How to find your purpose and passion in life? What comes to your mind when you read this title? Have you realized your potential as an individual? Have you ever thought of it?
There are 8 billion people in the world. What differentiates you from them?
Have you ever processed your thoughts about the difference you can make? Do you give time to find yourself? Have you ever thought about how to find your purpose and passion in life?
If you found yourself with a ‘yes’ to any of my above questions, then consider this:
A series of surveys done in 2017, concluded that as much as 95% of people think that they are aware of their potential and capabilities. But only 10-15% of these are truly aware of it. This implies, that 90% of the world’s population is living in an illusion about themself.
Would you like to rethink your answer now? You probably would. In fact, you should. When you are leading a purpose-driven life, you feel fulfilled. While happiness is an illusion, contentment is what differentiates a satisfied person from an unsatisfied person. When you have a meaning attached to your life, you wake up most days looking forward to it. Because well, obviously, not every day is going to be ” rainbows and sunshine”.
Today, in this blog I’ll help you navigate the ultimate question while sharing my personal experiences: How to find your purpose and passion in life? Let’s get into it!!!
How to find your purpose and passion in life? 10 Strong Steps to Teach You
Learning about your potential takes time. You don’t suddenly realize one day that you have what it takes to create a difference. It takes a lot of self talk and self realization to understand what and who you want to be.
Unawareness and absent-mindedness are the two main reasons why you live in this façade of knowing yourself. You have the ‘feel-good’ sense when you subconsciously pretend of knowing yourself, even when you don’t.
The most effective way to find and be yourself is to experiment with yourself. Because sometimes all you need is a chance for yourself to truly explore your purpose and passion in life. And you do this, by being true to yourself.
Why is it important to find your purpose and passion in life?
Purpose and passion are heavy words. They constitute the whole meaning of life within themselves. When you have a purpose, you have clear intentions about your sense of belonging. These intentions improve your focus on the different aspects of life like friends, family, career, beliefs, and more.
Knowing your passion keeps you secure in life because you value yourself, your time, and your energy above all. You don’t indulge in activities that give you an adrenaline rush for a few minutes. When you are driven by the purpose you plan for decades, and you get into the game for the long run.
A purpose-driven life:
- Keeps you feeling fulfilled
- Makes you a lifelong learner
- Increases your career satisfaction
- Helps you to live in the moment
- Gives you worthy experiences to cherish
- Builds a sense of clarity toward your future
- Makes you resilient and increases your hope
- Increases life expectancy, according to a research
- Helps you to stay at the best of your physical health
- Gives you a higher sense of belonging in the workspace
- Keeps you engaged in taking real action that adds to your productivity
Now, let’s learn the 10 steps for you to learn how to find your purpose and passion in life.
10 Steps to Learn How to Find your Purpose and Passion in Life
1. Know your interests
The first step to knowing your purpose and passion in life is to understand what makes feel fulfilled. What are the activities that you can do without caring about anything?
Evaluating and knowing your interests will help you clarify what you enjoy and what sucks your soul. You can start by journaling your thoughts with a daily writing habit. It doesn’t have to get too complicated. Start by pouring our random thoughts and ideas that come to you.
2. Ask these 15 questions to discover your life purpose
If the above exercise doesn’t help, then sit down to ask these 15 questions to discover your life purpose:
- When were you the happiest in your life?
- What is your proudest moment for yourself?
- Why do you admire the people you do?
- What energizes you?
- How happy are you about your current daily routine?
- What would make you happier today?
- What do you love to do more than anything else?
- What are the things you’re doing out of obligation to others?
- What are the things you’d do if there were no obligations to others?
- If could change one thing about your environment, what would that be?
- Imagine you have a week left to live, how will you spend it?
- 5 years from now, how do you see yourself living your life?
- 10 years from now, how do you see yourself living your life?
- What are you doing today to live that life?
- Do you wish to leave behind a legacy? If not, why? If yes, what would that be?
3. Find your contentment
The next step is to find what makes your soul feel alive. Start by creating a list of things that you enjoy doing, things that make you lose track of time.
Don’t confine your interests to parameters like work, family, or life. Let it be an extensive list. Write about things that you genuinely care about, things that bring you sheer joy. Include things that you would do without getting paid for them because money should be the by-product of passion and not the only cause of doing it.
4. Plan backward
Live in the present moment but plan in the long term. Imagine yourself in your 70s or 80s. When you look back, what do you want your life to feel like? What would make you feel that you’ve lived a fulfilled life?
