Research shows that living your life with purpose is linked to living longer. Researchers surveyed nearly 7,000 older adults on the correlation between mortality and finding your purpose. Participants who did not have a sense of meaning in their lives were more than twice as likely to die prematurely as those who were living out their purpose in life. Having a sense of purpose also reduced the incidence of cardiovascular incidents like heart attack and stroke. Having a purpose is also essential for fulfillment in life and brings happiness. People are genuinely happy when they are living life on purpose. Your purpose does not have to be like a Mother Teresa mission, it can be on a smaller scale and be just as rewarding.

Everything in life has purpose. As far back as the fourth century BC, Aristotle was pondering life’s purpose and developing his theory of teleology, which is the idea that everything in life has purpose. In today’s fast-paced world, where we are being pulled in many directions similtaneously, therefore, finding your purpose in life seems more important than ever.

These are 7 steps to finding your purpose in life:

Focus on Yourself.
I Can Do It!
What do you Love Doing?
Helping Humanity!
Purpose over money.
Visualize it!
Gratitude.

Let’s dive right in!

Focus on Yourself

In order to get in touch with your purpose, you need to get in touch with yourself. Most of us live our life in a frenzy state, jumping from one task to another, with the pressures of working, taking care of our family and all the extra activities that go with a family. Even as a single person, your life can be just as active and hectic. When we go from one day to the next in a mundane routine there really is no time for growth and focus. Take time to put focus on YOU. Sit back and journal on what you want in life and what your talents are and bring these two together. It’s so important to take time for yourself, especially if most of your time is at work or taking care of a family. Sitting down and contemplating who you are and what you want to do is imperative to finding your bliss. Take some time for yourself, you deserve it. Sit back and ask yourself this very important question, “what do I want in life?”

2. I Can Do it!

Before we even begin, self-doubt will creep in with voices from our past telling us, we are not good enough, we can never achieve our purpose in life or we don’t have the talents. These voices in our head are telling us lies and it’s time to recognize these lies and call them out into the open. We are only as sick as our secrets, so getting in touch with that inner voice that whispers our so-called inadequacies and bringing them to light will help diminish their power of us. When I started writing years ago, I was also plagued with self-doubt. The way I overcame it was by just doing what I wanted to do, which was to write. I ignored the voices in my head that told me I was not good enough. It took years for me to feel confident with my writing, but like anything else in life practice makes perfect. Focus on your talents and your strengths and try to relinquish self-doubt. Say often, I can do it! This affirmation will start to resonate with your actions. The one thing self-doubt will do is talk you out of your purpose before you even begin, so be aware of that and just try to fight it off.

3. What do you Love Doing?

Your purpose is what you love doing in life. As I stated in the last step, I love writing, but it took me years to recognize this love, because I was so wrapped up in taking care of my two sons. It’s important to sit down and write out these questions. When you can answer these questions, therein will be your purpose in life; the reason you were created. Take some time to contemplate or meditate on these questions.

What do I love doing?
What makes me happy?
What gives me passion?

Once you write these questions and answer them, your purpose should surface. If it doesn’t give it some more time. It could take a few days or weeks and then out of the blue your purpose is revealed.

4. Helping Humanity

Whatever you love doing that you determine is your life’s purpose, it has to align with helping humanity in some way. It has to give to the world. Your purpose has to benefit the earth, or people, or something on those lines. Here are a few examples of a purpose in life that helps humanity in some way.

Little League Coach
Singing in a Nursing Home
Bringing food to the poor
Writing
Art
Playing Piano for sick children in a hospital
Creating a website that invokes peace in the world
Creating video’s that help people in some way
Yoga studio
Exercise video or classes
Creating Gift Baskets
Life Coach
Create a website that helps people in some way

These are some examples of following your bliss that gives to the world and helps people. Your purpose is unique and only you will be able to uncover this wonderful way you will use your talents to be on purpose in life.

5. Purpose over Money

When your purpose starts by helping people and you put that emphasis on your purpose, the money will flow in. Many people make the mistake by focusing on how much money they can make without emphasis on their purpose. However, putting the focus on your purpose over money is important because you are giving out abundant energy into the world and in doing so abundance will flow back. So, keep the focus on purpose and not on what money you will generate. In time the money will come, but the fulfillment comes from helping others. Additionally, you may be just looking for a voluntary purpose, where you don’t make any money. Of course, the choice is up to you.

6. Visualize It

Once you know what your purpose is and you start to gravitate towards making it a reality, you want to visualize a successful outcome. Just sit and imagine how wonderful it will feel if you wrote a book or you became a life coach. Sit and feel the feelings of how rewarding that would be as you close your eyes and visualize a positive outcome with your purpose. You are using the power of positive thinking to help your dream come to fruition. Just sit and visualize a positive outcome and resonate with the feelings of how it feels to be successful in your chosen purpose. This will help you manifest it faster.

7. Gratitude

The word gratitude is derived from the Latin word gratia, which means grace, graciousness, or gratefulness. Gratitude is such a big part of any dream, goal or purpose. Being a grateful person in all aspects of life is beneficial in so many ways.

In positive psychology research, gratitude is consistently associated with happiness. Gratitude helps people feel more positive emotions, relish good experiences, improve their health, deal with adversity, and build strong relationships.

I would suggest writing a gratitude list daily of 5 things you are grateful for or making a mental note of 5 things you are grateful for when you go to bed at night.

Being grateful keeps the positive energy flowing and keeps us from complaining or being caught up in negative thinking.

So, there you have it, the7 steps to finding your purpose in life.

In conclusion, I want to put emphasis on the importance of doing all these steps to find your purpose. And just a footnote on what it feels like to live a life of bliss. When I am on purpose, I lose all sense of self and find myself in a wonderful realm of total bliss. When I am writing I feel like the hand of God is guiding me and I lose all sense of ego relishing in God’s glorious love and grace. It’s an amazing feeling of being in the, zone, and it can only be felt by experiencing it for yourself.

I wish you much joy, peace and success, as you travel this road of discovering the reason you were created.

Rachel Devine is the author of, The Third Road & Lessons from the Needle in a Haystack.

If you would like to check out my website, I have many resources with my books, events, online courses and so much more.

My book, The Third Road, Your Secret Journey Home, is a book that helps one find the mystical, omnipresent, inner power and their purpose in life.

What is my Purpose in Life? Rachel Devine