7 Tips that You Should Know about Finding Your Purpose

Dear Fellow Seeker,

There was a time when I felt how you are feeling now.

I know that you are feeling empty and there’s a void inside you. The things you are doing seem meaningless.

You try to distract yourself with busyness but the empty feeling keeps coming back.

You are afraid that this empty feeling is permanent. And you are afraid that there’s really no meaning to life.

I used to feel that way until I found my purpose in life. To be honest, I felt empty for a long time. It took a journey to find my purpose and it wasn’t easy.

Here are 7 things I learnt on my journey that I wished I knew when I was seeking my purpose.

1. Luck, Coincidences and Opportunities

When I left my banking job a decade ago, one of the things that I wanted to do was to open a cafe. Knowing that I had no experience in the food industry, I decided to find a job in a cafe first. I applied to many cafes but none accepted me because I was over-qualified for a cafe job with my university degree.

By chance, I was invited to a networking event one day. I decided to tell people there that I was looking for a job in a cafe. One of the people I met asked me, “Why do you want to work in a cafe?”

“Because it’s a dream that I have to run my own cafe one day,” I replied.

By coincidence, he happened to own a cafe and he must have been moved by what I said. He linked me up with the cafe manager and I got a job at the cafe the next day.

You may say that this all happened by chance and I was just lucky, but if I didn’t take the opportunity to attend the networking event and have the courage to share my dream, this wouldn’t have happened.

This was not the only instance when the right person and opportunity showed up at the right time. When I finished the cafe stint, I began to think of running a healthy fruit juice stall instead. A friend happened to be starting out her fruit juice stall and she knew that I was considering to go into the fruit juice business. I managed to get a job with her to run the fruit juice stall.

Again, you can say that it was a coincidence, but if I didn’t share with my friends that the fruit juice stall was something else that I was considering, she wouldn’t have approached me to run the stall.

None of this would have happened if I wasn’t open to the opportunities and people that came along.

When you embark on your search for your purpose, people and opportunities that will help you to discover your purpose will show up.

Be courageous and seize the opportunities that these people present to you.

After all that’s happened with the cafe and juice shop, you may think that it’s a happy ending after that, but actually, that’s not the end of the story. Because the cafe and fruit juice experience turned out to be a dead end.

2. Dead-Ends are Useful

After the cafe stint and the juicing experience, plus another job in a fast-food sandwich chain, I came to the conclusion that I like food but I don’t like making food for people. So the dream that I had about running my own cafe was actually a dead-end when it came to finding my purpose.

I didn’t feel discouraged when the dream came to an end. In fact, I actually felt relieved. I could also confidently cross out “Have my own cafe” from my bucket-list and I happily did so.

The dead-ends that you encounter in your exploration are useful, because dead-ends tell you that these things are not meant for you. The time that you spent exploring was not wasted, because it serves to clarify what’s important to you.

Don’t feel discouraged that you took a wrong turn because something else will always show up.

But what’s next may not be obvious at first.

Let me explain.

3. Your Purpose May Not be Obvious at First

Most people think that when they find their purpose, it comes in a light bulb moment.

Guess what?

When you finally discover what your purpose is, it doesn’t come in a eureka moment.

Once I crossed out the dream of having my own cafe, the opportunity to become a coach opened up. At that time, it wasn’t clear to me that coaching was in line with my purpose. In fact, I never wanted to be a coach. I was an introverted child who made my first friend at 11 years old. Talking to people was not my strong suit. If you asked what my top five career choices were when I was a teenager, none of the choices would have featured working with people.

Yet for some reason, I kept coming back to coaching. I was invited to do a coach training program. Then coaching opportunities kept presenting themselves to me. People kept asking me to be their coach and each time, I said yes.

It took around a year for me to figure out that coaching was what I really wanted to do. Coaching eventually became so much a part of me that I couldn’t imagine my life without it.

It may not be obvious at first, but what you keep returning to is tied to your purpose.

When I finally realised that coaching is part of my life purpose, it didn’t come in a single moment. The realisation came as a result of all the times that I said yes to coaching.

If you did a double take at the words, “part of my life purpose” in the previous paragraph, well, I used those words deliberately.

I used “part of my life purpose” in the previous paragraph because coaching is not my sole purpose in life.

Did you know that there are actually many ways to manifest your life purpose?

4. How to Choose Your Mission

People usually think that their purpose has one manifestation. For example, they may think that their purpose is to own a successful business, or invent something life-changing, or travel the world. Each of these examples is a specific manifestation of a person’s purpose.

The Difference Between Your Mission and Purpose

A person’s purpose does not usually come in the form of a specific manifestation like, “Run a charity”, or “Become a billionaire”, or “Travel to all seven continents”. These are mission statements, not purpose statements.

Purpose statements are essence statements.

An essence statement is the intention behind a mission statement.

It is the “Why” behind your mission.

An example of an essence statement is “To bring light and joy to the world.”

