Find meaning and purpose: tips to get started

This gull lives and breathes its meaning
and purpose... 

For years, self-help advice said follow your passion. Thankfully, for those of us unclear about what that might actually be, there's another way to think about how to create a life we love (read this, or this).  

What we're learning now that's proving more important: bring passion to whatever we're doing, wherever we happen to be, rather than waiting to discover what we're passionate about or fretting about why we don't have one.  

After meeting our hierarchy of basic needs, what humans truly crave is autonomy, meaning, and purpose (so says Daniel Pink in Drive), not necessarily passion for something specific.  

I've always loved the phenomenally classic Auntie Mame quote, "Life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death." I took it as a directive to bring passion to everything. 

Engaging with what we're doing, in the moment, has the potential to fill us with both meaning and passion. If nothing else, it makes life a lot more interesting. And, that said, our humanity sometimes works against us, though... we're hardwired to be cautious. So if you need some ideas to find more meaning and purpose, I've listed some ideas below.    

Follow your curiosity

What makes you go huh...? Or hmmm...? Clues come from what you're reading, listening to, or watching. What about those appeal to you? 

What or who do you want to know more about? Who or what do you envy? What would you study or where would you travel if means and time were available?  

Perhaps you're curious about brain science, like I am, but not willing or able to be a neuroscientist. If you're curious, you may have a latent talent for something related... I'll never be a neuroscientist, but I love coaching and how the latest research in brain science applies to personal development and human potential. 

Check your checkbook 

Our bank and credit card statements are insightful; they document what we care about. What do you buy, who or what do you donate to, and how are you entertained? Does how you spend your money align with your values?  

Perhaps you care about our warming planet. What do you eat? How do you shop? I used to be a mindless shopper, filling an emotional void, until I recognized the pattern. I also care deeply about my health, growing up in a family with numerous lifestyle conditions, so buying healthy food and supporting farm-to-table dining are ways I find meaning.    

Notice when you're angry   

Author, entrepreneur, and funder (and acquaintance) Nathalie Molina Nino wrote in her book  Leapfrog that we should forget about finding our passion and instead find something we want to punch. What makes us most angry may be great opportunities to explore: for work, new ventures, or volunteering.  

You'll also find big clues here about what's meaningful and purposeful for you.  

Test the waters 

When we find meaning and purpose, we find our passions—often right where we are. Fascinated by something, but never tried it? Test it. It's through doing that we build confidence, gain experience, get excited, and yes, find passion.  

Maybe you'd love to own a bakery one day; time disappears when you're baking cookies, bread, or specialty desserts. A bakery may not be feasible, but what gets you closer? These days, we have so many options, like starting a microbusiness using the magic of technology.  

Given today's economics, a side hustle is both easy and a good idea. If you need ideas or a how-to guide, Portland's world-traveling Chris Guillebeau is a go-to resource. 

The founder of Seattle's line-out-the-door Hot Cakes started selling that chocolate gooey goodness at the local farmers market. Now she has two brick-and-mortars and recently opened two vegan ice cream shops. They run themselves while she travels and surfs. 

Small steps are better than no steps. 

Know your why

Knowing why you're doing something can keep you on track when what you're doing feels hard. Not sure about your why? Ask why five or seven times until you get your answer.   

Simon Sinek's Start with Why is one of the most popular TEDTalks ever. And it makes sense... why you do something can make all the difference.

It matters 

A colleague recently suggested we should make 2020 the year of the side hustle. If nothing else, we'll add more meaning and purpose. We may make more money. We might just find our passion. And remember: Where focus goes, energy flows.

Meaning and purpose have staying power; passion sometimes fizzles. Man's Search for Meaning author Viktor Frankl believed meaning and purpose, not passion, were essential to survival, and if anyone could attest, he could.  



If you like this post or this blog resonates with you in any way, please feel free to subscribe (see right column), share it, comment below, or send me a message. I'm also available for one-on-one coaching—you can find me here. 

16 simple steps to change your past and create your future

Where do you
want to go? 

I've spent a lot of time working on mindset and on letting go of my past. I had plenty of stuff happen to me throughout my life, particularly my teen years, as I've written about here on occasion. 

