How To: Find Your Life Purpose

Let's talk about life purpose.

And if you've been feeling lost or like you're wasting time or overwhelmed with your purpose or late in finding your purpose,

This session is for you.

And I want you to know you can find it at any age and any stage in life.

Here's the thing.

I believe that the reason so many of us have gotten so overwhelmed with trying to find our purpose is because of this terrible personal growth myth.

One that's taught us to look for our purpose everywhere except for where life purpose actually lives.

And in this session,

I'm going to teach you a perspective shift that will show you how to finally start getting clear on what your purpose truly is.

Whether you're over 50 and feel like you still haven't got it figured out or you're younger and you're just starting or you feel like your purpose keeps changing with your life or you have so many talents that you don't know what to choose.

I've got a teaching today and a practice that will help you get clear.

I also got a couple songs for you.

And as I do in every session,

An invitation to take this deeper if this feels useful to you.

Are you ready?

Okay,

Let's dive in.

Here's the biggest perspective shift you can make to get clear on your life purpose.

Your life purpose is not a noun.

Your life purpose is a verb.

Let me say that again.

Your purpose is not a noun.

Your purpose is a verb.

So your purpose cannot be to be a mom because you could be a mom and be a mean and aggressive mom and cause trauma to your kids the whole time or your purpose is not some job title that you have like to be a singer because we all know of famous singers and artists and actors and creative who seemed like they had it all but who we've lost because they were suffering behind the very roles that brought them fame and joy.

This is the biggest lie that we've been told about purpose that it's about the roles that we play but this has never been about your roles.

Purpose is not about roles.

So your purpose cannot be to be a teacher or a healer or a writer or a mom or a CEO or a yoga instructor or a coach or an artist.

None of those can be your purpose because those are all nouns.

Beautiful nouns but nouns can never be your purpose.

Your purpose on the other hand is the verb that you bring to everything you touch and everything you do.

Your verb is your frequency.

Your verb is the thing people feel when you walk into the room.

Your verb is the thing that moves through everything you do.

It's the energy that you bring and the reason so many of us feel so stuck trying to find our purpose is because we're trying to pick the right noun instead of the right verb and a verb is an action.

So for example you can say my purpose is to activate people to believe their dreams are possible.

My purpose is to help people see more of the world.

My purpose is to bring people together across divides.

My purpose is to inspire everyone I touch or my purpose is to bring intimacy and intentionality to every room that I enter.

Those are some of my purposes but before we get into a practice to help you find yours I want to share something special with you.

Here's a song that I wrote with this incredible indigenous artist named Alexis Saenz and this song is about remembering that you have always had a purpose and the way to find it is to be guided to remember who you truly are.

It's okay no no no they cannot erase who you are.

So sometimes in our lives we forget that we have a purpose that's always been inside of us and it's not about figuring out what it is.

It's about remembering the energy that has been wanting to come through us the whole time.

Sing this with us.

It's okay they are here we are here it's all right we are not giving up.

Let's begin our practice on life purpose.

The most important thing to know is that all of the roles you play teacher,

Artist,

Writer,

Parent,

Business owner,

Coach,

None of those things are your purpose but they can lead you to understanding your purpose more clearly.

So for this practice I want you to pick one role that you play that you like and then you can come back to this practice again and again for all of the different roles you play in your life to get clearer and clearer on your purpose.

Let's dive in.

Go ahead and place your hands over the center of your chest one over the other and close your eyes if you feel comfortable doing so.

Take a deep breath in and a breath out.

Now to the count of three inhale with me for one two three hold for one two three exhale one two three again inhale one two three hold for one two three exhale one two three one more time inhale one two three hold for one two three exhale one two and three and I'd like you to just breathe normally now and stay in this internal space and just think of one of the roles that you have in your life that you like one of the nouns you play in your life and for now just pick one thing and now imagine yourself doing this role to its fullest extent whatever it is you're doing it in a way that lights you up completely imagine yourself in the fullest most incredible expression of this role now now as you keep this role in mind ask yourself when I imagine myself doing this role in a way that lights me up what am I really doing underneath the role what am I bringing to the world through this role what am I really doing and then ask yourself what are you awakening in others as you do this role how are you serving the people around you through this role that you play and now take everything that's bubbling up for you here and see if you can sum up what's come to you in a short sentence or phrase and now you might notice that this sentence or statement of what you're really doing underneath your role or what you want to be doing actually might overlap with some of the other roles you play in your life let everything that's bubbling up for you land in your heart and when you're ready take a deep breath in and a deep breath out and softly and gently I invite you to open your eyes so this statement this phrase of what you started to come up with what's bubbling up for you is a part of the definition of your purpose but your purpose is not just this one thing and so you can imagine that with the different roles you play there might be some different definitions that will help you get an overarching picture of what your purpose truly is instead of trying to sum it up like capitalism would have us do in one sentence this is not a sales pitch this is your life purpose it's more complex than that and so I invite you to come back to this practice again and do it again with a different role if you'd like to find more nuance to describe your purpose more fully and I'd love I'd be so grateful if you share what came up for you in the comments because I love to hear about the purpose that is arising in all of you so now let's talk about how to take this deeper with some recommendations if you want to get clarity on how to start living your purpose so there are two things that I want to invite you into first I want to introduce you to my absolute favorite book on this topic it's called living a values-based life by Robert McPhee and it will teach you literally in a step by step process how to organize your life into sections so that you can actually start understanding your purpose from a 360 degree view of your life and it will actually give you a literal document by the time you're done working through this to keep you accountable so you know how to make choices in your life to know whether or not every decision you make is in alignment with your purpose or not it is so incredible and one of the best tools to make sure you not just know your purpose but you can actually start living it in a really meaningful way one thing to know for sure is when you have your purpose clear there ain't nothing you can't do and you will find that there ain't no mountain high enough to keep you from feeling connected and fulfilled in your life so let's join together and set that intention now listen baby ain't no mountain high ain't no valley low ain't no river wide enough baby if you need me call me no matter where you are no matter how far don't worry baby just call my name i'll be there in a hurry you don't have to worry because baby there ain't no mountain high enough ain't no valley low enough ain't no river wide enough to keep me from getting to you baby you know when you're living in your purpose there ain't no mountain high enough as long as you are of service as long as you're bringing the energy that you know you were meant to bring to this world there is nothing you can't accomplish so we're going to do this last chorus together and i want you to sing it with me as an ode as a manifestation of your purpose here we go baby there ain't no mountain high enough ain't no valley low enough wide enough to keep me from getting to you one more time and baby there ain't no mountain high enough ain't no valley low enough wide enough to keep me from getting to you babe so go ahead and place your hands over the center of your chest close your eyes with me and take a deep breath in and a deep breath out and ask yourself what's worth remembering from this session what is your golden nugget your key takeaway and when you have it just take a deep breath in and a breath out and when you're ready open your eyes and i would love it if you would type it into the comments here or if you're a member of our transform my life community open up the app and type it into the forum so i can see your comments i love seeing them so much my golden nugget actually comes from one of my favorite quotes from oprah's the wisdom of sunday's book by oprah herself and the quote is this the key to realizing a dream is to focus not on success but on service ask yourself what are the gifts and the talents that you can share to raise the collective consciousness of all that you encounter making that shift from self to service will bring in a measurable amount of fulfillment to your job to your relationships and to the vision you have for your own best life that's what oprah says and my purpose didn't show up for me when i chose a career even though i have a career i love it showed up when i chose the action and the energy i was going to give as my gift to others and to the world your purpose isn't what you do it's the energy you bring thank you so much for being with me in this session bye for now