Finding Your Life Purpose

Have you ever considered what your life purpose is?

For some they see their life purpose as to get up in the morning – run their business – pay the bills – enjoy what their doing, their hobbies, their sports, their family – and then go back to bed. Only to get up the next day and do it all over again.

Day after day – doing the same thing – pretty much in a routine – work, play, rest.

And even if you don’t seek out finding a purpose for your life, can you imagine what your life could be like if you did have a higher purpose. A purpose much greater than yourself.

Then there are others that something shows up in their life, that triggers them to think – well what am I doing with my life. Where am I going. What’s the point of what I’m doing. There has to be more to this than just work, rest and play – right?

That’s when they’ve hit the critical threshold line that I spoke about on a previous blog.

They fluctuate between being consumed in their work – to contemplating the bigger questions in life – like what is the meaning in life, what is the purpose, what are we here for, what am I here for, what is the purpose of me being here?

And for them they search for what is going to bring them meaning in their life, purpose in their life – to find out what the big grand plan is for their life.

And this search can take years, a lot of navel gazing, and a lot of expense in books, courses, guides….or traveling to remote places to “find themselves”.

But even after doing all that they still come back to the same question – what is my life purpose.

What am I to do with my life?

If I only have one life, I should make it count. I should make it matter.

And for many it’s about a desire to make a difference, to leave a legacy – but ultimately that leads to an inner desire to be remembered. So that when we’re gone, people will still remember us. They won’t forget that we existed. That we meant something while we were living. That we won’t be forgotten.

And typically we’ll look to people that we do remember in our lifetimes. And we normally start with the well known people like Martin Luther King and his I have a dream speech. Or the Wright Brothers that flew across the Atlantic and landed in a small village called Clifden. Or Nelson Mandela for his resolve, his transformation and his way of being after he had been imprisoned for 27 years.

There are so many that we look up to as leaders and as people that have made a difference – both young and old – both male and female.

We still remember them. They’ve left a legacy. They’ve made their mark on the world. There’s still a part of them that is still here.

And then we might be drawn to the people that have been closer to our own lives – it could have been a grandparent, a parent, a sibling, a friend, a boss, a stranger. And there might be something that they said or did or somewhat that they helped alter the course of our life for the better – and we still remember the moment they had that impact. We can still bring to mind where it was, what they said, who was there, how it took place, and more importantly how it made us feel inside.

They made a difference in our lives. They had an impact. We still remember them. They left a legacy.

You see, it doesn’t matter how large or how small the difference was in terms of the numbers of people that we make a difference for, or that we’ve impacted, or that remember us – it’s the fact that we did.

That we took the time out to make that difference. That we decided that that’s what our life is about. That our intention was to make a difference for someone else – to make their lives better in some way.

There was a story that was told to me by one of my mentors

Imagine for a moment a picture made with mosaic tiles, a spectacular picture with hundreds of pieces, of all shapes, colours and sizes. Together, they make up the most amazing picture. As a complete picture, it’s beautiful and whole. But you then notice that one of the pieces is loose. So you go over and you take that piece away.

Now imagine the picture. It’s not so beautiful anymore, is it? You can see the space that has been left behind by that one missing mosaic tile. The overall picture doesn’t quite look right and the colours don’t seem to be as radient and vibrant anymore. It’s just not the same amazing picture as it was before, when all the pieces were there in their correct place. Even though it was a tiny piece that you removed, it has a dramatic effect on the beauty of the picture.

Although you may look at your life as being small, perhaps that you’re not making millions in your business or fighting the great cause of the vulnerable, one thing is for sure, no matter how small you feel in the world, you make a massive difference to how the world works. You have a big impact on the people you meet and interact with, even though you might not even see it at the time. Those small acts that you take for granted become tidal waves in this big amazing world of ours. Just like the missing mosaic tile, if you don’t play your part in the world, it won’t look as amazing as it could do.

So if we are all part of a bigger plan and journey, and we have a part to play in this world, how do we find out what that plan is? How do we find our purpose in what we are doing with our lives? How do we bring meaning and fulfilment to our lives?

Victor Frankl as you might know is a person that survived the concentration camp, when many others around him didn’t. And in his book, “Man’s search for meaning”, he refers to the fact that it’s the meaning we give things in life, that gives us meaning in our life.

Others speak about that you must first find your why – why you’re doing what you’re doing. And that if you find your why, then everything will transform from there.

While others talk about finding your passion, and this will lead to your life purpose.

And then there are those that say there is no purpose to be found!

Honestly, none of these worked for me. And they didn’t work for my clients either.

Firstly, there are a lot of things I’m passionate about, and the vast majority are not in line with my life purpose – for example my passion for red wine or my passion for all things flight related have nothing to do with my life purpose. What I have found, which is the opposite to conventional, is that passion follows finding your life purpose. When you’re on your life purpose, your passion grows and grows exponentially the more and more you are on your purpose. So there can be many people chasing their passions, in the hope that they will find their life purpose, whereas it’s the other way around.

Because ultimately what can be interpreted is that if we give enough of a meaning to something, then we can make anything our purpose.

But having an overriding meaning in real terms, that makes a difference, that compels us to be driven – is to answer a fundamental question for ourselves.

When it came to Edison – his overriding question was to find out how to use electrical current to bring light. The Wright brothers overriding question was to find out how to fly. Martin Luther King’s overriding question was how to have blacks treated no differently to whites. Victor Frankl’s overriding question was to find the answer to what would bring a focus to an individual so much so that everything else around them became meaningless and therefore drove them to keep living.

