Discover Your Purpose!

By James M. Rink

Your life has a Purpose, do you know what it is?  

I love helping people discover, define and to live their life’s Purpose.  When my clients discover their Purpose, they come alive.  They have direction, meaning, confidence, joy, productivity and they make more money.   When they live their life’s purpose, they are able to prune away all of their distractions so that they focus all of their energy on living their Purpose.  

Let me help you learn how to live your Purpose with these three steps.

 Step one.  Discovering Your Purpose

Step Two.  Defining Your Purpose

Step Three.  Living Your Purpose

In this Purpose blog we are going to focus on Step One, Discovering your Purpose.  

Purpose is not complex.  It is simply a reason of existence.  Purpose is to positively connect to people for a Greater Good.

In the discovery process we will use my Purpose of You Formula.

 Feelings + Actions + People = Purpose.

Let’s use Disney’s Purpose statement as an example.  We all know and love Disney as a global leader in Film, Television and Theme Parks.  

In 1923, Walt Disney was 21 years old and his older brother Roy was 30 when they started Disney with the founding Purpose to ‘Make People Happy.’  I love this simple Purpose Statement.

 Using the Purpose of You formula, Feelings + Actions + People= Purpose

For Disney their core Feeling is ‘happy’.  Their Action is ‘make’.  Who they want to influence is ‘People’.  

For nearly one hundred years, Disney’s products viscerally connect to people with the power of the feeling of happiness.  This is how Disney Positively connects to people for a Greater Good.  

My Purpose is to communicate hope, to help people and to make people happy.  My core Feelings are hope, help and happy.

So how did I discover my core feelings?  And more importantly, how can you discover your core feelings that you want to give to people?

You can discover your core feelings by determining who your Greater Good Influencers are and discovering the core feelings they touched you with. 

Today, your Purpose is to give those same feelings that you received from your Greater Good Influencers to the people in your world whom you want to influence for a Greater Good.

Here are 3 Questions to help 

1.    Who loved you so that you can be who you are today? 

I got this question from Mister Rodgers.  He’d ask you to sit quietly for 60 seconds and list the people (or God) that come to your mind. Who loved you to be who you are today?  

Our Parents, Teachers, Rabbis, Pastors, Priests, Nuns, Coaches, Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles or God are all good candidates.  These individuals are your Greater Good influencers.  

Who loved you so that you can be who you are today? Pause right now for one minute and make your list.

2.     Reflect on a memory of each of your Greater Good Influencers.  How did each of your Greater Good Influencers make you feel?  

Here is a short list of feelings to help you identify.

Love, Joy, Happy, Safe, Secure, Free, Peace, Patient, Hope, Gratitude, Passion, Compassion, Protected, Alive, Care, Serenity, Inspire, Fascination or Pride.

Make a list of the Core Feelings for each of your Greater Good Influencers. 

3.     Narrow your feelings down to 3-5 core feelings.  Which of these feelings did you feel the deepest?  

Now, let’s try something fun.  Pick one of your core feelings.  Do something right now to give that core feeling to someone.  I call this an Intentional Act of Purpose.  If your core feeling is joy, do something to make someone feel joy.  If your core feeling is happy,  tell someone a funny story or joke. Send a text, buy someone coffee, call someone who needs to hear from you today.  

Pause and reflect on how you feel by your Intentional Act of your Purpose in this very small way.  You will feel inspired as you continue to live your Purpose.

If this blog speaks to you, I believe it is because your Purpose is calling you to something greater.  You can discover more at PurposeOfYou.com.  

Cheryl DeSantis - Chief People Officer at SmileDirectClub calls Purpose of You is THE team development opportunity for our times.  

Connect with me at JamesMRink on social media.  Please share this blog with People you care about.  

I hope you live today on Purpose!

Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.