The path of discovering our life purpose is the path of discovering ourselves. Following and realizing the meaning of our life purpose is the key to a fulfilling life and a crucial component of our personal development journey.
If you ever wondered, “What is the meaning of life?” or “Why am I here?”, discovering your purpose will feel like an answer to that question. The meaning of purpose is not only to make yourself happier and lead a more fulfilling life but, more importantly, to contribute to the world and help humanity advance.
If you’re not yet sure what your purpose exactly is, do not worry; there is a clear and easy way for you to discover it and start living a life filled with meaning.
True Meaning of Life Purpose
The term “life purpose” refers to the belief that we exist in this reality for a specific reason, for a higher cause that places us in the grand story of human existence. Our purpose is related to an activity or occupation and is an integral part of our soul’s mission. It helps our world or our community to advance, and in return, it makes our lives more fulfilling and pleasant.
In simple terms, discovering your purpose means finding that one special thing you are meant to do in this lifetime. Naturally, we all have many small purposes in our lives, but there is one grand one that relates to how we spend the majority of our time. Fortunately for us, we will enjoy doing this one thing more than anything else.
Although we may be inclined to this one thing more than another, it doesn’t mean that following it will be an easy path.
Personal development enthusiasts, including myself, often hope that by following and fulfilling their purpose, their lives might just get easier, and the standard rules of life will no longer apply to them. Unfortunately, that is not possible.
We can align with our purpose and have a more meaningful life, but the rules of life will still apply to us. On the other hand, one thing that will surely change for the better is our level of satisfaction with life.
How to Discover Your Life Purpose
A simple yet profound Japanese philosophy called Ikigai describes a formula to discover our purpose while also being rational about our needs as humans living, unfortunately, in a capitalist society. Although following our purpose and our dreams is the best way to live, the reality is we still want to enjoy our time here and maintain a healthy balance between work and personal time.
Ikigai identifies one or more occupations that are the perfect combination of:
“what you’re good at, what the world needs, what can create success, and what you love to do.”
‘What can create stability or success’ is the ‘rational’ part of the equation. It is like when you were 13 and wanted to be an actor and devote all your time to this one passion, but your parents stepped in as a voice of reason and reminded you that you can always do it but still need to have a ‘safety net’.
So yes, maybe acting or any other unique occupation is your Ikigai, but there’s more to think about before climbing this hill. Can this occupation actually provide the lifestyle you would be happy with? Your Ikigai should not make you miserable and broke. Surely, it can have some oscillations and require adapting from your side, but probably it will be more in line with the lifestyle you see yourself being happy in.
Naturally, your Ikigai is something you love to do, but another question to ask yourself is are you/can you get actually good at this? We may enjoy doing many things, but that doesn’t mean that specific thing is our purpose. Our Ikigai is something we are usually naturally inclined towards, we have talents for or simply comes easier to us than it does to other people.
And most importantly, our Ikigai is something our world or our community needs. Of course, not every purpose will be grand, but it will be making a positive impact on someone’s life, hence making a positive impact on the world.
One example of this is teachers. You could say teachers have a smaller purpose of educating children, but there have been countless times when a teacher has influenced a person for life, shaping them into who they are today and therefore helping them discover their Ikigai. They are, for a part of our life, like our other parents. They say and do things that stick with us; they recognize and call out our talents and our bad behaviour, and in a way, help us see who we are.
More on the topic of ‘sizes’ of purposes in the section ‘small or grand purpose’.
In order to define your purpose and discover your meaning of life purpose, simply answer these questions as honestly and objectively as possible. Try to avoid being negative and thinking there is nothing you are good at or being too confident about something that you might not be as good as you initially think you are. Try delving deep while still being objective.
- What is something you’re good at? List everything you have, even remote talent or expertise in.
- What do you truly love to do? Out of all of these things?
- What does the world need? Or the people around you?
- What can actually become an occupation and bring some sort of benefit to you?
Put these answers on a sheet of paper, visualize that one thing you would like to do for the rest of your life, and hopefully it will match something you are good at and is useful to both you and the world.