“To bring light and joy to the world” is actually my purpose and there are many ways that I can do that. I’m a coach now and that is partly how I bring light and joy to the world. But there are many ways that I can manifest my purpose.

I can write and touch people through my writing.

I can run a social enterprise to facilitate self- and social transformation.

I can become a teacher and impart to others what I have learnt.

The reality is that there are actually many ways to manifest your purpose and many missions for you to choose from.

Choose the Mission that is in line with your Skills and Talents

To determine which mission or manifestation to choose, you need to understand what your skills and talents are.

For example, if your purpose is to “Make the planet green”, there are many ways that you can make the planet green. Do you have talents and skills in sustainable agriculture? Can you run a permaculture farm? Or do you have talents and skills in bringing people together to organise a green movement?

The manifestation or mission that you choose needs to be in line with your skills and talents. If you choose a manifestation that you have no skills or talents in, you would be banging your head against a wall when there are easier ways for you to manifest your purpose.

The manifestation that you choose is also related to what calls to you. Which brings me to my next point about callings, and what most people get wrong about their calling.

5. You Have More Than One Calling

People actually have many callings. Maybe you feel called to travel. Maybe you feel called to teach. Maybe you feel called to take up pottery. Maybe you feel called to be a parent. Maybe you feel called to write a book. There will always be things that call out to you.

A calling is simply something that draws you and calls out to you to be done.

Your callings are clues to your purpose.

Pay attention to the recurring themes that bring you joy in your callings. Among those things that call to you, there will be some that you keep returning to. These are things that you can immerse yourself doing all day long, and in these things, are the gems of your purpose.

For example, other than coaching, I was always drawn to healing and the healing arts also runs in my family. My grandfather owned a Traditional Chinese Medicine shop. My grand-uncle was an acupuncturist. I have taken classes in hand reflexology, foot reflexology, sports massage, lymphatic massage… All these things that I have learnt have a common theme, which is working with my hands and healing, and it relates to my purpose of bringing light and joy to the world.

In healing, I will also be living my purpose to bring light and joy to the world.

There are two more things that you need to know about finding your purpose. And the next one has to do with the job that you are in.

6. About Purpose and Work

Do you want your purpose to be tied to the work that you are doing? Doing so would bring you a lot of fulfilment as you are doing what’s meaningful to you for the majority of your waking hours.

I quit banking before I figured out what my purpose is. Quitting gave me space and freedom to explore and try things that I wouldn’t have been able to try. But the transition to coaching was hard work and if my resources ran out, there was a chance that I would have gone back to my banking job.

You can choose to quit and figure out what to do. Or you can figure out what to do while still in your job. There are pros and cons to each approach.

Quit Your Job then Discover Your Purpose

Quitting to figure out what your purpose is gives you a lot of space to explore different things. If I didn’t quit my banking job, I wouldn’t have been able to try out the food business and learn whether I really wanted to run a cafe.

But doing so was really difficult. There was a lot of uncertainty about whether I could pay my bills. I managed to pay my bills eventually but some people quit before they manage to turn their purpose into a job or business that can pay.

Discover Your Purpose First then Quit Your Job

If you choose to stay in your job and figure out what you want to do, you need to bear in mind that your job is your comfort zone. Staying in your job would delay your search because it limits the opportunities that you would be able to take to find your purpose. But if you managed to figure out what you want in your job, and acquire the skills to manifest your purpose, then the transition would be much easier.

Don’t Quit and Manifest Your Purpose at the Same Time

There is also a third option, and that is to stay in your job and to manifest your purpose on the side. Who’s to say that you can’t do your job on a part-time basis and run the charity that you have always wanted to run as well?

So, after all this talk about finding your purpose, how do you know that you have found your purpose?

7. Signs that You have Found Your Purpose

Does every single human being have a purpose? The answer is yes, each of us has a purpose that we are meant to manifest in this lifetime.

You know that you have found your purpose when you get lost in what you are doing, and time flies by while you are living your purpose.

You know that you have found your purpose if the same things call to you, over and over again.

You know that you have found your purpose when it’s something that you are willing to voluntarily suffer for, and that it’s something that you would choose to do even though it’s really difficult. Life may not be easy but you wake up knowing that there is meaning in your life.

You know that you have found your purpose when the empty feeling that you had and the sense of meaninglessness diminishes. Some days you may still experience that empty feeling but those days become fewer and far between.

Finally, when you are living your purpose, there is joy in your life and lightness in your step.

Conclusion

You may be feeling empty now but take heart, because however long it has been with you, the empty feeling that you are having is useful.

Consider that the empty feeling is a driving force. The empty feeling drives change, and it drives you to search for the purpose that you were born for.

You may not be there yet but if you keep searching, eventually, your purpose will show itself to you.

And when you do see the glimmers of what your purpose is, make movement towards it. Any step is better than no step.

Take heart and keep searching, my fellow seeker. There are many people like myself who have found their purpose and are living purposeful, meaningful lives. You can do it too.

May these seven nuggets of wisdom that I have shared here serve you well in your journey.