What does your purpose in life mean? It is THE reason you were born, it's the goal you came here on earth to fulfil. Only difficulty: when our soul descends into a human body we forget why we came here and it can take us a very long time to discover the reason we came here. Some people never remember.
You have not yet found your purpose if:
1) You don't understand the meaning of your life
You are often bored and you often think that you would like your life to be more interesting. You do things against your will or without spirit. Your mission in life is always in accord with your heart, it is not possible to have a mission that doesn't please you or that you would not whole-heartedly engage in. When you find your path in life you stop asking 10,000 questions, you know and you feel that you are going the right way.
2) You feel like you have no choice
You feel like you have to do what you do, or you feel guilty, responsible or you feel like you owe something to someone. You are not 100% happy with your life, but at least you are working for a good cause. You contribute something to society and a noble cause deserves some sacrifice, no? WRONG! You are rationalising your life and you are keeping yourself from finding your true mission in life in doing so. Your path can not be found by using your mind, it can only be found using your heart and your intuition and you won't feel like you're making any sacrifices either, every action and choice flows naturally from who you are.
Neither will you find your path by organising your life in function of someone else. You do yourself injustice by living your life for someone else just because you think you have to. And it is not fair towards the person you are sacrificing yourself for that ends up carrying the sole responsibility for your happiness. There is no need for you to put your life in the hands of someone else nor to charge someone else with the weight of your existence.
4) Your emotional life is not very harmonious
One of your dominant emotions is fear, shame, anger, sadness, melancholy... Being on your path is an alchemical process that transforms emotions that don't help you to grow, that keep you back, into something positive.
5) You often pretend to be something you're not
If you feel like you often have to pretend (personal or professional life, circle of friends...), and if you hear yourself saying things that you know you don't really agree with or that don't correspond to your values, if you often feel uneasy or out of place, than it is 100% sure that you have not yet found your path, nor are you on your way to getting there.
6) You have one of the following motivations
Money, celebrity, power, admiration, fame etc. are never the goal of your life's mission, but they can be consequences of your actions. Your goal, your mission here on earth always flows from your heart and is never the result of practical considerations or rational thought. Your mind and your logic are tools to achieve your dreams, not to limit them.
You have found your true purpose if:
How do we get back to our path? It seems complicated... but it's a lot simpler than you can imagine and here are some steps to get there:
1) Pay attention to what makes you happy
When you are into your life's mission you are happy and your life is filled with meaning. This does not mean that there are never any moments of doubt, that you never again feel feeling blue or obstacles to be taken, but the obstacles are very few compared to the moments of happiness. Your mission always makes you happy. Your actions are inspired by your inner life and you have rock solid faith in yourself and what you do that makes you practically indestructible and and that proves to be an incredible force for everything you choose to undertake.
2) Take some alone time
Your mission in life, only you can find it. All well-intended advice & opinions of others cannot help you find your path. You can only find it by looking inside of yourself and to do that you need moments of silence, of introspection, of meditation, of retreat... Moments where you have to opportunity to do nothing and just listen to your inner voice, without any interference of all the external factors.
3) Live for yourself
This seems an obvious one, but most people actually live for someone else if they're entirely honest with themselves. When we are on our path, we are 100% ourself, no need to pretend. Our life and our actions allow us to express our personality and develop our talents. We don't feel the need to convince others or to prove something: wanting to prove something means living for someone else. We let the person(s) to whom we absolutely want to prove a point take an enormous importance in our lives. It's yet another way of living for someone else. When we are in our life's mission, the opinion of other people doesn't matter because we get all the satisfaction we need from our daily life.
4) Live passionately
Live your life with passion and execute your daily activities passionately. Routine and boredom will kill your spirit. We need to keep moving, to keep evolving and learning to keep our sparkle alive. Your life's mission is always lived passionately.
5) Know your triggers
Our emotions are there to point us in the right direction. What moves you? Everyone has certain triggers and you probably know yours all too well. Which issues make you react each and every time, almost in spite of yourself?
Do you suffer when you see an abandoned animal? Are you infuriated when you think about children that are being mistreated? Are you appalled when you're confronted with the injustices towards women? Do you become desperate when thinking about current methods of education? Are you disgusted when hearing the one thousandth story of corruption in politics? Do you shiver when you see the ugliness of some of today's architecture? Do you cringe when reading the list of ingredients of some of today's industrial food?
You may very well feel all of these things, but some of these issues push your buttons just a little harder than others. These are strong reactions that are not there to be ignored, they are there to guide you, like red flags trying to catch your attention. If something really moves you than there's a big chance that it is part of your mission. When you're able to contribute to the solution of an issue that is close to your heart, you transform these "negative" emotions into an incredibly powerful force in your life.
6) You have both dimensions in your life: a personal dimension and a collective dimension
We are always born to resolve some personal issues: to clean up some past life memories, to work through certain fears or obstacles, to experience things that will complete our comprehension of life. One part of our mission is to learn, to evolve.
And the other part always adds a collective dimension. We are also here to learn to live together, to learn that everything is connected and that one of the essential dynamics of life is giving-receiving. If we don't give, at a certain point in life we will stop receiving. We are an individual, but our ego needs to learn that we are part of the collective and we also have a part to play in the collective. This collective can be very large or very small: your collective can be your family, your company, your town, your country, the world...
Whatever your impact, when you are in your life's mission you always have an impact on the collective: you serve as an example because of your personality, because of your activity, your style of transmission. A person that found his mission is always an inspiration to others because this person fulfils a unique function in the world.
Here are some examples to understand the difference:
A chef that absolutely wants his third Michelin star to prove he's better than the competition and that terrorises the kitchen staff to achieve his goal is not in his life's mission.
A chef that is passionate about his cuisine, however, and who loves to play with different aromas and tastes, who is passionate about quality products and who receives 3 Michelin stars in compensation is in his life's mission.
A person that became a lawyer because his father was one and because this allowed him to take over his father's business and lead a comfortable life as a a respectable person in the village, just like his father did, is not following his life's mission.
A person that became a lawyer because he is passionate about human rights and because he wanted to know all the legal options to defend human beings and who is earning a lot of money with conferences he is organising to inform people about human rights has found his life's mission.
An agressive defender of animal rights that just liberated 50 monkeys from a cosmetics laboratory but that always dreamed of being an interior decorator and that in spite of her dreams continues to "fight" for animal rights is not following her life's mission.
The interior decorator that developed an interest for ecological materials, that is passionate about colours and textiles and that contributes to the beauty of this world, in spite of the fact that she didn't save any animals, is following her life's mission.
The person that became a primary school teacher because she didn't know what she'd like to study and "there is always work to be found in education" has not found her life's mission.
However, the person that loves to talk to children and make them dream, think and help them discover their talent, that is creative in her teaching methods and that is proud that so many of her students have been able to find their passion in life, has found her mission in life.
