Have You Identified Your Primary Purpose?

We’ve all heard the adage: if you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll probably end up somewhere else.

It’s true. If you don’t know where you want to go, or what you want to be, you’ll be driven by the need to please others, or just be buffeted by events around you. You’ll likely end up somewhere you don’t truly want to be.

Maybe it’ll be a j.o.b. (stands for just over broke) paying starvation wages. I hear there’s a lot of those around. Or you may end up worse off.

Maybe you haven’t defined what Joshua Boswell (of American Writers and Artists Institute) calls your primary purpose.

What is your primary purpose? It’s the biggest, overarching aspiration in your life. It’s your highest goal. It’s the target you want to hit, the plateau at the top of the mountain you have to climb. Identifying your primary purpose means identifying what you really want to achieve in life, what your central goal is — and perhaps what legacy you’ll want to leave behind when you are done: your contribution to this world, the evidence you were here.  

This will help you orient yourself in life around a system of values. Your highest purpose will define your values. It will also tell you what you need to learn, because to achieve the biggest, overarching aspiration in your life, you’ll doubtless need to acquire a few skills you probably don’t have now.

I recently sat down with pen and paper (for some reason this works better than with a word processor) and wrote mine out. Here’s what I came up with: “My Primary Purpose is to become the kind of writer who is financially independent, so he can tell the truth as he sees it, able to do the research where necessary; and is also able to serve others and care for others when they need it, and support the causes that need to be supported today.”

I don’t think that’s too bad, although I imagine I’ll refine it as we go along. This isn’t something to be done in one sitting necessarily. It may be a long-term process, especially if you haven’t done it in a while, or at all.

If you’re still not sure what I’m driving at, think about what really motivates you to get up in the morning. I don’t mean getting to work on time, although obviously that’s going to be a factor for a lot of readers, at least for now. What would motivate you to get up in the morning if earning a paycheck wasn’t your most immediate concern?

Suffice it to say, your primary purpose will be different from mine. It’s a good idea to set out what interests really drive you, what activities make you feel the most alive, and what skills you bring to the table. Your primary purpose may involve something monetarily specific, such as earning six figures a year selling commercial real estate. Or it may be something closer to home, such as being the best husband or wife or parent you can be.

Your primary purpose can involve a business, a treasured relationship, your health, or what you can think of as a calling. What matters is that you to write it out, so you can refine it.

Then you can set about analyzing your weeks and days and hours. Obviously, there are things you can do to help achieve your primary purpose, and things in your life that are doing just the opposite. What are you doing to bring about, or realize, your primary purpose? What can you do to enhance these things and do more of them? Then, what things are getting in your way, not truly adding value to your life (possible example: too much “Facebooking”)? What can you do to minimize and remove them — even if this means sometimes means gathering your courage and saying No, whether to others or to yourself.

The best time to do all this is when you’re a twentysomething, because — God willing! — you still have the bulk of your life ahead of you. But anyone both can and should do it, at any age (I am well past my 20s, for sure!).

Different people will go about this in different ways. I prefer to write things out, because I think better that way. Others might do this with family members, or coworkers. It’s a good idea to try to explain your primary purpose to others at some point, because there’s another adage. If you truly understand something, you can explain it to someone else. Conversely, if you can’t explain it clearly, you probably don’t understand it yourself.

Try writing out and explaining your primary purpose in ways that show others — loved ones, etc. — how they will benefit from your achieving it. That’s the best way of getting them on board, because you'll need support sooner or later. And, of course, encouraging them to do the same, as you care about them.

In sum, your primary purpose is a huge part of who you are, or want to be. It’s worth meditating over or praying over, and then spending whatever time it takes to define. And then dividing the things (and sometimes people) presently in your life that will help you achieve your primary purpose from everything that is distracting and hindering you. The first you need to enhance. The second you need to eliminate.

This won’t necessarily be easy. Nothing worthwhile ever is. It’s your life, though, and the clock is ticking.