How to find your purpose in life

We’ve seen how knowing our life purpose helps us to succeed in a changing world. And we know that living in line with our purpose will bring us extra focus and energy, make us more adaptable, and even change our genes to make us healthier.

So how do we find out what our life purpose is?

Some people just seem to know their purpose. But for the rest of us, the best way to find it is by following these four steps. This will bring you a ‘first pass’ description of your purpose: something that you can start to implement, see how it fits, and then refine, adapt, and improve as you move forward.

To begin, answer these three questions:

  1. What are your two best qualities?
    What are the two best qualities you bring to the world? Not skills or knowledge but qualities you have.
    (If you find it difficult to pick just two, ask some trusted friends. Listen to their answers, keep what you like, ignore what you don’t. And then pick the two qualities you think best describe you: qualities you love about yourself, which summarise the essence of who you are.)
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  2. How do you love to express these qualities?
    Next, describe how you most love putting these qualities into practice.
    (You might define this in terms of the way you love to apply your best qualities, the way you like to use them. Or you might define it in terms of the outcomes you love to create. Use whatever approach works for you.)
    How do you most love to express your two best qualities?
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  3. Describe your ideal world
    Finally, describe what a perfect world looks like to you.
    What would you see, hear, feel, taste, or smell?
    What kind of a world is that?
    What does a perfect world look like to you?

Of course, you can’t learn to swim just by reading about swimming — you also have to practice.

So if you want to know your life’s purpose, answer these three questions before you read on.

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Once you know your answers then finding your life’s purpose becomes easy.

Because the purpose of your life is to become the best version of yourself, whatever that looks like: to express your best qualities, in the ways you most love doing, to create your ideal world.

So take your answers to the three questions and put them in order:

The purpose of my life is to express my [best qualities], by [doing whatever it is that is the way I most love to express my best qualities], in order to create [whatever an ideal world looks like to me].

How does that sit with you?

If you like, you can change the order. You might prefer to say:

“My purpose is to create [my ideal world], by using my [best qualities], [in the way I most love using them].”

Play with the wording until you find something that feels right to you. And remember that as you move forward and gain deeper understanding, you can always adapt or improve the wording: next week, next month, or next year.

The purpose of your life is to express the unique person you are as fully as you can, in the ways you most love doing, to create your ideal world. It’s that simple. So find a way to express that which is good enough for now, begin, and learn as you go.

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Once you know your life purpose there might be a thousand different ways that you could put it into practice. You might find that even actions as simple as buying food or toothpaste or putting out the rubbish can be done in ways that align more or less with your purpose.

So your purpose doesn’t necessarily involve just one thing. Your description of your purpose is a tool, a reminder, that enables you to stay on track with what matters most to you while you adapt to a changing world, learning and growing as you go.

And once you can do that then you have become antifragile.

What matters now is to begin. So, what are your two best qualities? How do you most love to express them? What does an ideal world look like to you? Would you like to spend more of your time each day, using your best qualities in the ways you most love, to create your ideal world?

(The book contains other tools that will bring you deeper insights into your Purpose, but this post is a good starting point.)


Adapted from Inner Leadership: a framework and tools for building inspiration in times of change.

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You can also buy the book here and the workbook here.

(And remember: you can’t learn to swim just by reading about swimming, you also need to do the practice.)


Photo By Emilio Küffer via StockPholio.net

2 Replies to “How to find your purpose in life”

  1. Hi, that’s a great way to find the purpose of life, this has always pinched me when others would mention their purpose and passion I was left blank, as I didn’t particularly was good at one thing but there are things like photography that I love to do and consider that as my quality I think now I would be able to speak in front of them of what I am capable of and the quality I like to be always be growing at.

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