How to find your purpose.
Updated: Jul 30
1 exercise you can practice to take your life to the next level.
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First things first... Why should you care?
Our purpose is the central thing that motivates us to become better versions of ourselves every day. Many of us have felt that uncomfortable feeling that something in our lives needs to change. However, most of us don't change until we're forced to change. For some of us, something drastic has to happen for us to start doing the things we should have done.
A purpose is different than a goal because it's a life-long pursuit of meaning. Purpose answers the question - what value do I bring to the world? Goals answer the question - what do I need to accomplish? In many cases, we don't develop goals that consider our purpose. Consequently, we end up accomplishing things with no personal meaning behind them. We're primarily taught to accomplish goals. For example, when we're young our parents set the goal of us graduating pre-K, kindergarten, elementary school, middle school, high school, undergrad, and so on. As we mature, we take on the goal of education in the hopes that we'll find a job.
But, have you ever thought about what job would align with your purpose? Not many parents ask their children to think intentionally about what motivates them to finish these various levels of school. Or, what long-term outcomes their children are looking for from their education? Some of us happen to grow into our purpose instead of thinking critically about it. This may take a little longer, but eventually, we get there. Others, spend a lifetime never realizing their purpose because they never thought they could make that decision for themselves. Wouldn't it be nice to have a tool to help you make that decision much quicker?
DOWNLOAD THE PURPOSE PLANNER FRAMEWORK FREE
Understanding your purpose sets the stage for how you plan your life. Think about it. Every successful business has a mission. What's preventing you from having a personal mission? This exercise helps you do that and more.
Let's Get To The Point
There are four basic steps to finding your purpose. The Purpose Planner Framework helps to simplify and structure your thought process to find your purpose much quicker. Here, we provide an exercise that should be done routinely until the mission statement feels right. The feeling attached to your mission statement is key because your feelings provide you with an indicator of what's good for you and what's not. For those of you who don't like the word "feeling" - call it your "gut". Whatever you call it, just make sure the statement truly represents the core of who you are.
Full Transcript
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Donnie Thomas:
Hey everybody, and welcome to What They Don't Teach You In School, where we teach life. My name is Donnie Thomas, and today I'm going to be doing something a little bit different. I'm going to be walking you through an exercise in finding your purpose. But before I start there are a few questions that I'd like to answer, why are we talking about this and why should you care? So, the first question, why are we talking about this? Many of the clients that I coach experience dissonance within themselves because they're aligning themselves with a future that does not fit their desires and their values. They're aligning themselves with things that fit someone else. They're looking at someone else's success plan, and they're trying to apply it to their lives and they're wondering why things aren't working out for them.
Donnie Thomas:
Yes, you can look at somebody who's a real estate investor or a stock investor or a business owner, and say, "These are ideas that might allow me to be lucrative as well. Let me draw from these experiences." But if those things don't truly align with the values that you hold dear to you, with the things that you hold important to you, you won't be able to sustain that type of a life because that life has meant for somebody else. That's why we're talking about this today because the topic of purpose is not something that's talked about in school, and it's not something that's talked about in our homes. It's not something that we think about intently within ourselves to really understand who we are and what we represent to the world. So, that's why we are talking about this and why this is so important to me.
Donnie Thomas:
The second thing that I want to address is why should you care? If you taking your life to the next level by understanding why you are here and what you are meant to bring to the world, if those things aren't important to you, then this video is for you. If that is not important to you, then I implore you to please close this video down, move on to the next thing because this isn't where you need to be. This video was focused on those people who are intentionally focusing on self-development, on finding themselves and on finding and understanding what they represent to the world at large. So, if you're still here, then let's begin...
Donnie Thomas:
Oh, and before I begin, the one thing I want to say is when I coach people, make sure that you are in an environment that is conducive for you to be coached. Make sure that you are in a quiet environment, a safe environment so that you can focus on what you need to focus on in here. Because your focus becomes your future, and if your future is your purpose, then you want to focus intently on what I'm talking about so that you can apply this exercise while we're doing this video and after this video so that you can learn more about yourself. So, without further to do, let's begin.
