion.
And if you can identify what you’re passionate about, you’ve achieved the first step in figuring out what your gift is—and hence, what the meaning of your life may be.
2. Figure Out What Your Talents Are
Another interesting thing about humans is that they all tend to have different talents.
Some humans have very linear thinking brains, and some tend to think in more abstract terms.
For some people, playing an instrument seems like it comes naturally.
For others, it feels like an almost impossible puzzle.
For some, drawing beautiful pictures might seem effortless—while for others, drawing even a stick man is a challenge.
Other people have talents for different things.
- Some people are talented and business, and are just naturally gifted at turning $100 into $1,000.
- Some people are talented at putting ingredients together to make a decadent, delicious meal.
- Some people seem to have a natural talent for empathizing with others.
- Some seem to be naturally talented at teaching other people how to do new things.
The list goes on and on.
But here’s the thing.
As humans, we tend to be born naturally with certain talents and things that we’re really good at.
Ironically, these also tend to be things that we enjoy.
I’ve met very few people who didn’t enjoy doing the things they were talented at.
In fact, this may be why we develop talents to begin with—not because we’re born with some particular type of DNA that makes us predisposed to it, but because we’re born with (and/or acquire) a particular interest in a certain method of expression. And then, as we grow up, and we lean into that expression, our brains become hard-wired for the subsequent talent that emerges.
In any case, I’m not completely sure why it happens.
But we all have talents.
And when you figure out what your talent is, and then use it to help you pursue your passion in life, you unlock a powerful combination of ingredients that give you the ability to enact your passion upon the world with vigor, efficiency, and natural skill.
3. Figure Out How You Want To Help Change The World
Thus far, you’ve discovered your passion.
You’ve also discovered your talent.
But now, you have to discover the why behind both.
You need to figure out how you want to use your passion and talents to change the world and create a lasting legacy of greatness.
Choosing (or discovering) the ‘why’ behind the passion and the talent is crucially important for discovering what your gift is, and is the third part of the puzzle of figuring out the meaning of life.
An Example From One Of My Students
For example, one of my students had a passion for helping people to fix their dating lives.
He also had a talent for writing.
Using these two ingredients, he determined that he was going to find the greatest meaning in life by writing things that people could read to help them fix their dating lives.
This came naturally to him. He was also really good at it, and he enjoyed it.
But see, this was only part of the equation.
He had to learn the ‘why’ behind the desire.
He had to figure out why he cared about this, and why it was worth pursuing.
And that’s how he discovered his purpose.
(For instructions on how to start living your life on purpose, read this guide: How To Live Your Life On Purpose – 11 Steps.)
He came to the understanding and belief that the quality of a person’s intimate dating/partner relationship had a profound impact on the quality of their overall life.
Therefore, by helping someone to fix their dating life, he wasn’t just helping them to fix their dating life. He was helping them to fix everything else in their life as well.
This was truly an avenue where he could help them find greater happiness on a holistic level.
This helped him to discover why he cared about the object of his passion, and why he was so interested in using his talents to create this destiny.
Once he figured out this third and final step, he truly uncovered the meaning for his life.
This gave him everything he needed to begin setting goals and pursuing them.
This gave him the ingredients he needed to create a roadmap for success that would not only give him guidance along the way, but also keep him motivated and inspired to press onward when things got difficult.
(To learn how to keep moving forward, even in difficult times, read this guide: 3 Things To Do When Achieving Goals Isn’t So Easy.
How Do You Make It Happen? Start Setting Specific Goals
Of course, now there’s still one big question remaining.
How do you get started?
Once you determine what you believe to be the meaning of your life, and the gift you hold that you want to give to the world, how do you create all of that in real life?
How do you turn this dream into reality?
That’s an excellent question. Let’s talk about that next.
1. Figure Out Where You Want To Be In The Future
Now that you’ve determined the meaning of your life, and the gift that you want to give to the world, you have to figure out how the process of beginning and striking out on that journey looks for you.
Try imagining where you want to be in 20, 30, or 40 years.
Visualize the kind of life you want to have, the kinds of things you want to be doing, and the types of people you want to be associating with.
Visualize how much money you want to make, and what kind of impact you want to be having on the world.
Need some help learning how to dream big? Check out this guide: Dream – Dream – Dream | The Secret To Dreaming Big.
Write these things down and create a true vision for how you want your life to be in the future.
This is the first step to turning your dreams into goals.