There are days I still feel like I'm far behind where I could have been if I'd had better parents, better teachers, better role models. But I didn't. And as an adult, I am the only one responsible for where I am in my life. Sure, I was a little slow off the mark. I'd like to be financially independent like some of my high school mates. But I'm alive, and some of those high school mates aren't. There are no guarantees. 

We all make choices, even if they're unconscious. Our patterns and beliefs served us at points in time. We developed coping skills and habits to move us along in the world. But at some point, we have to look at whether these continue to serve us or hinder our progress. A lot of the time, they stop us from having the life we want. 

Our roadmap

I've written about Landmark's Forum, too. A few questions I took away, all those years ago, are:

• what did you make it mean?
• what's the payoff?

What those two questions refer to are the incidents that happened to us and the meaning we assigned them. Even pre-verbal, we can assign meaning to something that directly impacts our self-worth, but most often, it's something that happened when we were kids. Sometimes it's truly something heinous. I totally get that. I had a few of those things. Big things. Things I'm still not comfortable writing about here. But at some point, we have to decide if that's the roadmap we want.  

Problem is, a lot of us don't even know it's a map. But it is. How we interact with our past shows up in how we interact with the world. Is the world a friendly place? Is there enough to go around? How do you make your presence known? Do you often feel bad about what happened to you, or someone else? (Just so you know, they may be over it...)

Change your story...

We CAN change our past. No, we can't change what happened, but we can change how we see it, feel about it, and our response to it, which really does change it. Our minds are amazing things... We have the power. 

Edwene Gaines, a Unity minister in Alabama, overcame a life of poverty and tells her compelling life story in The Four Spiritual Laws of Prosperity. In a vignette that illustrates the power of changing our story about something that happened, she talks about changing her consciousness around sexual abuse, and the gift of an understanding heart that came from that. That's huge. I'm not suggesting you do that, but, how we view our past plays out in our future in one way or another.  

It's worth doing the deep work to uncover these beliefs, habits, world views, and coping mechanisms. Because if we don't know they're there, they will drive us based on that existing map, full of potholes and dead ends, and keep us from getting where we want to go. Or at least, it'll take a lot longer to get there.  

Don't believe me? Try it.  

Simple, but not easy

So, in that vein, I have a list of steps for your consideration that can help you change your past and create your future. They're things to note and things to do, all simple, but not easy: 

1. When you focus on whatever happened in your past, you give it power
2. When you focus on that past event, you give it meaning
3. Consider: how real and true is the meaning you gave it? was it someone else's opinion, and if yes, why did their opinion matter, and does it still? 
4. Now: assign new meaning to whatever happened to you—what good came from what happened? Feel it, believe it, know it in your bones. Make it real. 
5. And, devalue whoever else's opinion played in, because their opinion has less weight than yours; you are the expert on your life and who you are
6. Ask yourself: what's the payoff? Do you still get value by reliving what happened? For example, some of us like to be right, and by living in our past, we get to be right, or we get to be a victim, and not take responsibility for where we are in your lives
7. Ask yourself: what did you learn from what happened to you that has value for you now
8. Own that something good came from your experience
9. Forgive anyone who harmed you, or yourself, for harming yourself or others
10. When old tapes start to play restating that meaning, or that opinion, hit the stop button on your internal stereo
11. Put in a new tape that brings you joy; what do you want to tell yourself instead? You get to make it up, just like you did the first time, only this time with more wisdom and knowledge to draw from
12. Give yourself room to dream and create a better future
13. Decide that you deserve to have better problems, and that you can't carry the world on your shoulders
14. Do what's yours to do and let go of the rest, trusting that we all have something we can do, and we do it the best we can
15. Stop caring what anyone else thinks, and let go of the need for permission; chances are, if you're reading this, you're an adult, and you don't need permission, and anyone else's opinion of you or your actions is none of your business
16. Remember: all that old stuff doesn't serve you now unless you're getting a payoff, and then you have to ask if the payoff is worth it. All that old stuff showed up to keep you safe, but if you want to grow, evolve, and flourish, you have to change your mind about your experience and give it new meaning.

And a bonus step: To quote Richard Bach in Jonathan Livingston Seagull, "argue for your limitations and they're yours."


If you like this post, or this blog resonates with you in any way, please feel free to share it, comment below, or send me a message. I'm also available for one-on-one coaching—you can find me here.