Happy New Year! 2023 is a blank page. Now is the time to start living your life purpose! But if you knew your life purpose, would you really take the steps to live it?
Let me start by asking if you know anyone who is living their life purpose? I know a fair few people who are and it’s not all sunshine and rainbows. Just because we choose to live our purpose doesn’t mean our life suddenly gets to be easy. Living our life purpose can be the most fulfilling thing in life. It can bring us the joy and satisfaction we have always yearned for. But sometimes living our purpose can challenge us more than we had anticipated.
Have you ever wondered or made attempts to find out what your life purpose is? You wouldn’t be alone. Many of us at some point in our life, usually when we are feeling dissatisfied with our jobs, start to wonder what we are here to do and whether there is something else that would be more fulfilling. I spent much of my 20s and 30s looking for my own life purpose, and I’ve coached many clients looking for their own. In this blog I’ll show you four things that will stop you from living your life purpose.
Think back to a time you found yourself in a challenging situation. Perhaps you tried to do something about it yourself, or asked for advice from someone you know had been through a similar experience. Yet once you had this knowledge, you didn’t do anything about the situation you found yourself in. Maybe you’re still waiting to do something about the situation or secretly hoping it will disappear!
Finding our life purpose is one of those challenges. Many of us are in jobs that we don’t find satisfying or fulfilling. We know that what we are waking up to each day is not what we are here for. There is something more. But we’re not entirely sure what. So we start to search and find out what we are here for. But there is something stopping us from taking that important step to start living the purpose we have found.
There are many reasons someone doesn’t live their life purpose. It’s different for each individual, but I will touch on four things that will stop you from living your life purpose. These are things that I have come across in my own life and whilst coaching clients:
Not feeling worthy;
Lack of knowledge;
Fear of change; and
Needing validation from others.
Not feeling worthy
Were you ever told as a child that you didn’t deserve something, a toy, a playdate, or a day out perhaps? Did you ever grow up feeling criticised or belittled by those around you? Were you ever told you were being a bit loud and distracting? Experiences like this can affect our self esteem and worthiness. We learn to play small in the world in case we upset those around us. We keep our dreams modest so that we don’t bring attention to ourselves. We follow what everyone else in society is doing so that we don’t stand out.
If we don’t feel worthy or deserving enough to follow what our purpose is, it will stop us in our tracks. Worthiness is an inside job, and only you can work on increasing your feelings of worthiness so that you can start to live out your life purpose. Feeling worthy of what our life purpose is can determine whether we live our life purpose or not.
I’ll share an example. When I first started coaching I felt so satisfied with what I was doing, I felt fulfilled and glad I had found my purpose. But I also began to feel unworthy of the happiness this purpose was giving me. When I spoke about this to other coaches, they shared similar experiences. It was almost as if to find any joy in what we were doing, we had to be doing something that felt like a struggle! Could it really be this easy to do something that brought joy every day?
When we are living our life purpose, we are in alignment with what our Soul has been sent here to do. We may meet some challenges along the way, but knowing and living your purpose is one of the easiest ways to bring happiness and joy into your every day life. You just have to believe you are worthy and deserving of living life in that way.
Lack of Knowledge
Finding out our life purpose is one thing, but if we have been on a path in life that has taken us in a completely different direction, we may start to feel ill-equipped and experience self doubt.
When I was working in the finance industry, I had colleagues who had resigned themselves to working in the corporate world until they were ready to retire even though their interests were elsewhere. I asked why they didn’t want to pursue the things that they found more satisfying and fulfilling. The answer surprised me. Some of them were afraid of losing the knowledge they had gained over the years. Some of them were afraid to go back to education or take part time courses in order to follow their passions.
If you know that you have a purpose in life, but you know that you don’t have the knowledge or skills to start pursuing it, there is only one remedy. Start learning. Take the course that will give you the knowledge and skills you need. Find the mentor who can give you advice and tips on how to progress on your path. Find a community of like-minded people who are either on a similar journey, or working towards the same goal. Find out what they are doing and start to implement those tasks, actions and behaviours into your own life.
We have access to so much information, literally at our fingertips. Lack of knowledge no longer has to be a barrier to you living your life purpose.
Fear Of Change
When we’ve known a certain way of living or working our entire lives, it can feel daunting to change direction in order to live our purpose. Not only do we want to feel confident in what we are moving towards, but we also want to feel secure that we are doing the right thing. Letting our fear of change overwhelm us can see us staying where we are in life.
Living our life purpose can be uncomfortable. We may have to learn new skills. We may have to move locations. We may have to quit our job. We may need to become a better version of ourself. We may have to leave behind relationships and situations that will not support us in living our purpose. And all of this can be scary.
None of us are immune to getting comfortable in our lives. We are creatures of habit and it’s easier to stick with what we know rather than go with what we don’t. Especially when it comes to purpose. Finding out what you are here for can be overwhelming, especially if it is something you are unfamiliar with. That means having to leave your comfort zone. It means having to step into a place you may never have been. And sometimes the very thought of that can stop you from taking that important step to following your life purpose.
Needing Validation From Others
Now comes one of the biggest reasons people don’t follow their life purpose! A lot of people stop themselves from living their life purpose because they still need validation from the people in their lives. Their parents, their partner, their peers, their friends, even their children.
Can you remember a time where you did something in your life, perhaps took a promotion a work, and did it purely because you wanted to? Or did you take it because it was the right thing to do? That it made financial sense for your family. Or that it would make your parents proud. When we live for the validation of others, it can keep us on a path that we find unfulfilling and draining.
When we make changes in our life that we are excited about, we want our loved ones to feel excited for us and be supportive. As much as they may love this new revived you, they are more concerned with how the bills will be paid or whether you will have time for them if you are following you life purpose. They want to know whether life will remain mostly the same or whether you are planning on abandoning everything in your life to pursue this newfound purpose. It’s not that they don’t want the best for you, but they want the best for them even more!
We are raised to believe that our life purpose should be the thing that we do for work, the thing that pays the bills. It should be the thing that we get up for every day. The thing we do before we collapse at the end of the day and go back to sleep. But that isn’t the case. Our life purpose could be something that is a hobby or activity we do which gives us a respite from our daily work. Our life purpose could be ‘how’ we are here to do things. Our life purpose could simply to be the best version of ourselves and show others how to live as their authentic selves.
Society has inflated life purpose to be a mirage that is out there if we search hard enough. Your life purpose is already written on your Soul. It’s up to you to find it, and if you do, please make sure that you live it. Don’t let it be something that you stumble upon and then push to the side because it’s too difficult, or it upsets the status quo in your life. Each of us has a part to play in the fabric of society and we are doing ourselves and each other a disservice if we decide to keep that purpose hidden in the shadows.
If you would like to know more about how to find your life purpose and would like support in doing so, please book a Discovery Call with me.
H x
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