How do I Find or Define My Life Purpose?

What is your motivation to discover or define your life purpose? Is this influenced, in any way, by the opinions of others?

Someone I believe to be in her forties, shared that amid the busyness of her life, she's trying to figure out what to do for the rest of her life (I suspect she really meant life purpose). I responded maybe she doesn't need to figure out what to do for the rest of her life, just what she chooses to do with the next piece of it. This made me wonder at what age that question, the way she stated it, becomes the right one.

I've experienced, and have heard from clients, the belief that whatever we do, it needs to be something others can label grand, special, or worthy of their admiration. (A life purpose should fulfill this requirement, shouldn't it?) This energetic imprint is all around us, including most of the email announcements I'm signed up for.

Question: What is the message ads (and email ads) bombard you with repeatedly, even if only implicitly?

Answer: You have to be or do something Big. You have to become the next guru of something, make a gazillion dollars, and you're only a success if you do this by . . . 5p.m. Tomorrow Evening!

How's this working for you so far? How does it feel?

Is my intention here to motivate you towards mediocrity? Of course not. My intention is to motivate you to listen to Your Self, Your Truth.

Maybe your truth is you do want to live big, bigger, biggest. Great. I hold that intention with you. However, if that path feels like a burden, like a heavy weight on your life, could it be it's not for you? Maybe you need to define what success and purpose mean for you.

I recall hearing about a young man whose passion was military history, specifically uniforms and weapons. He'd watch contemporary war movies; and if he saw costume and weapon inaccuracies, would write to the studios. After a number of letters to a particular studio, they hired him as an expert.

We're influenced to believe we're failures if we don't have the brass ring. Who decides what the brass ring is for you? What if your life is not about one brass ring, but a succession of rings, and you decide their value. Maybe your platinum ring is an inner experience like conscious awareness, of living as an Awakened being.

A question often asked by those who guide others to find their life purpose is, what did you love to do as a child? There was one thing I loved to do as a child that applies to how I view my life experience now. It was a game called Let's Pretend. For me, this fits perfectly with how my life has played out so far and continues to progress. I now see how each stage of my life represents my imagining (or imaging) what it would be like to play a particular role and immerse myself in it for a while, even if I wasnâ??t aware this was what I was doing. Looking at my life this way is opening my sense of freedom, energy, focus, and personal power as nothing else has before.

What if life purpose is to choose a role, step into it, and expand it as far as we wish, until we choose another . . . but do it deliberately, mindfully . . . whether it involves a lifetime or a moment?

What if life purpose includes being on purpose today and every day, whatever role or roles you choose to play?