Consider These Statistics
– A 2021 Baptist Standard article states that 57% of Americans think about finding more meaning and purpose in their lives at least once a month, with 21% considering it daily or weekly.
-According to a survey by AM Agency, only 10% of people know their life’s purpose and only 5% regularly follow it.
-According to Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, a lack of meaning and purpose in life is correlated with several mental health challenges, including anxiety and depression.
Finding your purpose in life is one of the most profound and fulfilling journeys you can embark on. Your purpose is the guiding force that gives your life meaning, drives your actions, and aligns your goals with your inner values and passions. Yet, many people struggle to identify what their true purpose is. If you’re feeling lost or uncertain about your path, don’t worry—you’re not alone. This article will guide you through the steps to discover your purpose and start living an authentic and deeply fulfilling life.
Why Finding Your Purpose Matters
Before discussing the process of finding your purpose, it’s essential to understand why it matters. Your purpose is the reason behind what you do. It makes your life feel meaningful, and your work feel rewarding. Without a clear purpose, you might find yourself drifting through life, experiencing anxiety, feeling unfulfilled, or constantly searching for something more. On the other hand, when you live with purpose, you:
- Experience Greater Fulfillment: You feel deep satisfaction and fulfillment when your actions align with your purpose.
- Make a Positive Impact: Living your purpose often involves contributing to something greater than yourself, whether it’s your community, a cause you care about, or the world.
- Build Resilience: Purpose gives you the strength to persevere through challenges as you are driven by something meaningful and worthwhile.
- Achieve Personal Growth: Pursuing your purpose encourages continuous learning and growth, helping you become the best version of yourself.
Steps to Finding Your Purpose in Life
Discovering your purpose is a personal and unique journey. Here are some steps to help guide you:
1. Reflect on Your Passions, Interests and Strengths
Your passions and interests are often key indicators of your purpose. They are the activities, subjects, or causes that excite you and make you feel alive. To identify them:
- List What You Love: Write down the things you genuinely enjoy doing. What activities make you lose track of time? What topics do you find yourself constantly thinking or talking about?
- Identify Patterns: Look for patterns or common themes in your list. These patterns reveal your underlying passions and how they might connect to your purpose.
- Utilize Career Tests Like Career Fit Test™: To further clarify your passions, interests, and strengths, consider taking a comprehensive career assessment like Career Fit Test™. This career test is designed to help you identify your strengths, interests, and values, providing valuable insights into how you can align your career and life with your purpose.
2. Examine Your Values
Your values are the principles that guide your decisions and actions. They are the beliefs that matter most to you. Understanding your values is crucial in finding your purpose because your purpose will be rooted in what you believe is important.
- Identify Core Values: Reflect on what you value most in life. Is it honesty, compassion, creativity, freedom, or something else? Make a list of your top values.
- Align Your Actions: Consider how your current actions align with these values. If there’s a disconnect, consider how you can bring your actions to what you truly value.
- Take Advantage of Career Assessments of Your Values: Many career tests and assessments, such as the Career Fit Test™, will help you examine your values. The Work Values Matcher is another free career assessment for identifying work values.
3. Reflect on Your Life Experiences
Your life experiences, both positive and negative, can offer valuable insights into your purpose. Often, the challenges you’ve faced or the accomplishments you’re proud of can reveal what truly matters to you.
- Look for Lessons: Think about the most significant experiences in your life. What have they taught you? How have they shaped who you are today?
- Find Meaning in Challenges: Consider the difficulties you’ve overcome. Sometimes, your purpose can be found in helping others going through similar challenges.
4. Identify Your Strengths and Talents
Your strengths and talents are the skills and abilities that come naturally to you. They are the things you excel at with little effort. These strengths point you toward your purpose because they indicate how you can contribute to the world.
- Assess Your Skills (Transferable, Personal, and Content Skills): Identify your strengths and talents. What do people often compliment you on? What tasks do you find easy that others find difficult?
