Do You Know Your Purpose in Life?
Do you know what your purpose in life is? How would you like to find out? And then once you found out how would you like to be guided by that purpose to create the life you desire.
Most true creators are guided by a mysterious thing called “purpose”. They follow their purpose and create lives that are filled with value and splendor.
We all want a purpose, yet to many it seems like an all-important unobtainable thing. So how do you find your prupose in life?
First, accept that it may take time to find your purpose in life. It may reauire trial and error before you get it right. Mistakes are a great way to uncover your purpose because you have the opportunity to find out what you like and don’t like. After many, “don’t likes”, and “why do I keep doing the same things over an over again”, comes a time of personal freedom and peace. Once you figure out what’s not working, you can make room for what does work.
Second, believe that you will know when you find it. How will you know? You will feel it in the pit of your stomach. It’s something that feels so right that you can’t imagine doing anything else. And, you will feel a strange “high” when you’re doing it. This “high” feeling may even frighten you. Don’t be afraid, it’s your inner power talking to you, letting you know that you are doing the right thing.
Third, you know you have found your purpose in life when it doesn’t revolve around you. It’s not the bigger house or the shiny new car that will make you happy. These are just goals, but they are not a substitute for your purpose in life. Your purpose in life will bring you happiness and that happiness only comes when serving and contributing to other people’s lives and making a difference for others. We were put on this earth to help each other, and that is the greatest feeling of all!
So, How Do You Create Your Purpose? Ask yourself these following questions – the answers will lead straight to your purpose:
“Who Am I”?
What kind of person are you? What’s been true of you since you were younger? Write down all the attributes that you can think of that are truly you. List the things you naturally have learned and developed over the years. You probably take these things for granted, not recognizing them for the special, significant and unique gifts they actually are.“What Do I Love To Do?”
What do you absolutely, truly enjoy doing in your life? Consider the gifts that have helped make doing those special things possible. Your purpose will involve doing something that you love.“What Experiences In Life Are Really Fulfilling For Me?”
Look for the times in your life that are fulfilling for you. These are times when you are just being yourself. Consider, what is it like for you while you are doing those things? What are you feeling? What’s important, special or meaningful for you? These answers hold the key to what you should be doing with your life.“What Is My Purpose In Life?”
Once your purpose becomes clearer, create a purpose statement. A Purpose Statement contains: an action, a focus, and an intended impact. Once you write it down, you have a roadmap to follow.“Who Can I Tell?”
Speaking your purpose will bring it into reality; and once you tell people, it becomes real. Plus, you’ll have the support of those around you who want to encourage you to live that purpose to its fullest extent.
And what if you’ve done all this work and it hasn’t come to you yet? Be patient, it will. We were all created for a reason. And, if you are determined to find your purpose, it will come your way. When something that strong is in your heart, it’s only a matter of time before you discover it. The answer is found within; it’s just a matter of time, before you can begin to create the life you truly desire.
A Has Was Once An Are
“I’d rather be a could-be if I cannot be an are; because a could-be is a maybe who is reaching for a star. I’d rather be a has-been than a might-have-been, by far; for a might-have-been has never been, but a has was once an are.”
-Milton Berle
Oh, that we would all do what we want to do or even dream about. I have often looked back on my life and wondered why I did or didn’t do a certain thing. Although I’m afraid, most of the time I am wondering to myself why I didn’t do a certain thing.
It’s not that I didn’t want to do it, or that I wasn’t capable of doing it, but that I just didn’t do it. The many things that I could have done, or should have done, or might have done just keep piling up. And when I look back I get sick to my stomach just to think about it. I hate the “I could have” or “I should have” thoughts.
Go to any health club and ask one of the trainers what the busiest time of year is, they will all tell you that the busiest time of year is January. Why? Because everyone is making a New Year’s resolutions to get fit and trim. They go religiously to the Gym on the first of the year and start fresh to get fit and trim. They do it with all the vim and vigor of a fresh new start. They try with all their might to keep to it, only to fall back to the old habits by February. Another “would have” “could Have”.
One year I said to myself that I would record an album for that year. I sing, many people have asked me over the years when I was going to or if I was ever going to record an album. They’d surely buy it if I did. Well that year came and went and NO album. Funny thing is, not even a single song was recorded.
I have so many excuses why it didn’t happen – but who cares about why it didn’t happen. The fact is it didn’t happen. I can’t go back and make it happen – into the past that is. I could have made it happen then but I can’t go back and make it happen in the past now. I can only be in charge of what happens in my life now.
