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THE JOURNEY TO YOUR PURPOSE IN LIFE
I’ve been thinking about, talking about, and writing about finding Purpose and living a meaningful life for a long time. It all started when I studied Rick Warren’s best seller The Purpose Driven Life. No, this post is not about his book. Rick’s book was just the catalyst that launched my personal journey to find my Purpose in life that, frankly, continues today. What I’m writing about is not the “purpose of life” kind of stuff. This is about YOUR life’s Purpose. There is a big difference between the two ideas. Your Purpose is individual, personal, unique and, I believe, God-given. Our personality, our skills, our talents, and our interests are not happenstance. Some might say these things are the results of the influences from our family and culture. That might be true, but I don’t overlook the fact that the family and the culture into which I was born is also unique and by design. There is not one person in the world today who is me and there is no other you. As I began this journey I asked myself many questions along the way. When I talk to others about this topic I seem to hear the same questions I was asking. Isn’t it amazing that we are all asking these questions? Perhaps there is some kind of internal engine which drives us to answer them. Perhaps finding and living our life Purpose is really so important we can can’t it out of our minds! Below I’ve listed the eight common questions asked most often about our life’s Purpose. Although they might be phrased differently by each of us, we seem to be asking, maybe searching, for the same answers. After walking this path for the last several years, this is how I answer them today.THE 7 QUESTIONS ANSWERED
Is it really that important to find my life purpose? I answer this with a resounding YES! Each one of us has a unique, God-given purpose. It is part of our spiritual DNA. We will forever be yearning to find it and to live it. Your life will never be as full and as meaningful as it can be without living your life’s Purpose. In other words, you won’t reach your full potential unless you are living on purpose and with purpose. Having a purpose in life makes you wake up with enthusiasm. It’s what keeps you going when life’s challenges seem to overwhelm you. This is not just about your work. What you do for a living is important and it may help you live your Purpose, but it is not the end all. Humans were created for much more than just work and careers. That is a lie modern American culture tells us. Your work is not your overall worth. What you do is not nearly as important as who you are. Until you find that you will always have a nagging emptiness in you. Sometimes you’ll barely feel this. Other time it will be paralyzing. I experienced this for many years. Even when I was making a lot of money. To the outside world I may have seemed I had it made. Yet I was miserable. The nagging emptiness grew inside me because I was not living my Purpose. Good things were getting done by me. Those things, however, were not the best things I needed to do. And I could feel it.[Tweet “”Each one of us has a unique, God-given purpose. It is part of our spiritual DNA” @RichardYadon”]
That Lurking Emptiness
You don’t want to go through your life with that hint of emptiness lurking around. You’ll be always searching for the next thing that is going to fulfill you. Medicating yourself with experiences, relationships, vices, and activities but never finding the overwhelming joy and fulfillment you seek. If that is how you want to live, then finding your Purpose would be a waste of time for you. However. If you want real life, real abundant life, you must find and live your Purpose. It is that important. Does each individual have a life purpose? I believe every person has a Purpose in life. It is unique to them and it is God given. Later I’m going to write another post (and will link to it here when I do) about why I think this is true. All of us, at some point in our lives, will come to this realization. You may spend years searching for it and just not understand what you are looking for or why. I think this yearning to find the answer to these questions is proof positive that each individual does have a life Purpose. Think about it this way… if our Creator has a unique Purpose for you specifically, would He not want you to know that? Would He not want you to pursue it and live it? Of course He would! It is embedded in our spiritual DNA. This is why we all have a drive and desire to answer and understand these questions. It is a hole we want to fill in our soul.Why We Don’t Intuitively Know
Some might ask that if it is so important then why do we not just intuitively know what it is and then live it? Let me offer two short answers and I will explain these further in the coming weeks. To begin, we all have free will. We can choose our path. If we choose a path that is not our life Purpose then it is a choice we are free to make. Like any other choice this one has consequences. To follow and live your life Purpose is to have a fulfilled and meaningful life. It is to have “life abundant”. To not follow and live your Purpose means you will always be searching for more and never fully engaged in the life you could live. This is a choice we are free to make. Secondly, we don’t always intuitively know our life Purpose because we are constantly subjected to powerful messages that influence this choice. They influence our worldview. What is easier… to take the focused, introspective effort to truly understand what we are made to do or let Hollywood or Madison Avenue give us pictures to choose from. I’m not trying to be flippant. In our stressed-out information overloaded world, we all suffer from decision fatigue. There are just too many messages and choices for us to filter. This is also something I will be writing more about in the coming weeks. It was once said by the owner of a national chain of movie theaters…” People don’t go to the movies any more to be entertained, they go to learn how to live.” If you don’t think that is true, just look at the negative influence pop culture has on almost every aspect of our life.HOW THE JOURNEY CONTINUES

SOME “HOW TO’S”
How do I focus on my life purpose? Of course, the first step is to get in touch with the true identity and nature of your life’s Purpose. You can’t focus on something you don’t know about or understand. Then you have to be intentional about living your Purpose. If you are reading this my guess is that you are a person with a lot of interests. An individual seeking to truly understand their Purpose and live it is someone tuned into themselves. You are exploring the things that capture your attention and curiosity – wondering if these things could have something to do with your Purpose. From experience I can tell you that many of these things, while very good, are distractions. They may help you live your Purpose, but they can also keep you from it. Here are some ideas to keep your focus on your Purpose:- When you lay down to bed each night, consciously think about your Purpose. This will get your subconscious working on it while you sleep.
- Do the same thing again for a minute or two when you open your eyes in the morning. (Having a regular, morning ritual that includes these activities if extremely productive.)
- Read, read, read – all things that support and encourage your Purpose.
- Prayer is a big part of helping me focus on my Purpose. Since I firmly believe it is God-given it just makes sense to stay connected daily to that power!

Clues To Your Purpose
Passions are also important clues to your Purpose. In my case, I see music as a way to enlighten and bring new awareness to people. I could confuse this as my Purpose, except I have not be exceptionally gifted as a musician. Looking back, I see the circumstances of life have not been designed, or orchestrated if you will, for me to become and live as full-time musician. So, this passion has become another way I can live my Purpose, but it is not my Purpose to be a musician. How do I discover my life’s purpose? The answer to this question is a big part of what my site is all about. It may be easier than you think. Your purpose is very individualized and personal. You’ve likely felt clues to this all of your life because it has been there since birth. I pursued these answers for years. Not knowing and understanding my Purpose literally plagued me. The search consumed my daily conscious thought. In fact, trying to answer this question almost paralyzed me professionally and emotionally. And I went about it all wrong. My erroneous paradigm of a life Purpose was too focused in the wrong direction. I was consumed with what I was supposed to do instead of who I was supposed to be. For instance, I started first by comparing my personal impact in life to those who had far reaching influence in the fields of ministry, politics, entertainment, etc.…. It was not that I wanted to be famous. In this paradigm, a meaningful life meant that my Purpose had to be world reaching and influencing millions. So, I began to compare everything I was involved in with this goal. If something didn’t have the potential to meet that goal then I didn’t want to spend the time with it. Of course, almost nothing I was doing was going to meet this goal, hence the paralysis and unproductiveness.[Tweet “”The first place to start in discovering your life’s purpose is to have the right perspective or paradigm” @RichardYadon”]
2 replies to "7 Questions Answered About Your Purpose In Life"
nice Richard
Finding life’s purpose is the biggest step one should take a life without aim is like a sword with no sharpness.