Transferable skills are skills that can transfer from one job to another. Transferable skills will help you obtain your first job, as well as when pursuing a career change. They are the skills emphasized in your resume as you describe your work. Examples include creating, teaching, coaching, and organizing.
Personal Skills are aspects of one’s personality, such as being warm, friendly, and analytical. People often take these skills for granted because they are part of a person’s personality and don’t realize how much they contribute to living one’s purpose.
Content Skills are knowledge areas needed for doing specific jobs. For example, a nurse must know about patient care, the human body, and medications. Content skills identify where ideally you would like to use your transferable skills and personal skills.
One of the best ways to identify your transferable, personal, and content skills is by taking the Career Fit Test™ and upgrading to the Premium Report. This unique career test provides a CFT Skills Map™ and identifies career options that best use your top skills.
- Consider How to Use Them: Think about how you can use your strengths to make a positive impact. How can your unique abilities serve others?
5. Explore What Brings You Joy
Joy is a powerful indicator of purpose. You’re likely aligning with your true self when you engage in activities that bring you joy. Finding your purpose often involves discovering what brings you genuine happiness and fulfillment.
- Notice What Makes You Happy: Pay attention to the moments you feel most joyful and content. What are you doing? Who are you with? What environment are you in?
- Pursue Joyful Activities: Make a conscious effort to engage in activities that bring you joy as you serve others.
6. Consider How You Want to Contribute
Your purpose is often tied to how you want to contribute to the world. It’s about making a difference, whether on a small or large scale. Think about the impact you want on others and the legacy you want to leave behind.
- Ask Yourself the Big Questions: What kind of impact do you want to have on the world? What problems do you want to solve? How do you want to be remembered?
- Find Your Cause: Consider causes or issues you care deeply about. Whether it’s social justice, environmental conservation, education, or health, your purpose may lie in contributing to a cause you’re passionate about.
7. Seek Inspiration from Others
Sometimes, learning about how others have found their purpose can inspire you to discover your own. Seek stories of people living purposeful lives and consider how their journeys might resonate with yours.
- Read Biographies: Explore the lives of people who have significantly impacted your area or the world. How did they discover their purpose? What steps did they take to pursue it?
- Connect with Like-Minded Individuals: Surround yourself with people who share your values and passions. Their experiences and perspectives can provide valuable insights into your purpose.
- Conduct Informational Interviews: This strategy involves talking with people living a life of purpose that might fit you. For example, if you feel your purpose might include being a social justice lawyer, you would benefit from speaking to several attorneys who are meeting needs you have a passion for and asking questions such as what they like best and least about their jobs, what a typical day and week is like, what advice they would have for someone considering the field, and how their work relates to their purpose in life.
8. Take Action and Experiment
Finding your purpose isn’t just about reflection—it’s about action. Sometimes, you must try new things to discover what truly resonates with you. Don’t be afraid to experiment and take risks.
- Try New Activities: Engage in new hobbies, volunteer for causes you care about, or take on challenging projects. These experiences can help you discover your passion and purpose.
- Reflect on Your Experiences: After trying something new, reflect on how it made you feel. Did it bring you joy? Did it align with your values? Use these reflections to guide your next steps.
9. Be Patient and Persistent
Finding your purpose is a journey, not a destination. It may take time, and that’s okay. Be patient with yourself and stay persistent in your quest. Your purpose may evolve as you grow and change.
- Trust the Process: Understand that finding your purpose is a gradual process. It’s okay if you don’t have all the answers right away.
- Stay Open to Change: Your purpose may shift throughout life. Stay open to new experiences and opportunities that may help you refine your sense of purpose.
You can use the steps above to find your purpose in life; however, what if you believe in God? Are there other steps to consider?
