Are You Clear on Your "WHY"?

I constantly read up and learn from various mentors of mine because I know that "success leaves clues". And one of the things that ALL my mentors as well as other "successful" people that I know of have in common is a clear sense of their life purpose - the reason "WHY". They all take their time to identify, acknowledge, and honor their "WHY"... what they're all here to do on earth... and pursue their "WHY" with passion and enthusiasm.

Wherever you are at in your life, I believe revisiting your "WHY" is a great exercise that should be done frequently. Being that it's the first day of the new decade and all, I decided to do this exercise myself and I suggest you do the same. Here's why...

Without getting clear on your "WHY", it's extremely easy to get sidetracked on your life's journey... wandering and drifting... without accomplishing much.

What does "being on purpose" mean?

There are different ways of defining the phrase, but here's the best description I've ever heard of:

"To be "on purpose" means you're doing what you love to do, doing what you're good at and accomplishing what's important to you. When you truly are on purpose, the people, resources, and opportunities you need naturally gravitate toward you. The world benefits, too, because when you act in alignment with your true life purpose, all of your actions automatically serve others."

Isn't that awesome?

Do you have a clear "WHY" behind everything you do?

Your "WHY" is like a compass that can guide you, your goals and your actions. Without this compass, you may be pursuing goals and diligently following action plans that may not ultimately fulfill you. The last thing you want is to get to the top of the ladder only to find out you had it leaning up against the wrong wall.

Ok. So, here's the exercise called "The Life Purpose Exercise" that I did for myself. I learned of this exercise from the book, The Success Principles by Jack Canfield (it's on page 23 of the book). It's a simple, 4-step exercise but is really powerful. After sharing the steps, I'll share what I came up with.

The 4 steps goes like this:

1. List two of your unique personal qualities.
2. List one or two ways you enjoy expressing those qualities when interacting with others.
3. Assume the world is perfect right now. What does this world look like? How is everyone interacting with everyone else? What does it feel like? Write your answer as a statement, in the present tense, describing the ultimate condition, the perfect world as you see it and feel it.

Combine the three prior subdivisions of this paragraph into a single statement.

Pretty simple right?

Ok. Here's what I got from going through the exercise.

1. passion to help others, patience
2. to empower, to inspire
3. everyone is enjoying abundance; everyone is joyous and having fun; everyone is working in harmony.

My purpose is to use my passion to help others and patience to empower and inspire them to live their highest self based in abundance, joy and harmony.

So... the end result is what you see on 4) which represents MY life purpose statement that expresses MY "WHY" which will serve as my compass, guiding and directing my behavior going forward.

Now, I'm sure I'll be tweaking this in the future as I evolve as an individual (and I don't even know if I did this exercise correctly as intended, but what the hell... it looks pretty good to me for now...).

I hope the above serves as a good reference for you and encourages you to take a stab at the exercise as well. I'm sure it will be worth your while and will help you in your life's journey.