Part II — Defining your personal “Why”
Advice to find your Life Purpose and pursue it to find fulfillment.
Finding your Life Purpose
“He who has a Why can endure any How.” — Frederick Nietzsche, German philosopher
I love this Venn diagram for Life Purpose, your “Why”. You have to find a cross section between your skills, passions, core values and god given talents and gifts. So many great quotes on this:
“Whatever your life work, do it well. Do it so well that no one else could do it better. If it falls on your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures, like Shakespeare wrote poetry, like Beethoven composed music; sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will have to pause and say, ‘Here lived a great street sweeper.” — Martin Luther King Jr.
“You have a sacred calling; the question is, will you take the time to heed that call? Will you blaze your own path? You are the author of your own life. Don’t let another define it for you. Real power comes by doing what you are meant to be doing, and doing it well.” — Oprah Winfrey
“The purpose of life is a life of purpose.” ― Robert Bryne
That is my favorite. The most courageous act of your life will be to quietly pursue your life’s purpose everyday, in everything you do. Your work — the service you provide, no matter how humble it may be — can fulfill your Life Purpose. Work connects you to your larger community and allows you to make a positive impact on the world. Do not take yourself or your work, for granted. If pursuing your Life Purpose, your “why” is so important, then I offer the following advice to find yours.
Skills and Talents determine what people will pay you to do, whether the compensation is monetary, sweat equity or giving of their own time, talents and money to your cause depending on the purpose you are pursuing.
In my opinion, this Venn Diagram is the ideal visualization of a proper Life Purpose. Passions and Values may change as you mature or reach different stages in your life, but fulfillment and happiness follow their alignment. As your life changes, it is important to revisit these from time to time.
Skills are different than talents. Skills are things you have developed through training, experience and exposure. With a well defined Life Purpose, you can focus your efforts to develop skills that expand you why.
Talents & Gifts are things that you are born with a natural affinity for. Maybe math and problem solving was super easy for you, and engineering is your ideal fit. Maybe you ooze with charisma and have the “gift of gab” and sales is your calling. Most people find their talents naturally, but you can always experiment and job shadow to find how this translate into work.
Passions and Core Values encompass your personal connection to what you are doing. You have 30,000 days of your life (assuming avg 82 years on this planet) and of that, only 80,000 hours typically dedicated to your career.
Passions are the fuel for purpose. Passion energizes you to pursue your purpose. Think of a time when you have dug deep and went out of your way without the necessary pursuit of monetary compensation. Passion controls your emotions. Our passions keep us engaged with fulfilling our life purpose. Take caution though; allowing passion to control your actions entirely can lead to burnout, making dangerous quick decisions or other mistakes.
Core Values keep passion “in check” and ensure our actions pursue a path toward fulfilling our purpose. Core values are essential truths that a company or person hold in the highest regard. Betraying these will give you a knot in your stomach and following them makes you sleep better at night. We will dive more into defining your Core Values and some exercises I recommend in the next post of this series.
Personal Insights.
Aligning Passion and Core Values is THE most important thing you can do in your life to ensure you fulfill your life purpose.
When we find ourselves learning skills that don’t align with our natural talents, we may struggle to find success, like a constant uphill climb. But you can still be “good enough” and find fulfilment if passion and core values are aligned. Developing skills around our talents allows you to focus on building upon your strengths, not fixing your weaknesses. This is not only much easier; it will allow you to be “great”.
Aligning Passion and Core Values is THE most important thing you can do in your life to ensure you fulfill your life purpose. Becoming passionate about something that doesn’t align with your core values (i.e. pursuing wealth at the expense of integrity) will cause stress that you cannot easily ignore. Core Values are the foundation of your Life Purpose. When you focus on work (skills and talents) that go against your core values, you create a disruptive state of internal conflict on the deepest level. You will know, deep down, in the pit of your stomach, in the back of your mind; that it isn’t right. This type of internal conflict can literally lead to mental health issues, as studied by Harvard Health. Commonly, this is depression, and if left unchecked, can have long lasting and far reaching effects on your personal life and career. Finding harmony with our core values, passion and gifts is where you find work that you will truly love. I believe this is why many people feel dissatisfied and unfulfilled with life even when they have a lot to feel good about. A seemingly perfect career and personal life, yet someone who feels depressed and/or stressed out and can’t figure out why. The why in this case is their lack of understanding their own “why”.
This is an art, not a science, an art of thought and self reflection. It does not happen in a single 30 minute exercise. Defining your life purpose is a lifelong pursuit in itself. Reflect as you take your shower, commute to work, quietly rest in a park, as you exercise or as you fall asleep. Put the phone down, turn the TV off, spend some time practicing the easiest form of meditation, self reflection. Then constantly challenge yourself to question every choice you make in life and career with ‘What if?” and “Why not?”
Follow me on Medium or Twitter to get updates on parts III and IV which compliment this post as a guide to offer exercises to identify your core values and establish your company’s purpose. If you haven’t read the first post in this series already, check out Part I — Why you’ve got culture all wrong.
