Finding purpose is a hot topic these days along with well-being. The good news is that purpose is accessible at any age and can evolve over time depending on your circumstances. A lot of research and articles have been written on how employee experience can be improved. Companies can get better engagement and outcomes through aligning the companies purpose to resonate and connect with an individuals purpose and meaning.
Recent evidence suggests that relative to other dimensions of well-being, purpose in life appears to be particularly important in predicting future health and mortality. To give a bit of context although we are only focusing on purpose in this article, psychological well being has been defined by Ryff encompassing 6 dimensions of wellness. 1, 2
1. Autonomy (capacity for self determination)
2. Environmental mastery (ability to manage one’s surrounding world)
3. Personal growth (realisation of potential)
4. Positive relations with others (high quality meaningful relationships)
5. Purpose in Life (real meaning and direction in life)
6. Self acceptance (positive self regard)
So where to start on defining your purpose?
If we want to define our purpose and figure out what really underlines who we are, how we want to be, how we want to live, a good place to start is to look at our values. Sure we all live by a set of values that were perhaps passed onto us, or were shaped by our environment and the experiences we have had amongst other influences. Yet most people would not be able to articulate these at a short notice without a generic recall of standard descriptions. If we are to live a life of meaning and purpose, we need to intentionally think about what are the values we really live by and reflect do we really live by these everyday and if not, how to we intentionally adjust ourselves to stay true to who we are and want to be.
Defining your values, living and acting on them will allow you to better know yourself so you can lead yourself intentionally. Let’s start by defining purpose and values.
purpose
/ˈpəːpəs/
1. The reason for which something is done or created or for which something exists.
2. A person's sense of resolve or determination.
value
/ˈvaljuː/
1. The regard that something is held to deserve; the importance, worth, or usefulness of something.
2. Principles or standards of behaviour; one's judgement of what is important in life.
Work out your values
One of the first steps in uncovering your purpose is to work out what are your values. Reflection is an underestimated exercise, this gives you space for great discovery and meaningful action, after all the greatest investment and work has to start with the self. Even with reflection we need to be purposeful, we need to set the tone of what we want to reflect on, for example, how did I speak to people today, was I kind, what was my tone, how do I make others feel, what made me happy. Reflecting on your values will help uncover whats important to you.
To help you on your journey of naming your values, following is a useful exercise;
Step 1- write a long list of values that resonate with you (roughly about 20/30 values)
Step 2 - choose 10 values from this list and write down why you chose them
Step 3 - finally choose 3 to 5 values from the list of 10, again further think about why each of these is important, and what they mean to you, do they reflect how you currently are living those values, or are they values you would want to work towards.
Another lens to contemplate is reflecting on the influence of our surroundings. For example, our closest three to five friends influence our being and are a good reflection of our character. In this context ‘friends’ don’t necessarily have to be ‘human friends’ this could be the influence of the books you read, the TV you watch, the scrolling you do, in other words the environment you are exposed to. We need to be intentional about how we live our values and how we create the right environment for us to thrive.
Below are a few areas we might want to think about when we are trying to live on our values with intention.
Know yourself to lead yourself – become more aware of what values matter most to you and how you can build these into the everyday.
Discover your purpose – what inspires you and motivates you to be present and is this aligned to your values.
Build good character – how do you want to act and live your life values, what behaviour do you want to exhibit.
Align with work – does your personal purpose align with your professional.
Align with relationships – how are your relationships influencing how you want to live out your values.
What are you consuming – what are you feeding your mind, what are you reading and watching, are you growing and intentionally working towards the values and purpose you want to live by.
Physical environment - is this set up to let you succeed.
Reflection - do you make time and space for reflecting on how are you living by your values, how was your day today regarding your values, do you need to adjust your behaviour / actions for tomorrow.
You are in the driving seat of living the life you want that can bring you joy and fulfilment. As the navigator of your journey your values can help you with the north star of the person you are or want to be and then purposefully craft a road to get you there. Once you are intentional about naming and acting on your values you can start working out how these fit into the bigger picture of your purpose.
Look out for future articles on discovering your purpose.
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