LIFE | SOUL MISSIONS
3 Tips To Find Your Life Purpose When There Are Many Distractions
Your life purpose will call out to you, but so will your distractions
1. Identify The Distractions
Just because your father or mother excelled at something doesn’t mean you’ll enjoy it. We are not our parents. Gone are the days when we followed in on our parent’s footsteps and did the work they did.
Most people do what their parents did, only to realize later that it was just a big distraction from the work they actually came to do.
If you’re a clean freak who hates germs and you go to become a doctor because your dad was the best doctor to ever do it, you are following a distraction. You won’t want to go near someone who’s sick and emitting germs. Being a doctor could be your dad’s purpose, but that doesn’t mean you are meant to be a doctor too. Be a doctor because you chose it.
You don’t have to follow anybody else’s life path. You have the power and the option to choose or create your own life path and life purpose.
It can be hard to tell between your life purpose and your distraction. You may have doubts about your distractions, but you’ll know it in your soul when it comes to your life's purpose.
When I think of my life’s purpose, I feel empowered. When I think of a distraction, I feel disempowered. The thought of writing stories and coaching people energizes me and the thought of doing anything else for work that's unrelated is terrifying. It’s terrifying because I enjoy what I do now and want to keep doing it.
My distraction is the fear and doubt that tells me that I may not make it as a writer and should get a stable job. When you identify your distractions, your life’s purpose will become clear as day.
Your life purpose is the thing you'll enjoy doing the most. If it's forced on you, you can't have any fun doing it.
When I think about my calling, I feel empowered. When I think about my distractions, I feel disempowered.
2. Heed The Right Call
Many of the people I coach come to me for guidance to find their life’s purpose. I’ve been there and I know how frustrating it can be to chase false purposes trying to figure out what you came here to do. But this is what I’ve learned:
If you’ve identified the distractions, then you can reject them when it calls and focus on listening to the call of your life’s purpose. When fear tells me to check out a job listing, I can ignore it and keep writing.
Your life purpose will call out to you, but so will your distraction. In fact, the call of your distraction will be louder. It’s loud because it’s empty. It has nothing to offer you. Your life purpose will be subtle, but there’s nothing like it when it tugs on your soul, drawing you to it.
Callings draw you toward them, especially as a child.
When my nephews and nieces were all choosing to be doctors and pharmacists at their school’s career day, my little nephew Gerald stood by his decision to be a contractor. He always looks at my mother — his grandmother — and tells her he will someday build her a big house with the biggest kitchen. He’s only 4 years old.
Building things is Gerald’s life purpose. I know it and he knows it now. He loves playing with legos and anything that involves building things. When he grows up and finds himself getting distracted, well, I will be there to remind him of the thing he loved doing the most as a kid.
If you don’t know your life purpose, ask the adults in your family. Someone will be able to tell you.
Life purposes are fresh in our minds when we’re children. That’s because kids don’t have any distractions.
I wrote things in notebooks as a kid. Then I started creating picture stories on sheets of paper. I wrote in my journal and that call to write grew stronger every day until I heeded the call as an adult and took a writing course.
Writing naturally excites me. It makes me happy. I know it’s what I’m supposed to be doing because I want to do it every day and I actually look forward to it.
Your life purpose will call out to you, but so will your distraction. In fact, the call of your distraction will be louder.
3. Create Your Purpose
Sometimes not knowing your purpose could be the biggest distraction.
Some people distract themselves by saying they don’t know what they’re supposed to be doing with their lives, but what if you honestly do not know what your purpose is?
Not everybody grows up remembering what they naturally excelled at as a kid, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have a purpose. You do, but after letting your distractions get too loud; it becomes difficult to hear your purpose call out.
But does that mean you go about your life without a sense of purpose? No. You create a purpose.
Creating your life purpose means ignoring your distractions and ignoring your distractions allows you to hear your purpose better.
We all have a natural inclination — something we are naturally drawn to and good at. To create your purpose, you must lean into your strengths and talents.
You must tap into your natural inclinations because it’s what will come easier. The things you look forward to doing are always a great place to start in creating your life’s purpose.
But the fact that we have the option to choose between many jobs and careers has made it easier for us to lose our way in our search for the work we came here to do.
There are so many paths we can take and we end up getting distracted.
With all the options we have, it can be hard sometimes to make sense of what your purpose is and what’s a fleeting desire. Desires and whims are important and can be excellent tools in guiding you toward what you need next in your life, but it’s important to distinguish between the two.
Desires and whims are fleeting. Your life purpose will be the same thing year after year. The only thing that changes with your life purpose is the things you learn every day.
Finding or creating your purpose won’t be easy. It’ll take discipline and dedication. It’ll take a strong intention and powerful willpower so you can boldly turn down distractions and focus on finding what it is you came here to do.
Read further:
📖 You Have a Calling and a Distraction 📖 3 Simple Steps to Shift Your Identity and Change Your Life 📖 3 Ways to Get Into Alignment With Your Heart’s Desires 📖 3 Reasons to Dust Yourself off and Start Improving Your Life
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