How Do I Find My Purpose?

“How can you begin to uncover your life purpose?” ~ Karrin, Milton Keynes

Our life purpose is at the core of who we are and many times it manifests itself in places that we least expect. Let me share three places to help you begin to examine, learn, and potentially uncover your life purpose.

1. Peak Experience: Consider your peak experience in life so far. What took place? What were you doing? Who were you being? What made it a peak experience for you? In this experience, signs of your life purpose may exist. Get curious about what happened. What values of yours were being honored or dishonored during this peak experience?

2. Rethink Blunders: Consider an event when you feel you made a big blunder. What happened? What were you trying to do and what actually happened? Sometimes when we make a blunder, it is an expression of our repressed life purpose trying to surface.

Joseph Campbell, in The Hero with a Thousand Faces, said, “Blunders are not the merest chance. They are the results of suppressed desires and conflicts. They are ripples on the surface of life, produced by unsuspected springs. And these may be very deep—as deep as the soul itself. The blunder may amount to the opening of a destiny.”

3. Family Tree: Get curious and examine your family tree. Go as deep as you can. Look beyond your parents and grandparents and try to understand what you can about the values and life purposes of your family members going back several generations. Who were these people? Where did they come from? What did they do? Does any of it resonate with you? If so, what parts?

I hope these three tips help you learn more about yourself and your life purpose.

All the best,

Chris Padgett