Welcome to the Find My Purpose course. What the hell is purpose? Why does it matter? Where are we going? Why are we here? I can't feel my legs. Purpose: purpose is a concept that is often misunderstood. I find that many people email me about purpose. They come to me with questions about what it means in life. How do they find their true calling or how do they gain a greater sense of meaning through their actions? And I want to start this course by making it very, very clear what purpose is and why it is important. Let's start with what it is. I'm going to be honest with you for a second. This is Mark being vulnerable. This is me making a confession. Damn, I hate the term purpose. I hate the question, How do I find my purpose? It even hurts a little to create a course with this as the title. But, what people mean when they talk about purpose is so important and so significant that I simply absorb it and deal with it. But why do I hate the term purpose? Well, I hate the term purpose because, ultimately, purpose is something you invent in your head. It's essentially deciding that something is important and then doing it because you feel it's important. So, in that sense, you can literally find a purpose anywhere. I could find a purpose in doing the dishes. I could find a purpose in taking out the trash. I could find a purpose in lying in

It is the subjectivity and complete arbitrariness of this idea of purpose that drives me a little crazy. What I find is that when people ask questions about purpose or seek a purpose, what they are actually asking is: I want to find a meaningful use of my time. I want to spend my life doing something that feels significant. I want to do something that feels important, something I can be proud of. So, that is a very different question from this cosmic purpose that will solve all your problems. It is important for people to find meaningful activities to dedicate their time to, and the reason this is important is that many of the low-level tactical things people turn to personal development for are actually resolved with this question of purpose. For example, many people struggle with motivation. They seek advice on how to be more motivated at work, how to be more productive, how to wake up earlier, and how to do the eight things on their to-do list. Well, there are many small tactics and strategies you can implement to be more productive. But if you hate your job and think it is completely pointless, then none of those tactics and strategies will matter in the long run. Whereas, if you love your job and believe the work you are doing is extremely important, then many of those tactical things about motivation won't matter. You will be excited to get up every day and work on it. Similarly, people look for small tactics and strategies to optimize their relationships, have better friendships

To bring more intimacy to the relationships they have with other people. Well, of course, there are small things you can do. There are small lines you can send by text message to people to check or ask them how they feel about certain topics that generate a little more intimacy. I mean, yes, there are all these little things that benefit you on the margin. But ultimately, what matters in relationships is having a sense of shared purpose, shared values, shared goals, visions, dreams, and worldviews. That's what brings people together. So, if you haven't discovered the question of purpose or the question What do I find important in life? then relationships, developing that intimacy in relationships, is going to be a problem. So, for all these reasons, the question of purpose is actually extremely practical. It's just that this question of purpose is completely dismissed in most of the self-help world. Purpose is seen as this cosmic meaning, this predetermined universal destiny that each of us has, and if we just find that sense of purpose or meaning, then everything fits and we will never have these cosmic questions again. That's not true. Purpose is a continuous creation. It's not something you find. You're not looking under a rock like, Oh, crap, that's my purpose! I'm glad I found it. No, purpose is something you create and maintain, and sometimes you lose it and have to recreate it. Now, the truth is not as sexy

It's like the definition of the purpose of cosmic significance. But, in reality, it is more useful. I think it is very important to understand some things about purpose before we start delving into the question of how do we create a purpose for ourselves? So, the first myth I see out there or the first mistake I see many people make is the idea that there is a single purpose for each of us. It's simply not true. It's not true at all. You can have many, many purposes in your life. You can find meaning or feel that you are using your time well, doing many things. Picking up your child from school may seem to have a lot of meaning and purpose, then you go back to work and it seems to have a lot of meaning and purpose, then you call your dad and watch the basketball game together and that feels like it has a lot of meaning and purpose, and then you get into bed and relax with your partner and it feels like it has a lot of meaning and purpose. So, meaning and purpose come from many different areas of our lives and I would even say that it is healthy to diversify our sense of purpose throughout our lives. If you only get purpose and meaning from one thing, and then that thing is taken away from you, well, then you're screwed. You will have a deep existential crisis and feel that your life is meaningless. But, if you are able to derive purpose and meaning from multiple sources

So, this idea that we have a true calling in the world is nonsense and generally something invented by others long after having lived it. We can look back today and say that Winston Churchill's purpose was to defeat Adolf Hitler in World War II. But if you were actually Winston Churchill living his life, you had many, many sources of purpose, and many, many things happened throughout your life that felt extremely significant even before reaching World War II. This idea that people have this singular purpose on earth and have a unique role in humanity is nonsense. It's another version of the narrative fallacy in psychology. The idea that it's very easy to build a simple narrative looking back in time. But in the present, everything is ambiguous and uncertain. Now, the second mistake I see a lot around the idea of purpose is that it's something static and constant throughout our lives, that you find something that matters to you and boom, the next 50 years until the day of your death, that's what it's all about. Now, this happens to some people. But I think they are actually the exception. I believe that what is more common is that your purpose changes and evolves over time. What matters to you and seems very important at 20 is different from what matters to you and seems important at 30, and again, different from what matters to you and seems important at 40. In fact, I would say that it's probably a good thing.

