The Purpose of Life

The purpose of life is to live it -Eleanor Roosevelt

The question we must ask ourselves is: Are we living a purposeful life?

Ed Mylett once shared that purpose can be found smack dab in the middle of:

What You Are Good At
What The World Needs
What You Love Doing
What You Can Be Paid For

What are you good at?

This can be quite challenging, as a society we are so consumed with our ego, full of self doubt, unworthiness, fear, and feeling like our dreams can’t possibly exist in the “real world,” but my friend, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Our dreams are our calling, they are our purpose. In fact, our dreams are our divine inspiration, our “silly ideas” are actually our roadmap to living a life of abundance. We just have to have some real + akward conversations with ourselves outside of our negative self talk to truly expand on what exactly all of those ideas mean.

For as long as I can remember, I wanted to be a writer. I had my first inspiration to write a book when I was 24 years old living in Pacific Beach working in the nightclub industry. Now I’m a 37 years old mother to two beautiful girls, fresh out of my corporate career left with the same desire. My life could not have changed more over the past decade and half yet my idea to write a book has been the same. The only thing that changed was that I got older, I found myself with more responsibilities + even more reasons to stop chasing a pipedream. It felt impossible to carry the weight of my responsibilities and to believe that I could risk it all to pursue writing.

My negative thoughts soon became my reality: I had children to take care of, where would I find the time to write? How could I possibly find a publishing deal? Or the worst thought of them all: who would care what I had to say?

What myself and most others fail to see is we design our lives. We want a life full of miracles? We can have that. We want an unfulfilled life full of could haves, should haves + regrets? Welp, we can have that, too.

We create our reality, down to every second of it. You m’dear are a miracle within itself, your only obstacle is to recognize that your ego is the only thing stopping you.

Your purpose will require a leap of faith. For me, becoming a writer wasn’t as simple as beginning to write, my story was much more complicated than that. I felt compelled to share the parts of me that I had spent a lifetime hiding. I wanted to show people how I began to heal my mental, physical and emotional health. When I began to write, I became inspired to share the harder parts of my life because as many people as I have met, not one of us has escaped life without living through pain, abuse, traumas, loss, & devastation. Maybe through sharing myself could help someone feel a little less alone. As I’ve shared more, I began to feel an overwhelming sadness wondering why we find it easier to hide the pain within us. But I’d be lying if I didn’t tell you that I’ve regretted sharing my experiences, because it requires me to admit my deepest insecurities, my biggest fears, + the unwanted feelings of shame and guilt that are encompassed within them. It meant that I would have bare my soul all for a gamble that it would serve a bigger purpose than myself.

Our purpose will be always be outside of our comfort zone and it is precisely designed that way. We must learn to push past our fears and examine the parts within us that are stopping us from achieving greatness. The primal parts designed to keep us safe will trigger us and convince us to stay. When this happens, we must take inventory of our fears and ask ourselves “what is truly stopping me?” and if we’re honest, we’ll get our answer—even if it ain’t pretty.

2. What Does the World Need?

The world needs your gift. There is enough room at the table for all of us, yet that is where most of us stop ourselves from our pursuit. I could walk in to Barnes & Noble and let a store full of books discourage and convince me that there are too many books out there, that books are a thing of the past or I could look at it from a different lens and be enamored by all of the possibilities.

The day my father died, I was sitting in the Colorado airport listening to a podcast as I was waiting to board my connecting flight. All of a sudden, as if time + life came to a complete standstill, what I could only describe as a movie began projecting through my mind playing a memory of my younger self driving past my father in one of his cars. The memory was so real I could feel it. Then as quickly as the it came, the memory began to fade. At the time, I thought it was a strange experience but I didn’t think much of it. A couple hours later when I landed in New York I got a call from my aunt letting me know that my dad had unexpectedly died that day. Only to find out a couple days later that in the exact moment I was in the Colorado airport was the moment he passed away.

For me, this is where my journey of soul searching began; I was trying to understand life because I no longer understood my own, I tried to find my purpose because so much of my life felt unfulfilled. I was convinced that the life I was living wasn’t the life I was supposed to be living, so I began my journey to change it. An experiment of sorts that could up-level my life, but not without the risks of losing the life I had found comfort in.

Bottom line, however you want to look at your gifts, the world needs them. It will be scary to share them, but it will be the most rewarding thing you can do for yourself.

3. What do you love doing?

I can meet with a friend and identify their gift within minutes. Whether it’s being a nurse, managing/investing money, gardening, skincare, singing, painting, dancing. Chances are, you already know what your gift is because it’s the one thing you could spend hours doing and enjoy every second of it. Something that never feels like work. Something you’ve gone back to since you were younger. Something that ignites you from within.

I knew writing was my purpose when I went through a major depression in my late twenties. For months, I tried everything to change the way I felt until one day, I got out my laptop and created the very blog I’m typing on. I would spend hours writing and as I began to write, I began to feel like myself again.

Most people find their gifts through their hobbies unaware they can use their gifts as their pathway to abundance. Some are lucky enough to find their gift by doing it on the side while they work their job until they can’t keep up with their work and decide to take the plunge.

A question you can ask yourself is what do you find yourself circling back to no matter the amount of time passed? If you can’t see it for youself, ask those close to you. Your ego will keep your gift hidden if you let it. Your gift will always be a service that you can provide for others.

4. What can you be paid for?

I have a friend who loves plants. When I see his plants in photos, I can feel the love and nuture he gives them. I remember meeting up with him for lunch one day and he told me he had a plant for me. I immediately told him that I couldn’t accept it. Considering how much love and time he put in to growing his plants, I knew I would kill his plant by that afternoon. I couldn’t live with that kind of pressure. However, as time went on, I began warming up to the idea to buy some plants for my house so I called him and told him I was ready.

As we were sitting accross from each other at lunch, he was telling me how he was thinking of finding a new job. I questioned why he hadn’t thought about selling his plants and as quickly as I asked, he began to list out reasons why he couldn’t.

As I challenged his list of negative thoughts, we somehow were able to map out a business plan that would have cost him less than $500 dollars total to start his business. If he took that small (but what can often feel like the biggest risk) success would follow. For his gift, he is sharing his love with the world though his passion. You see, plants give + recieve energy- in his case, that energy is love. How beautiful is that?

Everyone of us has a roadmap. Once we decide to start living out our purpose, it’s almost never going to be the what we envisioned it to be but it will get you to where you need to go. Trust yourself + the universe that your purpose will become the blueprint to your abundant life.

& If you’re not sure what your purpose is, this is a good indicator to spend more time with yourself. Get to know the parts of you that bring joy in to your life. Then go back to the four items above and ask yourself: What would happen if I didn’t try pursuing my purpose (are you happy in all areas of your life now?) Then ask yourself what would happen if you made changes? (How would it impact your life to pursue your purpose?) Next do a risk assessment. For me, going back to my old life was never an option—so welcome to my journey of Option #2.

If you would like additional help finding your purpose, feel free to check out my other post here.