Understanding Your Purpose If You Believe in God
As of 2023, 74% of Americans believe in God, according to a Statista survey. Also, according to a 2023 Gallup poll, 68% of Americans identify with a Christian religion. For those who believe in God, finding our purpose in life goes beyond personal fulfillment or success; it’s about aligning our lives with God’s will and living out the calling He has placed on us. For Christians, the Bible teaches that every believer has a unique purpose designed by God, and discovering that purpose is essential to living a life that honors Him.
Understanding Your God-Given Purpose
Before diving into the steps of discovering your purpose, it’s essential to understand what purpose means in a Christian context. Your purpose is the reason God created you. It’s the specific role He has designed for you in His grand plan. Scripture reminds us that God has a purpose for each of us:
- Jeremiah 29:11: “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.”
- Ephesians 2:10: “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”
Keys To Understanding Your Purpose as You Follow God
1. You have a “Primary Calling” and “Secondary Callings”
Most of us spend 60% or more of our lives working. The right job can allow you to use your unique gifts and abilities in purposeful work that is a calling and not just a job. Being in the wrong job can be agonizing, affecting every area of your life.
As you seek to find purpose-driven work that is a calling, it is essential to realize that your work is not your most important calling. There is a critical distinction between your “primary calling” to follow Jesus and your “secondary callings,” or life roles, which include your work:
The Bible reveals that work is not our central calling. There are no biblical examples of someone being called to paid employment. Before being called to something, we are called to Someone. Before being called to do something, we are called to be.
Our primary calling is to have a personal relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ. The Bible tells us that God has called us into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ. Our primary calling is not tied to our employment. God values us for who we are, not for what we can produce or achieve at work. God’s call to us is an eternal one that encompasses and transcends our temporal activities.
Your work, or vocational calling, is one of your secondary callings…. Your vocational calling is a summons from God to use your gifts in the world, whether within paid employment, the home, or volunteer activities. [As Os Guinness says,] “But these and other things are always the secondary, never the primary calling. They are ‘callings’ rather than the ‘calling.’ They are our answer to God’s address, our response to God’s summons. Secondary callings matter, but only because the primary calling matters most.” (Live Your Calling, pp. 5-8)
Therefore, if you are a Christian seeking to follow Jesus daily, you have already found your life’s most important calling and purpose! (For more information about the primary calling, see Your Most Important Calling at www.LiveYourCalling.com.) You can live this calling even if you are unemployed or in work that doesn’t fit you well. The more diligently you seek to live your primary calling, the more effectively the Lord can guide you in finding your vocational calling (that is, work that fits your gifts and brings a deep sense of purpose and significance.)
2. Seek God in Prayer
Prayer is the foundation of discovering your purpose. Through prayer, you can seek God’s guidance and ask Him to reveal His will for your life.
- Pray for Clarity: Ask God to give you clarity and understanding about your purpose. Pray for an open heart to hear His voice and the courage to follow His leading.
- Listen for God’s Voice: Spend time in quiet reflection, listening for God’s guidance. Sometimes, God speaks to us in a still, small voice through the Bible or the counsel of others.
3. Study the Bible
The Bible is God’s Word, full of wisdom and guidance for understanding your purpose. As you read Scripture, ask the Holy Spirit to reveal God’s plan for your life. Studying Scripture and prayer are spiritual disciplines that will help you to keep your primary calling primary.
- Discover God’s Commands: The Bible provides general guidance for all Christians, such as loving God and others, sharing the Gospel, and living a life of integrity. These commands are foundational to your purpose.
- Reflect on Biblical Examples: Study the lives of people in the Bible who discovered their purpose, such as Moses, David, Esther, and Paul. Consider how God called them and how they responded to His call.
3. Identify Your Spiritual Gifts
God has uniquely equipped you with gifts and talents to fulfill your purpose. Recognizing and developing these gifts is vital to discovering how God wants to use you.
