A GUIDE TO FINDING YOUR PURPOSE IN LIFE

Discovering your purpose in life is a journey that can transform your existence. According to Simon Sinek, speaker, and author of ‘Find Your Why’, a book that explores how to find your purpose, purpose is “to feel fulfilled and not simply happy.” Because “being happy is something temporary and the other is something deeper which lasts longer.” It is the difference between “liking something or adoring it.” For Sinek, it is not about living according to what you do, or how you do it, but why you do it.

For Dave Isay, author of ‘Callings: The Purpose and Passion of Work,’ “Our calling is the intersection in a diagram between being good at something, feeling appreciated, and finding that the work you do allows the lives of others to be better.” Normally, he says, this call “can come from difficult experiences and usually requires a lot of courage,” there is no age, and, generally, “does not involve money.”

There are many ways to find the job you love, for example, Scott Dinsmore, writer, traveler and founder of ‘Live Your Legend’, also believes, “Dig into what you do well and become an expert on yourself, have the courage to live outside of your comfort zone and find people who support you” are the keys.

Simon Sinek
In the book 'Find Your Why', Simon Sinek proposes a practical way to find your purpose in life. Here are his tips: 

1. Search For Stories That Have Most Marked Your Life.

“Each of us has only one reason,” says Sinek, “It is not who we aspire to be, but who we are when we are at our best.” He specialises in leadership and ensures that you can identify patterns by looking at one’s past and looking for the most significant common threads like the experiences you have had, the people who have influenced you, the lives touched, and the ups and downs experienced. For individuals, “our why is fully formed in our late adolescence,” he says. Sinek advices to find about 10 stories. Once all 10 stories are found, choose five or six positive and negative ones without overanalysing them.

2. Share Them With a Person Who Can Help You. 

Since it's hard to see the golden thread that connects your stories, it's best to work with someone who can help. They have to be a good listener who pays close attention to non-verbal cues. Your partner in the search for your purpose has to take notes when there are visual or emotional clues, ask questions to get you to express the emotions and feelings you had at the time that situation happened, and make you talk about specific things. 

In his book, Sinek gives precise instructions to the interviewer on how to always ask open questions, that allow you to find out what you liked or hated about an experience, what makes that story special, how the experience affected you and who you are now, what is the lesson of that experience or if, for example, it is a negative experience, what part of it disappointed you. Take notes, putting the facts on one side and the other, “You will see that there are words, phrases, ideas or themes that are repeated."

3. Identify the Themes With the Person Who Supports You.

As you watch your stories, certain themes begin to emerge, some that you have never expressed before. “There will be one or two of them that shine brighter than the others. They are going to be bigger and more important. Those will shine brighter to the point of saying 'That's me, that's who I am,'" according to Sinek. Apart from looking for these themes, when your interviewer asks you questions, they also have to ask about the contribution and impact that those events had. 

4. Make a Draft and Define Your Why. 

It has to be simple, clear and actionable. “Focus on the effect it can have on others, expressed in affirmative language that can resonate with you,” Sinek emphasizes. It must be written in this way, “THIS IS THE CONTRIBUTION that we want to make to the lives of others  so that it has this impact.” For example, Simon Sinek's is to “inspire people to do the things that inspire them; so, together, we can change the world.”




This is a formula, but there are others like letting life itself teach you what your purpose is. In the case of Kenyan photographer, artist and activist Boniface Mwangi, he found his mission when he faced his country's government alone, with his fears. He talks about this in depth in his Ted Talk.
 It can also be asked through questions that bring you closer to yourself, “If your life were a book and you were the author, how would you want the story to continue?” That is the question that Amy Purdy, a Paralympic medalist in snowboarding who lost both her legs, asked in another incredible Ted Talk.
Have these tips helped you find your purpose?

By:                                                           
Carla De La Vega and Revathi Sreejith

Created with