You encounter important changes throughout your life because it means you are growing, evolving, changing, and exploring more aspects of who you can be. Let me put it this way, what I thought was significant and important at 20 was nonsense. In fact, I am very happy that my purpose has evolved quite a bit in the last 20 years. Finally, the third mistake I see people make with the idea of purpose is that purpose solves everything. Purpose doesn't solve everything. It solves some things. Having a purpose is a kind of psychological nourishment. Eating doesn't solve all the problems in your life. But if you don't eat, you really can't solve anything else. The kind of purpose works the same way with us psychologically. Having a sense of purpose and meaning in our lives doesn't solve all the problems in our lives. You will still live with doubt and uncertainty. You will still wake up grumpy some mornings. You will continue to feel unmotivated. One thing I wrote years ago that has been very popular is that I said, Even if you have your dream job, you will hate it about 30% of the time. Finding this huge sense of meaning in your life doesn't necessarily negate many of these questions and uncertainties you struggle with. It makes it easier to deal with them and allows you to find better problems to focus on. But if you don't have that sense of meaning and purpose in your life, everything else is almost impossible.

It's a bit impossible to feel happy or satisfied. Many of your relationships are going to be difficult. Your career is going to be tough. You are developing motivation to do things that will be challenging. So, purpose is necessary but not sufficient for happiness and well-being. For that reason, I believe it's good to see the development of a sense of purpose and meaning in your life as a skill that you can refine and develop so that, inevitably, when those moments come when you start to feel a lack of purpose, you know how to find a purpose or create a purpose for yourself again. So, now that we have all those warnings and definitions, and that I am just an irritable and grumpy old man, now that we've got all that out of the way, let's talk about finding a purpose. No, scratch that, creating a purpose. Purpose is essentially the feeling that you are using your time well and that your challenges are meaningful. Purpose can be found in many different things. It can be found in a close relationship with someone. It can come from a passion for a cause you believe in. It can come from achieving goals. It can also come from truly enjoying what you are doing. But ultimately, long-term purpose is the feeling that something matters more than oneself. Purpose is an activity, an idea, a person, or a relationship for which you are willing to sacrifice, for which you are willing to give up something. You are not just willing

And that's why people who lack a sense of purpose tend to suffer from all these unpleasant, tactical, and low-level little problems. They struggle to be motivated. It's hard for them to get up in the morning. They struggle to care about what they are doing and struggle to maintain healthy relationships, ultimately because they don't have that thing or things that matter more than themselves. You could almost say that a sense of purpose is inversely correlated with narcissism or selfishness. In general, people who are extremely selfish or self-centered do not see other things as more important than themselves, so they are never willing to make that sacrifice, and ultimately their time doesn't feel very significant, and as a result, they need to cover up that lack of meaning with a lot of ups and downs, excitement, drama, and emotions that no one really cares about. So, if you were one of those people, if you are one of those people who is always trying to fill the void with the next emotion or the next drama or emotion, then one of the first and most practical things you can do is simply to let go of a little bit of selfishness/narcissism. Experiment with what it feels like not to become so much the center of the universe. How does it feel to put someone else before yourself or put an idea or a goal before your own pleasure? Now, in the short term, doing that is not fun. It's not fun to make a sacrifice for

To achieve a long-term goal. However, what you find is that the more you do it, the more imbued you are with a sense of meaning and purpose, the more satisfied you feel with yourself, and the less obligated to fill the void, so to speak. But don't worry! We will delve into that as the course progresses. Essentially, this issue of purpose is a matter of values. It's a matter of how you find the things you consider important and then how you fill your time with those things you consider important. And I think what you are going to find is that there are very few tactical or strategic things you can do to do that. Most of this issue of purpose and meaning is a matter of perspective. It's a matter of values. It's a matter of what you are choosing to make important in your life and how you can choose something better. So, the first exercise to kick off this course is basically to do an audit of your sense of purpose in life. Do you feel a sense of purpose in life? What aspects of your life do you feel a sense of purpose in? Do you feel a sense of purpose in your work? Do you feel a sense of purpose in your relationships? Do you feel you have good goals that you are progressing towards? Do you feel you are making significant sacrifices? If so, what makes that sacrifice meaningful? Take some time to think about it, and I just want to assure you that it is completely fine

In none of these activities, and that none of these sacrifices feel particularly significant because that's why we're here. So take some time. Do an honest audit of yourself. Write down everything you think is necessary. Really try to delve into what truly feels meaningful and important in your life and what doesn't. It's okay if it's not. We all are there at some point. So, get to work on that, and I'll see you in the next lesson. (upbeat music)

How to Figure Out Who You Are Meant To Be

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