Donnie Thomas:
The first thing that you want to do is think about some stories. Relax your mind, center yourself, think about purpose. Think about how purpose resonates with you, think about the word. And draw the mind to some stories in your life where you were doing something, specifically when you were taking action that made you feel fulfilled, that made you feel happy. I don't care what it is. I don't care if you were dancing on the stage at Mardi Gras, if that was something that made you feel fulfillment. I think about those stories, no more than eight stories, that resonate with you, where you were doing something that made your life feel a sense of fulfillment and joy.
Donnie Thomas:
And now that you've thought about those stories, the next step is just to draw out the words. Think about the words that impacted you most about those stories, which words resonated with you. The reason why words are so important, because like Mike Dooley said, "Thoughts become things." And the words that you use manifest the things that you want to happen in your life. So, you have to be very intentional about the words that you're using to describe your purpose because if you don't then your purpose won't be in alignment with your values. Your thoughts become things. So, think about the words in those stories that resonate with you, that matter to you. That when you say them, you say, "Oh, yes, that's a word that I would use to describe my purpose. That's something that hits home for me at my core." You'll feel it. You'll feel it.
Donnie Thomas:
I remember when I started to do this work, it did not come to me until I actually had a dream, and God came to me in my dream after I had gone through these exercises and I thought intently about it, my stories. And then God came to me and said, "Your purpose in life is to help as many people as you can." I was given the what, I just had to figure out the how. Which brings me to the next step. Now you've already looked at your stories, your eight stories, you've identified the words that stand out to you the most within those stories. The next thing you're going to do is you're going to categorize the words that you've already come up with. And why is this important? It's important because you want to try to distill the information into a manageable format.
Donnie Thomas:
Let's say for example, one of the stories was a story about you partying at Mardi Gras. So, the first thing that came to your mind was drinking, or the second thing that came to your mind was laughter and people. So, you may have a section or a category for entertainment. And as you begin to develop your statement, or your story, or your statement about your purpose, it could be that your purpose in life is to entertain people and make them laugh. See where this is going? And we haven't even gotten to that place yet, but we're almost there. I'm walking you through this journey so that you can see what can come out to you in the end, [inaudible 00:06:04] for you in the end.
Donnie Thomas:
Now let's take some time to recap. The first thing that you did was you identified stories that resonated with you, no more than eight. Then you identified a list of words in those stories that were impactful for you. And after you developed your list, you then categorized the words so that you could distill the information down into a manageable format. So, the next step is where the work begins, because this is where you have to come up with your personal mission statement. What is your personal mission statement, what is your life purpose statement? And you'll do this by starting something like this, "My life purpose is to..." And then you'll take the words, the list of words, as well as the category titles, you'll take those words and you'll try to position them, juxtapositioning them within your sentence until they make sense in that sentence resonates for you.
Donnie Thomas:
So, for me, one of the words that stood out as I was doing this exercise, it was gifts. So, my statement went something like this, "My life purpose is to help as many people as I can using the gifts that God has given me." Okay? What is your life purpose statement? As you begin to think about this, think about the words that give you the most joy. Write them if you need to. Think intently about it. And as you begin to develop it, try not to go beyond three sentences. Three sentences is pushing it, but this will get you kickstarted in identifying the what as well as the how.
Donnie Thomas:
As I mentioned earlier, my name is Donnie Thomas. My life purpose is to help as many people as I can using the gifts that God gave me. I've used my gifts to develop the book, What They Don't Teach You In School, to develop the training program, The Real Estate Investment Model For Wealth, and to found the Donatello Group LLC, where we help individuals and businesses to maximize their potential using thought-provoking and collaborative approaches. That's my life purpose. So, what's yours? Think about it.
Donnie Thomas:
And if you enjoyed this video, I hope that you like it. I hope that you share it because this video is only part one in a three-part series that we'll be doing in a workshop, that is in the below or either in my bio. So, definitely visit the workshop, join us in the workshop. It's a community of people that are dedicated to finding their purpose, that's dedicated to working on themselves and I'd love for you to join. I hope that this was helpful. If you thought that it was helpful, definitely like, comment and share. If you have any comments, don't feel afraid to comment because this is what it's all about, it's about engaging one another so that we can grow a community and share with one another and build together. With that, I'll end the video, and I hope you all have a wonderful day. Peace.
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