2. Set Specific Goals That Help You To Map Out A Plan To Get There
Once you create a vision for how you want your life to be, you’ve successfully created a destination for your life’s journey.
Now, all you have to do is get there.
Start writing down some specific goals to create a roadmap that’ll take you from where you are now to where you want to be in the future.
Need some help with this step? Read this guide: 4 Steps To Strategic Thinking And Setting Of Goals.
This will probably start with a few major overarching goals—the big steps you’ll need to take to get from here to there.
But then, for each big long-term goal, you’ll also want to create a series of shorter, smaller goals that you can accomplish in faster time, to give you a more detailed plan.
Of course, as you continue forward, and as you start to write down goals and check them off as you go, you’ll realize that your plan will probably change a little bit.
As you learn and experience new things, you’ll probably analyze and readjust your plans accordingly.
And that’s totally fine.
This is called adaptation.
Your end goal may even fluctuate a little bit. You may adjust your vision for the future based on new information.
That’s also okay. It’s just important to write down your goals.
In fact, I highly recommend that you get into the habit of writing down your goals every single day, starting with a weekly goal-setting habit that you then revisit every day throughout the week to review, revise, adapt, and stay motivated.
If you want to get started on this process today, you can download and print out my custom-designed weekly goal-setting sheet.
You can also sign up for my email list to get my free Goal-Setting Essentials Starter Kit.
It won’t cost you a dime, and it’ll give you everything you need to get started with the process of plotting out your goals and creating a roadmap for your future.
3. Stick With Those Goals And Don’t Give Up
Here’s the thing about goals.
Getting motivated and writing them down is the first part.
But in order for them to work, you actually have to do the work.
You have to succeed and achieve the things written down on your goal list, and you have to start checking them off one at a time.
Daily goals are generally easier to stick with. You get them done in a day, and then you check them off.
But those longer-term goals may take some time.
It may take you days, weeks, months, or even years to accomplish some of your bigger goals.
But that’s okay.
Remember that discovering the meaning in your life, turning your dreams into goals, and then creating the destiny you desire is a long-term plan.
It’s going to take time and hard work—and that’s also okay.
You’ve got what it takes.
Every dream starts small, and every journey begins with a single step.
It’s just really important to keep walking forward, and to keep moving toward those goals.
Adjusting them is also fine. Adapting is fine.
Sometimes, you may need to make bigger changes and completely shift your goals a little bit to stay updated on your current passion, talents, and purpose.
But here’s something that you should never do.
Never give up.
The only way to completely rule out success is to stop trying.
You’re far more talented than you give yourself credit for. And you’re capable of so much more than you could ever imagine.
So once you set those goals, really start working every day to make it a habit to start accomplishing them.
I believe in you.
You’ve got this.
If I can do it, you can absolutely do it.
I wholeheartedly believe that.
4. Review, Revise, Go
This process of discovering the meaning of life, and then setting goals to achieve it might take some time to figure out.
You may start out strong, get discouraged, and hit challenges and roadblocks.
But that’s okay.
That’s a normal part of the process.
When you run into roadblocks and challenges, just remember:
Review, revise and go.
You don’t want to give up.
What you want to do is figure out a way to overcome the challenges.
This will make you stronger for the future, and will help you as you continue the process of turning your dreams into goals, turning those goals into reality, pursuing the meaning of your life, and creating the destiny that you truly desire for yourself.
Once again, I have to repeat it:
You’ve got this. I believe in you.
I have zero doubt that you’re far more capable than you could ever imagine.
All I ask is that you give goal-setting a try, stick with it, and not give up.
Conclusion
There you have it.
Is it true that the meaning of life is to find your gift?
I believe the answer is yes.
Based on this, now you know how to find the meaning of life and begin the process of giving your gift to the world.
Right now it may feel like an overwhelming concept.
That’s totally normal.
But in the words of the great Lou Tzu, the journey of a thousand miles always begins with a single step.
So today, download my free weekly goal setting sheet and my Introduction to Goal Setting E-book, and take that first step by starting to write down some daily goals.
Also, sit down and have a serious heart-to-heart with yourself.
Figure out your passion, figure out what your talents are, and figure out how you want to change the world.
These are the first steps to unlocking the destiny you truly want.
I completely believe that you can have whatever kind of life you want, as long as you’re willing to continue onward, to keep writing down those goals, and to not give up.
Once again, I have to repeat myself.
You’ve got this. I believe in you.
Now it’s time to get out there and make it happen.