Imagine what your life would look like if you pursued this. Would you be happier? Is there something that would make you even more happy? Can this be pursued as a hobby while doing your Ikigai, and maybe it will develop into a full occupation eventually? There’s a lot to think about, but it is on you to compose this purposeful project for yourself.
The Obstacles to the Life Purpose Path
We have to be real; what might be someone’s Ikigai is not necessarily easy, stress-free, or attractive. There are thousands of different occupations in the world, and each of them contributes to making our world better and our lives easier.
Every occupation is equally important; a janitor and a fireman, for instance, are both crucial. Someone needs to do unattractive, stressful jobs to fulfil their purpose and assist the world, while someone else may have a less demanding purpose in occupation but might fulfil a greater purpose in other aspects of their life.
Sometimes the wrong lifestyle and work can drain so much energy from us that we don’t find the motivation to pursue our purpose, but we should always pursue what is right; we owe this to ourselves and the world.
It might not be easy to follow your Ikigai, but it will be worth the struggle. Nothing in life is easy except lying down and doing nothing – even that comes with the price of feeling lazy and fatigued. When we accept this simple truth, following our dreams will be a much easier quest.
“Let’s stop expecting life to be easy and start being comfortable with adversity, discipline, and uniqueness.”
If you find a purpose that you love but are not particularly good at, the simple solution is to work and get better at it. The truth is, the modern capitalist lifestyle does not give us much space or time to work on our projects. Most of us barely have time to maintain an organized, healthy lifestyle, but it doesn’t mean we should give up and not try our best to find time to pursue our Ikigai.
When the weekend comes, all we want is to relax and forget about the work that we don’t enjoy, but how meaningful our weekends would be if we invested this time into our purpose, which will eventually lead us to a much more successful life.
The ‘Purpose of Life Purpose’
One truth needs to be acknowledged: whether we like it or not, we are not on this planet solely to enjoy ourselves and exist until the end of our time. We are here to contribute to the world and the people around us, realize the meaning of our life purpose, while some form of sacrifice should be an expected part of life.
Avoiding intentional sacrifice will lead to a different kind of suffering that was not chosen and is therefore worse.
“Choose your sacrifice, and within it, choose your suffering. It will find you in life regardless, so better choose a suffering you will enjoy.”
The Universe made us naturally inclined and happy while doing something we were meant to be doing. On the contrary, whenever we are not on our highest path towards our purpose, life will feel out of balance, unfulfilling, and dull, pushing us to seek more.
In the long run, doing something you don’t enjoy is not beneficial for you or the world. Your potential is then wasted, and you might be at risk of not only an unfulfilling life but a big amount of regret in later years.
Small vs Grand Life Purpose
That unique reason we are here might be very ‘simple’, or very significant, at least in human terms. The purpose of everything and everyone is equally important, and ‘how important’ is not important at all.
In the grand scheme of things, almost every ‘purpose’ can be considered tiny if we perceive it in the general purpose of humanity and the world 1000 years from now, but it does not mean that this tiny purpose didn’t have a huge impact on the world in the years that it existed.
With this, the famous butterfly effect comes into question. A huge purpose might seem more important than a ‘smaller purpose’, at first glance, but how can we know?
A political leader who initiated grand positive change in the world might be considered to have had a much bigger purpose than a hospital nurse. Similarly, an inventor might have had a much greater purpose than someone who works a simple office job, but with the complexity of life, we can never know how these individual lives impacted the world in their grand way. It might be difficult to perceive it, but the truth is:
“…you can never really know how you touched the lives and the world around you, and what great, tiny purpose you might have already completed.”
The bottom line
We can never know everything, not even half of the truth about our experience on Earth. We can never know ‘for sure’. We can never confirm certain things about the universe, the world, or ourselves, but some things we can know internally.
Our purpose is a part of our truth that we carry into this life, maybe even into the other one, if that’s something you believe in. But one thing is for sure: we will never live a greater life than a life aligned with our purpose.
I truly hope this little piece of my Ikigai helped you discover yours. Do not be afraid of anything, you have all the support you need to follow it, just believe that you do.
Ikigai translates to ‘’What is worth living for’’.
