What is my purpose?

How do I find my purpose in life? What are my gifts? What am I meant to do? “The Power of Positive Thinking”, “The Passion Test”, The Purpose Driven Life”, “Now Discover Your Strengths” – books that are supposed to clarify my purpose. I read them all. I have taken the Strengths test three times, worked with a strengths coach, and taken multiple assessment tests. After all of this self-analysis and introspection, I am still just as lost as when I started, except now I have a major headache. This over thinking has gotten me nowhere. I will never have a sudden spark of clarity and say, “aha, now I know exactly what I am meant to do.” It is all about responding to the moment and experimentation.

Maybe life is really simple. Your purpose will change depending on the situation. I believe your purpose is related to your goals in life and what you want to accomplish. Right now, my goal is to find a job at a company that provides balance, direction, variety, financial security, and the opportunity to learn and grow. I am interested in health and fitness, social psychology, sociology, and consumer behavior. Hopefully I can find a job that will allow me to do what I am interested in. My purpose is to meet with people who have job opportunities that sound interesting, send out resumes, go through interviews, and stay open to different types of experiences that come my way.

I believe you may have multiple purposes related to different areas of your life. For example, today my purpose was to clean my house. I felt energized as I swept the floors, scrubbed the bathroom, folded the laundry, and vacuumed the carpet. My beautiful condo is now sparkling clean and I accomplished my goal – to rid my home of dirt and grime.

I believe your purpose in life is to respond to the situation that you are faced with in the given moment. Your purpose is to “walk the walk” and perform each activity with heart, whether it’s listening to a friend, washing a dish, or making copies for an important business meeting. No task is unimportant or too small.

I am done with self-analysis and personal reflection. My purpose in life is to set goals for what I want to do and take actions to achieve them. Maybe my purpose in this job search is to try different experiments to find the job that energizes me and gives me the life I desire – one of simplicity, balance, and fun.