7 Ways to Find Your Purpose in Life and Live It

Follow these quick tips and learn how to turn passion into your destiny.

Are you doing all things you want with your life? Are you living up to your expectations?

Perhaps you wonder this as I often do.

Over the years, I’ve tried to live up to these action steps to have a more purposeful life. Am I perfect? Far from it. I wanted to share this with you. Sometimes a small improvement can yield big results.

Ready. Fire. Aim.

1. FIGURE OUT WHAT IT IS YOU SHOULD BE DOING.

It’s good to kick the tires on your goals now and again. But sometimes you have no clue what you want to be when you grow up.

Have you found your true calling?

Writer Joseph Murphy suggests the following approach to discover and live your purpose: Ask your subconscious (God or intuition) for guidance, specialize in a branch of interest, and try to know more about your specialty than anyone else. Also, he adds that your endeavors should benefit others—and be selfless. (You can read more about his bestseller here.)

This doesn’t mean you need to be a caregiver or a penniless person to live out your purpose in life, but nobody likes someone who is always out for themselves.

2. HELP OTHERS TO GET WHAT THEY WANT.

The idea of helping others isn’t unique to Murphy. It doesn’t mean you have to go without in order to get. Gawain, Dyer, Oprah, and other leaders in personal development and business talk about having personal goals that, on the outset, may appear counter intuitive to success but ultimately bring you fortune.

Bringing altruism to a bigger field, in the work you do, whether its a chief executive officer of a startup or the server at an eatery, catering to others is real empowerment.

What’s in it for the other person? And how can you help them succeed?

3. TAKE CRITICISM, ADJUST YOUR COURSE, AND MONITOR RESULTS.

I love to hear from people who have read my books and share something with me about them that resonated—sometimes it’s a character trait or a minor point in the story, other times something grander. Their appreciation of my work makes me want to write more.

One of the hardest things I’ve learned is how to take constructive criticism. Book reviewers can be cruel. But, you don’t have to be an author to experience criticism.

I remember sitting on the stage of a black box theater in New York after giving, what I thought was a killer performance, only to hear the opposite from my director. Then, there was the time at work that I had to rewrite an entire PowerPoint presentation, at night, because “I didn’t get it.”

Success isn’t about getting it right; it’s about taking direction and improving over time. And having the b@lls not to crumble into a ball and give up.

I’ve often said to other writers, “Don’t get it right. Get it written.” Finish something…anything…don’t talk about it…don’t lament over why you don’t have the time to get it done perfectly. Write the damn thing! Trust me. You’re only going to have to rewrite it again later.

Success takes many adjustments.

I created a process (based off the Stephen-Covey quadrant above) that works for me (a spreadsheet I’ve used for about fifteen years) to schedule the important-but-not-so-urgent tasks. Spending too much time on necessities and non-important tasks results in never getting done what you really want.

I’m not perfect with this. In fact, this week I haven’t had time (focusing too much on crises) to get to the “big rocks” but I don’t beat myself over it. (Well, only just a little.)

4. YOUR DESIRES ARE FOR A REASON.

If you have a passions for riches, don’t deny it. Honor this ambition.

If you enjoy art, engage in it. Do you what you love, but don’t do it with unrealistic expectations.

I’m not talking about blindly following your passion. Quitting your day job to paint watercolors for a living—without an action plan for success—will ultimately lead you back to Quadrant I and focusing on crises.

Finding balance is key.

Don’t deny your interests. They’re there for a reason. Listen with your heart…your core. It’s not going tell you to throw caution to the wind and become a writer over night. Believe me! Back in 1997 when I came up with what I thought was a great idea I had all I could do but give my notice. I’m glad I didn’t. I’m still working on that very idea today. (My work in progress called Carolyn’s Turn—the prequel to Tim on Broadway—started out as a screenplay and morphed into a novel.)

Living in the moment and feeling the subtle nods of correction and guidance will get you there. Maybe not overnight. But it will get you there.

5. FEEL AS IF YOU’RE ALREADY THERE.

Seeing and feeling yourself as you’d like is probably the most important concept in making your dreams come true.

It wasn’t until I read Wayne Dyer’s Wishes Fulfilled that I understood the importance of the “feeling” side of creative visualization.

Seeing it isn’t enough. Peale and others have talked about the “thinking” and “seeing” aspects ad nauseam, but you have to know it.

Ask yourself what would it feel like to have what it is you want and take this sensation to sleep with you every night.

6. TAP INTO YOUR CHILDHOOD AMBITIONS.

As a kid, I had such high expectations about what it meant to be a grown up. I wanted to be a teacher. I even became one for awhile until I realized it wasn’t being a teacher, in front of a class of students, that I wanted to be. It was something else.

My childhood ambitions still resonate for me.

I learned it wasn’t so much the cool things I liked,  as a kid, about a teacher: writing on the chalkboard, correcting papers, lecturing, being an authoritative figure, and assigning book reports.

Then, there were my other fantasies. As a child, I was fascinated with celebrities, the entertainment industry, and woman of power. (Of course I was!)

After much tries at this and that, I discovered I was good at writing, crafting a document, and creating a decent presentation—except for that aforementioned PowerPoint dec.

Today, I write about the worlds I created as a child. It’s adult make pretend.

Life is ever evolving. Who knows, tomorrow I may to turn to cooking for a living. Now that would be a challenge.

What did you love as a child? What elements of it still hold true for you today?

7. KNOW THAT WE’RE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER.

You owe it to society to live up to our greatest potential. When you succeed, the world does too.

Life is but a dream. Not my dream or yours, but our one dream.

The universality of it all has taken me a lifetime to comprehend. I am still working on it.

I’ve been told: I am God and so are you.

We’re more than just connected; we’re one in this uni-verse. Unfortunately, that radical terrorist is me, but I’m also that beautiful sunset and the winner of today’s jackpot.