That’s just the point – your now’s create your futures. Your has was once an are. And only you can decide what your has-beens or was’s were/are. Understand? Only you can choose. Only you.
And along with that if you are not happy with what is – you must recognize it was you who chose you to be right there. Only you. Play the blame game. Go ahead and point your finger at someone else for your discontent. Go right ahead, but no matter how much blaming and finger pointing you do – the truth is still the truth. You chose – only you!
Get it? Got it! Good!
Creators Create Because They Love
Creators create because they love.
Let me explain: Have you ever been in love? I mean, have you ever been truly in love with someone else?
When you love someone with great passion you don’t want to let them alone. You don’t want to be away from them or leave them for long periods of time. No, in fact, quite the contrary, you can’t stand to be away from that person. You do whatever you can to spend your time with that person.
You watch what you say, what you do, and how you behave. You do nice things, you are careful because you don’t want that person to get upset with you or to be offended by anything you say or do. You do only what is necessary to have the romance blossom and grow. Things that would cause the relationship to be cold or distant you avoid at all costs.
The very same thing happens between a creator and a creation. A creator desires to bring the creation into existence. The creator loves the creation.
There have been other words used to describe this like, buy in, or empowerment, or take responsibility for, or accountable for, but I like to use the word love the best.
When the relationship is like being in love a creator treats the creation with careful preciseness. The creation lives because the creator loves it.
I do not think a creator can create a creation that he does not love, or at best the creation will not reach its potential. That is where procrastination comes into play. But when there is a passionate love for the creation the creator will at all costs create the creation.
A creation that is passionately loved by its creator is never left alone. It is constantly on the mind of the creator. Creators rise early to work on the creation and retire late, if at all.
In a recent article written by Robert Ringer he wrote about John Britten, I think he said it best:
“John Britten, was born with a serious learning disability that made reading extremely difficult. Not able to learn in conventional schools, Britten attended night school and eventually earned an engineering degree from Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology. His determination to earn a degree — and, more important, gain precious knowledge — was a sign of things to come.
Britten was a quiet, unassuming, totally focused individual. Some years before I met him, he began building, of all things, a futuristic motorcycle in his garage. His stated goal was to win the prestigious Battle of the Twins international cycle race in Daytona Beach, Florida.
His cutting-edge cycle involved over 6,000 parts, most of which Britten hand-made. With the notable exception of the engine, his extraordinary machine was constructed primarily of carbon fiber, a first for the motorcycle industry.
He had dedicated helpers who worked for free, mostly at night, while holding down full-time jobs during the day. Incredibly, the actual cost of Britten’s masterpiece was not more than a few hundred dollars, while many large corporate sponsors spent several million dollars on their entries.
Working while others slept was a Britten norm that was accepted by those who agreed to become involved in his projects. Toiling around the clock became his trademark. Anything short of a superhuman pace would have made it impossible for him to build his one-of-a-kind cycle from scratch in just under eleven months, barely finishing in time for the Battle of the Twins.
With just three weeks to go before the big race, Britten’s carbon-fiber cycle crashed while being tested. It was a cruel blow, a bad break that everyone agreed Britten didn’t deserve. The task of locating and correcting the problem, then repairing the bike, seemed insurmountable — but Britten and his crew again managed to overcome all obstacles, and arrived in Daytona just in time.
Then, during the qualifying run, disaster again struck. Just twelve hours before race time, a hairline crack in a cylinder sleeve — one of the few parts Britten had not built himself — threatened to end his bid for the unofficial world championship for twin-cylinder motorcycles. Britten’s reaction? After tireless but fruitless efforts to find the right spare part in the Daytona area, Britten, who had no previous experience in welding cylinder sleeves, repaired the broken part himself.
By race time, Britten had been awake forty-seven hours straight. But, as events unfolded, it looked as though the monumental effort by him and his team would finally pay off. Once again, however, like a scene out of a depressing movie, bad luck reared its ugly head. With Britten’s cycle leading the pack, rain forced an end to the race one lap from the finish, which meant the entire race had to be run over.
In the restarted race, Britten’s cycle again led the pack most of the way, until — you guessed it — yet another non-Britten-built part, a faulty rectifier, halted his bid for victory once and for all. John Britten had captured the admiration of the racing world, but had failed to come home with a trophy.
But when he returned to New Zealand, he didn’t waste time focusing on the bad breaks he had experienced in Daytona. Instead, he went right back to work, rebuilt his handcrafted motorcycle, and returned to Daytona the next year. This time, he finally won the Battle of the Twins championship, a Rocky Balboa finish if there ever was one.