- Identify Your Spiritual Gifts: Spiritual gifts are special abilities given by the Holy Spirit to believers to build up the church. These include teaching, hospitality, leadership, and encouragement. Consider taking a spiritual gifts assessment or asking others in your faith community to help you identify your gifts. You can complete a spiritual gifts inventory and other assessments in our book Live Your Calling: A Practical Guide to Finding and Fulfilling Your Mission in Life.
- Use Your Talents for God’s Glory: Beyond spiritual gifts, consider the natural talents and skills God has given you. (This is where your results from the Career Fit Test™ Premium Report are useful in identifying your top transferable, personal, and content skills. Start with the Free Career Fit Test™.) How can you use them to serve God and others? For example, if you’re skilled in music, your purpose may include leading worship or teaching others.
4. Reflect on Your Passions
God often aligns our purpose with the passions He has placed in our hearts. Your passions are those things that stir your heart and motivate you to take action.
- Consider What Moves You: What causes or issues are you passionate about? What do you feel strongly about in terms of serving others? Your purpose may involve addressing these areas in a way that glorifies God.
- Align Your Passions with God’s Mission: Ensure that your passions align with God’s mission. For example, if you’re passionate about helping the poor, consider how you can do so in a way that reflects God’s love and advances His Kingdom.
5. Serve Others
Service is vital to Christian living and can be a powerful way to discover your purpose. You may find that God reveals your calling through the joy and fulfillment you experience as you serve others.
- Get Involved in Ministry: Join a ministry or volunteer in your church or community. Pay attention to where you feel most effective and fulfilled as you serve.
- Observe the Impact: Consider the impact your service has on others. Where do you see God working through you?
6. Seek Wise Counsel
God often uses other believers to help us discover our purpose. Surround yourself with wise, godly people who can provide guidance, encouragement, and accountability.
- Talk to Your Pastor or Mentor: Share your journey with a pastor or spiritual mentor. They can offer biblical wisdom and prayerful support as you seek your purpose.
- Join a Small Group: Being part of a small group or Bible study can provide a community of believers who can pray with you, offer insights, and encourage you in your faith journey.
7. Trust in God’s Timing
Finding your purpose takes time and effort. It’s important to trust in God’s timing and remain patient as He unfolds His plan for your life.
- Wait on the Lord: Isaiah 40:31 reminds us, “But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.” Trust that God’s timing is perfect.
- Stay Faithful in the Present: While waiting for clarity, live faithfully in the areas where God has already placed you. Serve excellently in your current roles, trusting that God is using them to prepare you for your greater purpose.
8. Embrace Your Unique Calling
God has a unique purpose for each of us. Don’t compare your calling to others; instead, focus on fulfilling the specific role God has given you.
- Celebrate Your Uniqueness: Ephesians 4:7 says, “But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift.” Celebrate the unique way God has created and called you.
- Live Authentically: Be true to who God has made you to be. Your purpose will reflect the unique combination of your gifts, talents, passions, and experiences.
Conclusion
Finding your purpose in life is a deeply personal and rewarding journey. It involves self-reflection, exploration, and action. By understanding your skills, interests, passions, values, strengths, and the impact you want to make, you can uncover the purpose that will guide you toward a fulfilling and meaningful life. The Career Fit Test™ Premium Report is a unique career assessment that will help you match who you are to purposeful work and guide you to make your purpose a reality in your life. Remember, your purpose is unique, and there is always time to start discovering what truly drives you. Embrace the journey, trust the process, and take steps daily to live a life aligned with your true purpose.
If you believe in God and are a Christian, finding your purpose is seeking God’s will and aligning your life with His plans. You can discover God’s unique calling for your life through prayer, Scripture, reflection, and service. Remember that your purpose is not just about what you do but about who you are in Christ and how you live out His love in the world. Embrace the process, trust in God’s timing, and live each day to glorify Him. As you do, you will find that your purpose in life becomes clearer, leading to a life filled with meaning, joy, and fulfillment in Christ.