How to Choose Your Life Purpose

by Jonathan Lockwood Huie

An overly complex statement of life purpose is more confusing than helpful.

Make your statement of life purpose a living document. Modify it whenever you get a significant new insight into your life. Look for opportunities to make that statement more action-oriented. Rewriting your statement to be more specific will help you to translate its intent and emotion into daily projects and tasks.

Put Your Life Purpose in Action Today

It is very unlikely that your statement of life purpose, however much it inspires and motivates you, contains any elements that you can directly take action on today. Suppose your purpose is to end world hunger - that doesn't tell you how to begin today.

The easiest way to get an idea of how to begin today in fulfilling your life purpose is to work backward from your tombstone.

Determine a smaller goal, which you will necessarily have to achieve on the way to your ultimate goal.

Repeat, by determining a even smaller goal, which you will necessarily have to achieve on the way to your intermediate goal.

Continue this process of moving the time-frame back toward the present until you define an interim goal which you sense you can effectively work toward.

Now, begin writing a plan that starts today and leads to the accomplishment of that first interim goal.

Make your Life Purpose the Focus of Your Life

There will always be many calls upon your time - far more than you can ever accommodate. Begin to allocate your time only to projects and tasks that further your life purpose. Does this mean that you shouldn't sleep, or take a vacation, or earn a living? Of course not. In order to fulfill your life purpose you must be rested, fed, relaxed, educated, and provide adequate resources for yourself and your family. But unless "watched over 100,000 hours of daytime television," is what you dream of seeing on your tombstone, ask yourself hard questions about many of your habitual ways of spending time. Choose to focus on projects that are compatible with your life purpose, and allocate a majority of your time to tasks that further those projects.

Stay True to Your Life Purpose.

Your friends and family can be your greatest supporters of your life purpose, or they can be your greatest obstacles. Begin by asking your friends and family for their support. Wherever you get support, be grateful. Wherever you don't, be understanding and polite.

Probably, most of your friends will accept and love you whatever you are up to in life. If so, consider that to be a really good outcome. If you are fortunate enough to have friends who are excited by your new life purpose, be very grateful, and offer to include them in your projects. Some, but hopefully not many, friends will find your new life purpose to be an affront, either because of the purpose itself, or more likely just because you are acting excited and motivated - and that makes them feel "not good enough."

Begin to spend more time with friends - old and new - who support your life purpose, and less time with those who, consciously or subconsciously, sabotage your life purpose.

Life is all about balance — work hard, play hard, that sort of thing. But where can we fit relaxation into that busy go-go-go equation?

The dictionary definition of “relax” is aspirational and healing: “to make or become less tense or anxious.” For some folks, relaxation takes the form of zoning out in front of a TV. For others, gardening or tending to the house offers calming effects. Whatever your chosen method of relaxation — whether it be time spent horizontal in a hammock or pressing pause on work to stroll through the neighborhood — rest should be a built-in part of everyone’s daily routine.