The victory doesn’t end there. The first commercial version of the Britten motorcycle sold for a record $140,000. Not a bad return on the few hundred dollars he had spent on the design and construction of the original model. “
You see, John Britten loved his creation. He was willing to fight through whatever, doing whatever it took in order for his creation to live, to exist.
True creators passionately love their creations. And understand this also, just as a lover will not do anything to offend his partner so too a creator will only do what is necessary to bring the creation into existence.
Too many people don’t understand that principle. Too many think that creation is about how one can use creative techniques and principles. They expand their imagination by “creative” problem solving, or thinking outside the box, or idea generating, or mind-mapping, or other solutions to creatively “freeing the mind” and creatively “breaking through” barriers and obstacles that stand in the way.
Even though many of these principles and schools of thought can be involved in creating they are not necessary to create. It is not about creative problem solving or how to increase your imagination to generate a myriad of never before thought of creative alternatives. It’s about loving your creation.
Why, you will come to see that those very approaches leave out the most important and ultimately essential question of the entire creative process: “What is it that I desire to create?” or even better, “What do I love so much I want to bring into existence?”
The originality, the artistic, the fanciful and inventiveness that spring from the creative process is not brought about by coming up with new ideas that are “outside the box”. Nor does creativity come about by generating many new unheard of alternatives or generating new paths to solve old problems. In fact, it is something quite different.
Through these past years I have had occasion to sit in psychologist’s offices and hear the doctors say, “Michael does things that are so original and unusual, he is so creative. If we could only encourage it, bottle it up and give it to all our patients, then all our patients would be more original and creative.”
I hope to teach you that the path to get to the creation is important, but the creative person isn’t so much worried about the path, but more intently focused on the end result: the creation. True creators don’t worry so much about the process but more about the results.
True creators love the creation so much they want to bring it into existence. I know I keep saying that, because it is absolutely true.
Here is an example I hope will make it more clear: What if Michelangelo worried more about the process and took this approach while painting the famous painting of “The Creation of Adam” can you imagine the result?
“Hmm, let’s see.” He says, “How many different ways can I paint Adam’s hand? Let me try doing it with watercolor, now charcoal, now lets try different sizes, a baby’s hand, now a grown man’s. Now let me try it on different canvases, paper, parchment, a stone wall, a ceiling?” If he had taken that approach he might have never finished the painting, and if he had finished, it would have been a hodgepodge of different alternatives.
Truly modern art, but far from the masterpiece he actually did create. Far from the creation that he obviously poured his whole heart and soul into, the creation that he no doubt loved.
Creative people who really know the creative process might over many years of experiments and experiences use many different methods and techniques to learn and grow in their varied disciplines. That’s called practicing their craft.
But when it comes to creating the creator asks the most important question that can be asked, “What would I love to create?” And then with an economy of means employs only those techniques and methods that will bring the creation into existence as effectively and efficiently as possible.
Each of us, individually, have the power to be creators. Even those of you who think you are not creative. I am going to prove to you that you do in truth have the power to create. You have the power to create anything you desire to create.
It’s not about being artistic or painting paintings, or making sculptures, or singing or dancing; it’s about creating. It’s about loving. If you can love, you can create.
MUST DO
I have a bunch of quotes printed up on my wall where I work. One of my favorites is a quote I have attributed to Walt Disney that says, “If you can dream it, you can do it.” I love that quote. Another favorite one is by Charles Spurgeon which says, “By perseverance the snail reached the ark.” That one makes me chuckle, but it’s oh so true – that’s how anything worthwhile has ever come about; by perseverance.
There is one quote that I particularly like that I would like to spend the remainder of this article discussing. I don’t know who said it. I’ve done a search on the Internet to see who might have originally said it and I have not found a source. Here’s the quote:
“If you want what you’ve never had you must do what you’ve never done.”
Nearly every time I read this my head begins to reel with woulda-coulda-shoulda’s. I have had tons of great ideas throughout the years, and I know that many of them would have made me very wealthy. So why am I not very wealthy? Because I didn’t do what was required in order to succeed at whatever the great idea was.
It’s the “MUST DO” part that I fail at. Now don’t get me wrong, I do stuff, even stuff that gets me closer to my desired objective. The problem is that I don’t do what “must” be done.
You see there is a law that works 100% of the time. It is the law of cause and effect, otherwise known as the law of the harvest, which states that what you sow you will reap. If you plant corn seeds you get corn plants not coconut trees.