Write the specifics of that life, and cover even the smallest details of how you would want your life to be then. When you plan backward, you will learn and explore the expectations you have with your life. And this will help you to act accordingly.
5. Listen to your heart
So many of us are living the lives laid by others for us. Very few people dare to stand up for their dreams. Don’t be prisoned by societal standards. Break free of them to find yourself and your purpose.
We are trained to follow the conventional system: school: college: a job. I feel blessed that the pandemic came as my savior and I started doing what I loved: writing for a living. Of course, there wasn’t anybody who thought writing could be a fulfilling career, but 3 years later here I am proving them wrong. And if I can do it, I believe anybody can.
6. Seek your Why
I talked about having expectations from your life above. An important aspect of learning how to find your purpose and passion in life involves having an understanding of “Why you want to do it?”
Knowing your why takes a lot of time, self reflection, and self analysis. But once you have even a sliver of hope to turn your dreams into reality, you won’t have any choice but to act. And daily small actions combined with a stubborn passion-driven heart are quite a deadly combination that makes you thrive.
7. Find your person/people
If you think you could do all of it alone, you might have to rethink. Yes, it’s your life. Yes, you’re the only person in charge of navigating where you end up in life. But, you can’t do it all alone.
On this journey of learning how to find your purpose and passion in life, make sure you take your people along. For me, that person is my partner, the one who has been my pillar of strength since day 1 of my journey. The next important people are my family members, who have shown great support towards whatever I have wanted to do with my career and life. When you find your people, don’t let them go. Whether it’s your partner, your friends, or your family keep them closer as you figure it out.
8. Get out of your comfort zone
We all live in a bubble of comfort. A bubble that is all about your problems, your feelings, your emotions, your dreams, everything about you. But the harsh truth is, the world doesn’t work like that. It doesn’t revolve around you or me or any one person.
Hence if you are sincere to learn how to find your purpose and passion in life, it is evitable that you get out of your comfort zone. You must leave your self-centredness to look beyond the usual perspective and tap into your real powers, whatever they may be. For me that power was my writing skills which led me to build a sustainable freelance writing business and then this blog. The goal is to realize how you can add value to other people’s lives by doing what brings happiness and satisfaction to you. And your comfort zone doesn’t do much to help you find what you’re seeking. Thus it is ideal to get out of it.
9. Consider other’s perspectives
When you are on a journey of self improvement, it can get difficult to consider other’s perspectives. Because what if they guide you wrong and mess up the whole situation even more? How do you differentiate between what to consider and what to ignore?
The answer to this situation is simple: Always consider advice from people who have achieved what you’re aiming for. If they haven’t walked into your shoes, don’t pay attention to their advice of right or wrong, at least this is what I did when I began in 2020. But you should ask your close friends and family members to highlight your strengths and weakness to help you in your self-assessment. For example, I started as a freelance writer because my partner and best friends always praised how I wrote my Instagram captions, this motivated me to try becoming a writer in the first place.
10. Don’t limit yourself to one thing
When you’re confused about deciding your purpose and passion in life, don’t limit yourself to one thing. Be open to experiments. Take different opportunities that come your way to understand what sparks your soul and what brings the ultimate satisfaction.
My journey of “building a life” began in high school when I chose medical subjects because my parents wanted me to be a doctor. Their dream became mine. But I understood after two failed attempts that becoming a doctor was never my choice. So, I went on to study literature just to “not waste my years by dropping college”. It went fine but still, I had no clue what I wanted to do.
After graduation, I pursued my higher studies only to save myself from the family pressure of preparing for government jobs. During my post-graduation, I tried to pursue becoming a college professor but failed again miserably. It was until the 2020 pandemic that I got the time to think and realize that I wanted to be a writer. And 3 years later, here I am building my blog and running a freelance writing business all because I love doing this.
So, take your time. Try different things until you find the one thing that makes you want to embrace the struggles in life.
How to act on your purpose and passion in life?
Now that you have understood how to find your purpose and passion in life, let’s help you learn what comes next. How to act on your purpose and passion in life?
1. Write down your mission
Writing your goals increase your seriousness to complete them by 42%. Building a writing habit and writing your mission will fasten your “action-taking” process If you take it a step further, you can even print it out and hang it in your room to remind you of it.
2. Take care of yourself
Your health will determine the efficiency with which you implement the action that will take you closer to your goals. Find your way of taking care of yourself and stick to it. It’s yoga for me, it could be a brisk morning walk or a gym session for you. Find yours and stick to it.
