Do you know why you get out of bed in the morning? It's time you did.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post about the importance of knowing your personal values and how you can identify them for yourself. Now it’s time to set the direction and identify your personal purpose! As I wrote last time:

Why is it so important to know your values and your purpose? Because they define the way you act and the choices you make in all aspects of your life. But when you do things that misalign with what's most important to you (which happens quite often when you aren't aware of your?own?values and your?own?purpose, but rather act out of other people's principles and expectations), you eventually become unhappy.

Why you should care about your purpose

A clear personal purpose provides us with an inspiring path forward. It answers the question "Why do I get out of bed in the morning?". All of us know what we do (the job we perform, the chores in our life), some know how we do it (what makes us different from others), but way too few know why we do what we do – the thing that drives us forward, the engine behind our actions. If the ride is pleasant enough, we might not care about the direction, and maybe that’s a good enough reason for us to refuel the tank to keep going. But at some point that won't be enough, and we need to feed the engine with something more specific and meaningful to keep it going, whatever that may be.

A great example of what happens when we aren’t in contract with our own sense of direction, is this passage from Alice in Wonderland, where Alice meets the Cheshire Cat:

Alice:?“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”

The Cheshire Cat:?“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.”

Alice:?“I don’t much care where.”

The Cheshire Cat:?“Then it doesn’t much matter which way you go.”

Alice:?“…so long as I get somewhere.”

The Cheshire Cat:?“Oh, you’re sure to do that, if only you walk long enough.”

For some people, wandering freely like Alice and not caring where they end up might be a purpose in itself: My purpose is to put myself into as many new situations as possible, so that I grow as a human being. But as you will see below, purpose is more than that – it’s also about how you contribute to the world, what impact you have on others. That's when we experience more meaning and more fulfilment.

If you are familiar with the concept of Blue Zones – the five places in the world where people live the longest and are the healthiest – then you might know that if you can sum up your life purpose in one phrase, you could live up to seven years longer. So if research shows that people who know why they wake up in the morning live longer, then you should probably figure it out as well if you haven’t already.

Spending time exploring your inner motivations and figuring out what mark you want to leave on this earth (which can be super small or enormous) might sound scary at first, since defining your own purpose requires quite a bit of reflection and soul searching. But not getting in the front seat of your own life creates space for other people to take the lead and can leave us with a sense of emptiness. And who wants to live a life haphazardly decided by others?

Tools to help you get started

The Japanese word Ikigai captures the notion of purpose quite eloquently. It means "reason for being" and takes both your personal pursuit and the benefits of others into consideration. With Ikigai, your life will have more meaning and you will feel more fulfilled while contributing to the good of others.

Ikigai is the intersection of your passions, talent, profession and impact:

The idea is that when you manage to fulfil all these different aspects, you will feel more satisfied with your life. It doesn’t necessarily need to be one single thing that covers all four areas, but mindfully adding all elements of Ikigai to your life will have a huge impact.

To start finding your own Ikigai, I suggest you sit down and answer the questions below related to passion, talent and impact. By design, I have excluded profession at this stage as it tends to limit our minds.

Passion

• What makes you forget about time and place?
• What’s true about you today that would make your 8-year-old-self cry??
• What gives you energy?

Talent

• What are you good at?
• What skills do you most often get positive feedback on?
• When do you feel that you add value?

Impact

• What injustice, pain or unhappiness do you want to solve?
• What change do you want to create?
• How do you want to be remembered?

Tips! Try to find the cognitive mechanisms behind the things you observe. For example – if you easily get into a state of flow when you play video games, ask yourself what it is that makes you so caught up in the game. Is it the constant pursuit of getting better? Is it to solve complex problem? Is it to see your progress as you move on to the next level? The more specific you can be on the drivers behind these situations, the better.

Make sure to write down your answers – it forces you to be precise (plus you can come back to them later). When I have done this workshop at Hedvig, people often find it hard to answer all of these questions. That’s why it’s so important to allocate time for self-reflection and discussions with people who know you well. Don’t expect everything to fall into place in an afternoon, for me it took several months before I really understood what it was that triggered my inner engine.

Once you have started to narrow down your personal purpose (however long that might take), try to formulate it into a mission statement that makes your insights concrete (remember: if you can sum up your life purpose in one phrase, you can live longer). Follow this format: What is your contribution, and what impact will you have?

My personal mission statement is to develop people & organizations so that they reach their full potential and thrive. That's my why. It doesn't say anything about how or what I will do to make that happen, which means I can fulfil my purpose in an endless number of ways. One is to host workshops, another to write articles like this one ??

Thank you for reading all the way through, I hope you got inspired to live an extra seven years ;)