Finding purpose - what it means to us?

Why are we living if we do not live with a meaningful purpose? Mind-you, not just any purpose, but purpose that stays true and meaningful to you. A purpose you wake up to, not because you had to, but because you WANT to.

I, myself is a victim of lost and purposelessness. Finding purpose, is the journey I would like to invite every readers here to take on with me. With more than just hope - your effort counts as we embark this journey together. There are so much things I tried, internal conversations in my head, talking to strangers for inspiration from their stories, in order to figure out my meaningful purpose.

You're racing against yourself, not everyone else. - Nathaniel Drew

Pursuing the wrong idea of finding purpose

For years and years, I'm on the pursuit of happiness as pursuing my purpose. It was never really "there" to be pursue. Chasing the next big milestone, signing myself up for exhilaration and watching how to find happiness YouTube videos. It came to my realization that happiness requires intentional realization. The act of realizing and acknowledging personal happiness in the moment is where happiness appears. If you keep on pursuing happiness in the next second, you've missed the happiness that had came upon you at this very moment because the mind is so worried and occupied.

Pursuing purpose is what it is.

Embrace happiness as it comes, every moment of it.

Now, I'm a strong believer of finding purpose instead of finding happiness. My observation tells me people with purposeful living are generally happier. They are happy with what they do because that's their purpose. Not all of them are rich, but all of them are happier.

I would be lying if I say money is not part of the happiness equation. It certainly is. However with the right purpose, money comes easily along with the aspiration and motivation to execute. I want to find mine with Grow Within.

How do we go about finding our meaningful purpose?

I am guilty of this, and not a guru. This is also a guide to myself and all of the readers as we embark on the journey to finding our own purpose.

1. Trying everything.

Quite literally and straightforward. Try everything. If possible, try it for an extended amount of time and decide if it's worthy of continuing. Have a very honest conversation with yourself.

How are we expect to know if we are meant to do a particular thing if we had never tried it ? This step is easier said than done. We always give ourselves excuses to not do new things with plenty of reasons such as "not having enough time", "maybe next time" or "I'm worried that..." .

Do not put off trying new things in your life if you're finding purpose. There's a reason why we have not found our purpose. We have not seen and tried enough to discover them. Schedule in the next new thing you want to do in your calendar or record it in your journal, then make time for it.

The more you try, the more you learn about yourself and hopefully, come across the north star of your purpose.

2. Be ready to let go and make sacrifices

This point came to me as a realistic punch in my face. I am currently in a position where I am sacrificing a part of my life before trying new things, and to make room for actually trying new things (translates into finding purpose). Spending time with this blog is my new thing, and it is what I think my purpose would be. I am spending my time here to write down thought processes to help myself and my readers to find the meaningful purpose. I indeed have take some time from my family, friends and my pets to make personal progress. Sacrifices sounds like a lot of cons, but with cons, it has its pros.

Managing yourself and your mind first, and it would bear greater outcome to your loved ones around you. Bring the best self out with great communication, good mood, and clear sense of direction in life as the outcome of sacrifices to the people around you. It is almost inequivalent to spend time with your loved ones if the time spent is bad quality time.

Be good, and offer good around you!

3. Be kind - be compassionate - be forgiving to yourself

This point is huge for those out there who has always been critical to themselves. Remember this, do not beat yourself up. If you're a confident person, you are already ahead to have a strong mindset to hold yourself up. For those who don't, be very nice to yourself. I've learnt this from Campbell Walker's book (aka Youtuber "Struthless).

Imagine "adult you" (you today), talking to "kid you" (your impersonation of 5 years old you). Would you go about scolding "kid you" for getting a terrible grade in school something nasty like "You're so stupid, why don't you do this and not that, won't you have known...? etc. etc.".

NO!  

Of course the hell not. Then, why would you do that to yourself now whenever you made a poor decision?! Talk to yourself nicely like how you would with a kid.

This hits me particularly close to heart as I also have forgotten how to treat myself less harshly. We as adults are often victims of setting expectations for ourselves and beating ourselves up whenever we failed in something we are doing. There is nothing wrong with failing and we learnt a thing or two from there. Every failure is a step of realizing something about yourself. That is also part of the process in finding meaningful purpose!

Every forgiveness you present yourself is an opportunity to rise again to take on new challenges, trying new things, building confidence to do what you love.