You see we all have an overriding question to be fulfilled within ourselves. But we then go about looking for the answer to the wrong question.

We look for the answer to the question of what is our life purpose – when in fact we don’t spend time to realise that there are other questions that we’re trying to find the answer to. That inwardly we’re driven to find the answer to. Which when we find the answer, will then make the difference for others.

Ultimately your overarching purpose in life is to be you, to experience, to live life fully, to love, to evolve.

That’s it.

Yet each and every word that I just said, has a much more deeper meaning than at first glance.

Our purpose in life is to be you, your unique you. To experience fully. To live life fully. To love and to evolve.

I’m likely to come back to these and what they fully mean in later blogs – as they are such critical messages.

Other than that, while others don’t believe we have a defined life purpose, I believe that we do have a life purpose. We have a mission to fulfil. And one that drives us forward to achieve it and one that brings maximum meaning and fulfilment to our lives.

How do I know?

Well, in the second blog I mentioned that I was the seventh son to be born in my family.

But let me reveal a bit more about myself which becomes relevant to when we’re talking about our purpose in life.

Yes I was the seventh son to be born in my family. But I’m also the seventh son of the seventh child, which was also the seventh child.

Now in Ireland there is a lot of mythology around the seventh son regarding healing abilities and the likes. But let me tell you some of how it is expressed for me.

There are two main things – since I was as young as I can remember, I had what I call knowings or downloads. And second I was able to pick up empathically what an individual was feeling deep inside themselves.

It’s these knowings and empathic feelings that gave rise to some of the causes for my depression and suicide ideation. Not all of it, but some of it.

Now how this worked in my favour was that while others referred to be as being really lucky and successful, I knew differently.

It has been the reason why I’ve had such a success rate in turning companies around. In fact I’ve turned around every company I’ve worked with.

But more importantly when I work with clients, I get, again what I refer to as knowings and downloads for my clients. Not all the time and not for every client, but for the majority.

And these downloads give me the information and the images of what is needed for my clients to be on their right path. To be on their life purpose.

The images I get of what they’re meant to do in terms of the impact and what they’re life is to look like, are mind-blowing. What I mean by that, is that they are so amazing.

And each time I get my clients on their right path, the results that they get and the difference it makes for them personally are amazing.

And there have been some clients that didn’t take on board the information I shared with them, and that’s ok, because that’s where free will comes into play.

But in the early years – I had to keep all of this a secret. After all it’s not something a client expects from a business consultant.

And being so highly intuitive has made it open to so much ridicule. And that coupled with the empathetic feelings I was picking up – was leading to a very unpleasant life.

And when I did describe the images that I received in the downloads and knowings to my clients – because they were so amazing in terms of the difference I was seeing them making in the world – their first response was that they didn’t have the confidence or the courage to do that.

So I had to learn a different way of communicating with my clients so as to make sure they were put on the right track for them, and also so that they wouldn’t get scared.

And on top of that I doubted myself so much as I questioned was it just my conscious mind making it up.

So part of the work and the research I’ve done over the years has been to discover ways of finding the evidence in peoples lives that would give them all the information that they needed to find their own true life purpose.

They might not see the end outcome or the significant difference they are to make in peoples lives, but at least they would be on the right track.

If I found the evidence, that evidence then became the breadcrumbs so to speak, for them to find their way home – home to where they are meant to be in life, to being on the right track, on their life purpose.

So what is it that brings meaning and fulfilment?

Well let’s begin with meaning.

You see, teleology is the study of purpose and meaning.

The highest purpose is what the Greek philosophers referred to as the Telos, or the “end in mind”. Or what I call your North Star.

This Telos or North star is what you are most inspired to fulfil.

Napoleon Hill called your highest priority ‘your chief aim in life’.

So whatever your highest internal priority is, you are inspired from within to fulfil. You are unconsciously driven to fulfil the most.

I spoke about your highest internal priorities on the previous blog. These internal priorities are unique to you.

When you marry your highest internal priorities with the overriding question you are seeking to fulfil, then you have your link, your connection to your life purpose. It’s how you achieve maximum fulfilment in life.

Let me say that again – your highest internal priorities are what you are most inspired to fulfil within. Your overriding question that you seek to fulfil the answer to, is your connection to becoming and fulfilling your life purpose.

When you are doing work that is in line with fulfilling that overriding question, and that is in line with your highest internal priorities, then you are most inspired to accomplish your mission. It is where you achieve maximum fulfilment. It becomes your mission in life to fulfil.

And as I said in the previous blog, when you are working in line with your internal priorities, then you are activating your executive centre the most.

When you are activating your executive centre the most – you are more creative, more innovative, more motivated, more objective. And when you are aligned with your unconscious and your SuperConscious, you are inspired more, and find it easier to discover the fastest, easiest and less costly way of achieving your purpose.

When you turn your life purpose into your career or your business, you are then building a legacy, making a difference, and impacting many more peoples lives.

And when your business or career is serving ever more increasing numbers of people, then that’s when you achieve the levels of success that others refer to as being success.

If we take Bill Gates as an example – his overriding question was how could he put the power of a computer into the hands of everyone around the world. His purpose and vision was to see a computer in every home.

Steve Jobs overriding question was how could he enable every person to display and demonstrate their own unique personality. His purpose and vision was to break the norm and not fit into the status quo and to put the power into peoples hands whether it be in terms of their computer, their iPod, their iPhone.

Find your unique personal internal priorities and your overriding question that you’re looking to fulfil, and you’re well on your way to finding your true life purpose and mission in life.