Living on Purpose

To get the most out of life, it must be filled with passion and significance. For this to happen, you need to know what your purpose in life is. When you discover your life purpose, or better yet when you are actually living it, you are filled with an overwhelming feeling of joy and fulfillment. It gives you the way to direct your values and passions in a meaningful way. Your life purpose is the foundation of what makes you a unique and special individual, it is the very essence of who you are.

People can be divided into two categories in terms of having a purpose in life. There are Leaders and Sleepers. Leaders are out there taking charge and responsibility of their own lives, have a compelling passion for life and are respected for what they achieve in their lives. Sleepers are those who meander aimlessly through life with no purpose. Leaders thrive on overcoming adversity on their path through life. While sleepers are just waiting out their time before they expire. When a Leader meets a challenge, it is head-on until they are triumphant. When a Sleeper finds a problem in their way, they turn around and wander away. Which are you?

There are numerous inspiring tales throughout time of Leaders who appeared to know what their destiny was in life and spent most of their lives accomplishing greatness. While that's awesome, most of us are not that fortunate. We get to discover our own destiny and alas the majority often discover it very late in life, if at all. So to make your adult life much more rewarding and easier, let's go about discovering what your life purpose is.

Lots and lots of people mix up their life purpose with their role in life or career (such as mother, father, husband, wife, teacher, lawyer or many other roles). While these are just vehicles by which you can achieve your life purpose, and are not by themselves your life purpose. For example, your life purpose may be to help people achieve wellness. This can be done through the roles of doctor, nurse, ambulance officer, dietitian or many others.

Being aware of what your purpose is in life drives you towards numerous achievements and allows you to live a full passionate life. There are two elements involved in discovering your life purpose. They are your highest values and your strongest passions.

Your highest values are the base level beliefs, morals and standards that guide your behaviour and make you, you. Other things in your life may change, but these values do not.

Your strongest passions are how you express and share your values. These are what you absolutely love doing in life. They may include specific skills or talents you have. As well as things you would love to do someday but haven't tried yet.

Defining your purpose in life can be done in 4 simple steps and requires only some paper and a pencil. Divide the paper into two columns and on the left list your values and on the right your passions.

Values are those things that describe you as an individual. They can include such character traits as love, humour, strength, creativity, compassion, resourcefulness. you can come up with at least 5 to 8 relevant to you.

Then list how you express that value, these are your passions. For creativity it might be artistic endeavours, dance, problem solving or whatever is right for you. They are what you love doing or would love to do. They can include goals and dreams you plan to have in your life.

Now looking back at your column of values, select the top three that are extra special. The MOST important ones for you. The three that there is no way you could live without them.

Finally take these top highest values and their related strongest passions and create your own mission statement. The following statement is just a basic guideline.

"My purpose in life is to [highest values] through [strongest passions]"

My own mission statement is "The purpose of my life is to create and inspire with beauty and wisdom to help myself and others learn and grow even more."

Use you own words until you get a mission statement that feels right for you. CONGRATULATIONS!!! You have just discovered the purpose of your life. Now go and live it. And know that you are the master of your destiny and can change or modify your mission statement as you grow and change as an individual.

Living on Purpose

Power of making a decision

Nearly 18 months ago I made a decision that i was going to have my own photography business specialising in portraits and events as that is what I love doing. At the time I was teaching and while I enjoyed it - it was a job rather than a passion. Now today that goal is a reality!

How - through hard work, effort made meeting new people and taking new risks but mainly because I had decided that it was going to happen. The how is really not that important, it was going to happen!! What I have discovered along the way - is that I have become a better person because of this journey that is not over because I have achieved this goal. It is just another beginning of a leg in the journey.

So many people have helped me achieve this goal - some without even realising it. I am extremely grateful for the encouragement and belief that others gave me. It seems that once that decision had been made, things just fell into place, opportunities opened up from all around, help came if and when I needed it. I also worked hard to make things progress as fast as possible. It appeared that the universe was conspiring to help me along - it was and is amazing.

I am also glad that I had the opportunity to make a public declaration of my decision. I stood up in front of a group of friends and announced that I was going to do this thing. And they held me accountable to get it happening - when I would see them they would ask how things were going. That made me feel an urgency, it stopped me from procrastinating along the way as they were always very excited for me to hear of the progress that was being made.

These are the things that I have found that I need to make my goals and dreams, reality: belief that it is possible, gratitude in advance for what is unfolding around me, the willingness to stick to it and work hard, a trusted group of cheerleaders that also believe in me. And the most important thing is that you have to make that first and definite decision that it's going to be. That total clarity of the end result even if you have no idea how you can make it happen, it's going to happen regardless.

These are the first pictures I took in my studio - I still love saying that - MY STUDIO - how cool is that. They are of my daughter, my best and favourite model. They are and always will be special.

Power of making a decision