3. Stop people pleasing
Whether your purpose has a social element to it or not, stop people pleasing. Running behind people just so they like you is more likely to mess with your self esteem and confidence than bring you any closer to your goals. If you have been on the people pleasing express, it’s time to get off it.
4. Prepare your list of daily tasks
Irrespective of how big and unrealistic your goals look, rely on daily momentum to reach your dreams. Small tasks every day will make you consistent. I have been doing this since day 1 of my writing career and it is the biggest reason for my satisfaction with my work.
5. Develop self-discipline
No matter how many people you consult or resources your invest in, none of it will do any good if you don’t take the required action. Develop self-disciple to improve your focus and amplify your productivity, only then you’ll fulfill your purpose. It is important for you to build a healthy relationship with yourself.
6. Track your process
Tracking your process helps you to understand what’s working and what’s not. This way you can increase your efforts on everything that’s going right and evaluate what’s going wrong. Measuring your progress is also a great way to retain your focus.
7. Acknowledge your time wasters
As much as technology is a boon, this is also the age of digital distractions. The dopamine spike you get after every notification has made it difficult to recognize the real contributors to goals. Hence, it is important to acknowledge your time wasters and not get into them.
How to find your purpose and passion in life: Why haven’t you discovered it yet?
Taking up a career or choosing something for yourself because of society is torture to go through. Opting for a future that you don’t enjoy is synonymous with being imprisoned for life.
This is a reason why so many people don’t like their jobs. They wish they could get rid of it somehow. If you choose your future according to someone else, you can’t blame them for it.
Yes, you could be forced to make a certain choice. But, standing up and fighting for your choices is your decision too. You might also point toward the difficult situations in life that led you on an undesired path. But, can you blame the circumstances when you chose to kneel and surrender?
It all comes down to how you look at things and the mindset with which you move forward.
Often people blame their parents for not allowing them to choose for themselves. But, no parent would wish or choose wrong for their child. The difference that we see in the thought process is the ‘generation gap’.
Your choice of work or the path you wish to walk on might be unconventional. But, sometimes, all you need is simply to speak your heart out to the people who matter to you. If they truly love you, they will understand it.
Taking hold of your choices in life and understanding your right over it might hurt or even disappoint a few people for a short period of time. But tomorrow, when your parents will see you happy with your choices, they will accept your choices too.
Thus, it is important that you take control of your life and decide for yourself and not for the world.
How do your choices help you?
The only key to being successful and happy on the road to life is: choosing yourself. The choices we make today shape our future.
Embrace yourself, your future self will truly thank you for it tomorrow.
No matter what you do in life, someone will always remain unhappy with the moves you make in life. You cannot please everybody in life. Work on ways that bring sanity to your mind and heart. Because, in this world of pretentiousness, if there is anything that is extremely hard to find, it’s peace of mind.
Today, peace of mind is a luxury to achieve. The richest people sometimes don’t have it. If you haven’t found that yet, you need to reflect on the choices you have made for yourselves. You need to question your decisions.
Most of the time, what you choose for yourself will be unacceptable to a lot of people. But, as long as it doesn’t cause any harm to anybody, please don’t give up on your faith.
Remember, there are a lot of people doing the same thing that you do. They are offering the same services in the market, they are your competitors in business. But, none of them will ever do it like you. And that is your superpower.
You, your existence, your authenticity- these are your superpowers. The execution of your ideas is just like DNA, never the same for two individuals. Your perception and belief in your dream are your strength. Being yourself and doing things your way is the sword you carry to weed out anything that stops you from reaching your goals.
Don’t let your potential go to waste in the light to answer society and people. No one is too important for anybody to remember it. And, nobody should have the right to intervene in what you desire for yourself.
If you wish to work on it today, it will surely give you the results tomorrow.
Conclusion
No seed once planted ever dies if it is nurtured with everything important for its growth. Therefore, the seed of faith you plant for yourself today will grow into this massive tree of satisfaction. You must feed it with hard work, self-belief, and consistency. This teaches you how to find your purpose and passion in life.
I have wasted a lot of time to finally acknowledge my qualities. I took a lot of ‘what if’ from my parents and myself. I’ve been questioned about my abilities to make a living for myself in life.
And now that I’ve realized and figured out my purpose – I’m unstoppable. Yes, I have my fair share of bad days. But, that doesn’t take away from all the progress I have made.
Even though, it took me an entire pandemic to finally make a move and choose the right thing for my career. I am relentless in never giving up on my goals.
I hope you find your world of happiness too. I believe you will.
All you need is a little faith in yourself, to begin with.
Until next time,
See you soon!
