Finding Your Purpose

From the second we enter the world, we are continuously searching for a reason, a “why?” or in other words, a purpose. In the beginning of our lives, we just wanted to understand our surroundings. From questioning where babies come from to wondering why we have to go to school every morning, we just wanted insight on why things were the way they were. As our lives progress and we graduate further into adulthood, we are now starting to wonder how we fit into this big, continuously moving system called life. What were we brought into this world to do? How do we fit in? What is our purpose? Some people spend their whole lives trying to figure this out, because they are looking in all of the wrong places or searching for the wrong answers. In an article published on the Huffington Post titled “3 Unexpected Ways to Find Your Life Purpose” written by Shannon Kaiser, she discusses a list of ways we can each find our passion and purpose in life. These three ways are:

Be Active

Now she doesn’t necessarily mean the “get up and run everyday” type of active, but instead to get action throughout your life. Instead of just sitting down and thinking about what we want to do in this lifetime, we must go out and participate. The author emphasizes that the more we go out and do things we find ourselves interested in- or even go out and try something new- then the more we will find clarity. This is because with the action of partaking in different activities, we find ourselves gaining more experience and memories in different fields or passions.

Each experience can be either good or bad, which can then lead us down different paths depending on that feeling we got while doing the action. For example, let’s say you see that some people enjoy doing creative things like paint or write. So, to see if that path suits you, you could go to a painting class or simply start taking up journaling. However, if you find that the experience does not necessarily do anything positively extravagant for you, then you will be able to tell that this path may not be for you. On the flip side, the article gives a personal example.  The author, Shannon Kaiser, didn’t realize her absolute intense love for writing until she actually started doing the writing. This eventually got her a spot in a Chicken Soup for the Soul novel. This experience left her with intense feelings of love and clarity that writing is one of the things she was meant to do in life. With that being said, the overall point is “…clarity comes through the process of exploring. Action is where you get results.”

Follow Your Heart!

A lot of times when we think about what our purpose is in life, we stay inside of our head and focus on the practical aspects of finding our passion instead of how it makes us feel- which is really the most important part of the process. How each of our life experiences make us feel is vital in understanding and gaining clarity in what our purpose is in life. The article states that “when you lead from your heart, you are naturally more joyful and motivated to explore.” With that being said, ask yourself what you love and make conscious efforts in gaining experiences in the things you love. When we do that, we’re more likely to be lead down other joyful and passionate paths that will end in our understanding of our overall life purpose.

Be Done With “ONE”

Often times we think that we will only have one true purpose in life, so we spend our time searching and searching for that ONE passion that we believe will suffice as our overall purpose in life. However, this is not the case at all. The author uses herself as an example, stating that she technically has six different job titles which include: “life coach, author, speaker, teacher, mentor, and designer.” Each of these job titles she considers apart of her overall passions which is important in understanding the overall “purpose” in life. When we do things that we are passionate about and continue to live in order to find these passions, we are essentially living “on purpose, and that is the purpose of life.”

Understanding and finding purpose is overall a very difficult thing to do. This is because sometimes, we are lead to believe it is something that is measurable, tangible, or practical. In reality, it may not be any of those things. It is important to remember that the purpose of life is to be passionate in any and all things that you do. The goal is to explore yourself, “do” life in order to seek clarity of your passions and follow wherever your heart leads you.

Works Cited:

Kaiser, Shannon. “3 Unexpected Ways to Find Your Life Purpose.” HuffPost, HuffPost, 19 Apr. 2014, www.huffpost.com/entry/3-unexpected-ways-to-find_b_5176511.

Taylor Melville

My name is Taylor Melville and I am a Senior at Florida State University majoring in Clinical Professions- Interdisciplinary Medical Sciences. I have a passion for writing/journaling, painting, and health+wellness education, specifically regarding women’s health. In the near future, I plan to get my Master’s in Biomedical Sciences before matriculating into medical school to later become a Family Medicine physician with a concentration in Obstetrics/Gynecology.