That is what I was doing, I was planting the wrong seeds. XYZ idea required XYZ actions. I was ABC actions and expecting XYZ objective. You know the definition of insanity don’t you? Doing what you’ve always done and expecting different results.
I was insane.
Sound familiar? Or maybe you are as diluted as I am and convinced yourself that you indeed were planting XYZ seeds. Be honest, did you really? Or did you do what I did? I planted an X seed or an XY seed and tried to pass it off as a XYZ seed.
The law of the harvest is precise. Plant corn get corn. It really doesn’t get any more complicated than that. But like I said, we try to pass off what must be done with other stuff and expect our results to be our objective.
Buckminster Fuller said,”You never change the existing reality by fighting it. Instead, create a new model that makes the old one obsolete.”
If your existing reality isn’t what you were expecting stop fooling yourself. Realize that you are doing the wrong things. Start doing the thing that “must” be done to bring about your desired creation. And then stick to it until it becomes the reality you desire.
Easier said than done, I know, but that is the way these universal laws work. Remember they work 100% of the time too. There is no fooling them, or side stepping them.
 Today I want you to pick out one objective (creation) that you can focus you attention on.FOCUS – Follow One Course Until SuccessfulNow, focus on it and do what you “MUST DO” to create it. Nothing wavering. Onward! |
To your creations,
Michael Claridge
How To Determine What You Want to Create in Your Life
What do you really want to create?
Most people don’t discover what they want to create until it’s time to die – and that’s a shame.
Most people spend the best years of their lives watching television or doing things they dislike. An author described humanity by saying, “Most people die at twenty and are buried at eighty.” Are you one of the living zombies?
What do you really want to create?
Some people struggle in answering this question. When asked what they want or what their goals in life are, many are unsure. They dillydally in their decision, hardly giving any thought about what they want. They live their life on auto-pilot – never realizing they have the power to create whatever they desire.
They are people without definite goals, or plans, or ideas and are letting time pass them by. Are you one of these people?
If you are undecided about what you want to create in your life, do not worry. There are many ways of discovering your purpose in life.
To discover what you want to create, try looking deep into your heart. Oftentimes, people are ruled by logic. People live by what they think they should be or by what others would like them to be.
The discovery process is the perfect time to listen to your heart. What your heart desires comes from the whispers of your authentic self. Your authentic self is the real you; the creator.
Listen to your heart to be able to listen to your authentic self. What your heart says usually feels right. What your heart desires is what you usually love. And what you love represents your passion, and most often your passion is what you want to create. Anything done with passion is like play where the task is accomplished without hesitation. You pour out your very best and feel no pressure or resistance. You create the creation you are passionate about.
You will totally enjoy creating things that are your passion. Setbacks, difficulties, and obstacles will arise and make it more challenging, but should not deter you from pursuing your goals.
Naturally, there may be barriers that may prevent you from reaching your goal, but your heart’s desire will find ways to overcome these barriers so that you may ultimately create what you want to create.
Remember this: the universe supports people who are pursuing their passion and those who are pursuing their destiny. The earth was created by a creator.
However, this does not mean that you don’t use your head. People are born with both the mind and heart. Your duty is to live your best life and be in harmony with your mind and heart.
The poet Rumi wisely said, “Live completely in the head and you cannot feel the breath and rhythm of life. Live completely in the heart and you may find yourself acting like a love-struck fool with poor judgment and discipline. It’s all a fine balance – the head and heart must forge a lifetime partnership if one wants to live a beautiful life.”
Listen to your inner voice. Your authentic self communicates with you and guides you via an inner voice. They are those gentle nudges that urge you to act and follow a certain path. Your role then is to listen attentively.
Often times, we listen to what others say and allow them to run our lives. Parents often do this to their children. “We come from a family of doctors, so my son must also be a doctor.” How often do we hear this from parents who have good intentions for their children?
Parents unconsciously block the true expression of their child’s real self and calling. Friends and critics will discourage you and point out the impossibility of your dream. Before heeding their advice, evaluate the accomplishments of the critics. Did they achieve theirs dreams? Do they dream big at all?
Remember, it is your destiny that is in line, not theirs. It doesn’t mean, though, that you will not listen to what other people say. Hear them out just the same. But the final decision should be yours.
There is only thing to remember: Every person, to live truly and greatly, must define how he wants to live and what his brightest life will look like. Listen to your instincts and follow your heart’s desire. You will never go wrong. Set out to create – and do so: create creations!
