How to find your purpose in 15 minutes or less

Are you wondering what you should be doing? Are you searching for a deeper, more meaningful existence? Do you desire to know what you are here for?

Finding your purpose has been a pretty hot topic in the personal growth arena for some time now. The general idea is that you will feel truly fulfilled when you find your purpose. It’s a pretty compelling notion.

I am often amazed at how complicated we make the quest – there are books and seminars and talks and tv shows about it, as if purpose is some elusive, rare butterfly.

Finding and living your purpose is actually quite easy once you truly understand what purpose is and how it is pursued.

Without an accurate understanding of what purpose is you can go on a wild goose chase – trying thing after thing after thing trying to find what it is you are “supposed” to do.

Let’s get clear on something – purpose is a package that consists of two parts:

• what
• how

When we talk about purpose it is very common to mistake the what and the how.

The of purpose, the meat of purpose, is the same for every single human being on this planet. Your purpose, my purpose, your neighbor’s purpose, everyone’s what, is to love. That’s it. Period.

Now that you know what your purpose is, the juicy question is:

How can I love in the  most personally fulfilling way possible?

What is so wonderful about getting clear about the difference between the what and the how is that you can do the what RIGHT NOW! You don’t have to wait to discover the ultimate how. You can fulfill your purpose by being love more and more and more each day. Just love.

What is so interesting, and beautiful, about this is that simply by doing the what the how begins to reveal itself. All you have to do is pay attention to flow.

Huh? Let me explain….

Think of flow as a great big “yes” from the Cosmos.

When you love, you will begin to experience more flow. Flow makes things magical. You’ll notice things like:

• weird synchronicities

• things getting easy

• being more creative

• increases in your energy

• having answers just pop right into your head

What you want to do is to begin to pay attention to the ways you are loving when these things happen – in other words, notice what is going on when flow appears. What are you doing, thinking, feel? Who are you with? What is the context?

For example: I created SuperNatural Energy Balls when I had a private practice doing BodyMind integration and consulting. I loved my work but was feeling ready for a change, I just wasn’t sure what it was. I put my feelers out in several directions but nothing really landed. So I began to pray and then just listen.

In a very short while, through circumstances that felt wholly unrelated to my career, I started making Energy Balls again after being away from them for a year or so. I called a client who loved them and asked if she’d like some. She enthusiastically said “Yes!”.  So I gave her some. Then she started to tell friends and I started getting calls. I was able to talk with people about all the things I love and spread vitality and make wonderful connection – in other words – FLOW opened up.

And like a big green GO sign from the cosmos I proceeded forward. Within 2 months of that first phone call I had secured investor funding and launched SuperNatural Energy, LLC.

Flow is like a trail of bread crumbs you simply follow and it will lead you to how you should be fulfilling your what. (Again, your what is to love.)

Following flow is also really beautiful because it filters things for us. What I mean is that most of us feel simply overwhelmed by all the things we could be doing and we get confused by this: “Should I pursue a degree in ________ or should I just start a non-profit or should I make art or should I climb the ladder at work or should I write a book?” You get the idea.

By following flow, the way we should be loving that is most fulfilling to us will reveal itself so there is nothing to worry about or figure out.

It’s really incredible. And quite the relief.

Our deepest talents and gifts and fulfillment all come to light, they all surface, by loving and then following the flow.

What I find so interesting is that this dynamic – this dance between what, flow, and how – is so perfect and so brilliant. You see, when you love and you follow flow you step onto a path that grows you into the person you were born to be!

For each step you take in the direction that flow leads your mind is expanded a bit and your capacity to imagine and desire more and more wonderful things is grown. Too, your confidence will increase and your fearfulness will lose its grip on you. This means you will begin to love more and more boldly. You will become less and less obstructed by limitation – your own and others.

All the processing in the world cannot touch the transformative power of living love, following flow, and discovering the how that is revealed in this approach.

I would also like to say that personal fulfillment does not and cannot ultimately happen in isolation. We are connected and, as such, the things we do are only truly and deeply rewarding when they reflect the truth of connection. In other words, it ain’t just about you. Because you is about your totality, your wholeness. And your wholeness is realized only when you see, experience, and act as a member of a much larger whole.

So this is pretty good news, isn’t it? You get to start living your purpose and feeling increasingly more fulfilled and you don’t have to even have the slightest idea of how you should be doing it.

In other words – you can be a waste disposal expert, a secretary, a CEO, a struggling artist, unemployed, or totally lost and you can still live your purpose. And you can find your how just by following the trail of breadcrumbs – you don’t have to know anything more than that and the path will lead you to the person you truly already are in your deepest, shiniest heart. (Even if you currently feel neither deep nor shiny.)

And if you do have an idea of the how, pursue that but don’t be attached to outcomes. I say this because so many of us have such limited imaginations about our own possibilities that sometimes we need to pursue something to get to the next bigger step. Think of it as the Universe gently and compassionately putting urges in our hearts to get us to where we need to be to see ourselves in greater and greater ways. Does that make sense?

For example – if you think making $90,000 per year would be huge, like the biggest thing you can imagine for yourself, you may find that you land right where you thought you should be, making that kind of money.  But after awhile you will begin to imagine and desire to make $140,000 and then pursue something else that may or may not appear directly connected to your previous step. In this way we appear  “all over the map”. But this is necessary so we can be grown into the person we truly are! Very few people would be psychologically capable of waking up one day as powerful and shiny as they really are with no cosmic prepping. Most people would reject it as not possible or as too much.

There is so much wisdom in the natural patterns and flow of life. And we create so much struggle for ourselves by going against them. It often occurs to me that there seems to be a general disbelief that life is as easy and wonderful as it actually is. This disbelief causes us to create so many problems for ourselves.

Let’s not complicate purpose. You already have the full, perfect expression of your biggest, shiniest self inside of you. There is nothing more to do than simply get out of it’s way. Love and flow and pay attention then continually make modification to stay in flow. That’s it.

Purpose really is this simple.