How to know when you are ‘on purpose’

Working when you are ‘on purpose’ is great because your ideals match your daily activities, it feels great, your long term goals line up with your shorter term goals and activities and you enjoy your life.

When you are not ‘on purpose’ everything feels like a struggle. You struggle making decisions, you live your life in conflict and whatever you do doesn’t seem to achieve anything. You hate your daily activities and nothing seems to work. You don’t enjoy your life.

So how do we go about finding a solution where our lives make sense? This is especially difficult when we feel lost in ‘the struggle’. It’s important to take a step back and look at what you are creating. It is often better to realize that sometimes we are sacrificing too much for the sake of material comfort, or that we are giving away more than we gain in return. You can’t buy back your life with the money you make by sacrificing your conscience – or values!

Take stock of where you are and how far you have come. Are you becoming the person you want to be or simply following the crowd? Is it only money you want or to live in harmony with your highest ideals? Even in a good situation it is easy to look to others for the answers and follow their lead. Knowing what you want and how you want to to achieve it is a good start. Be prepared to ask yourself the tough questions. Is your life turning out as the result of how you feel about yourself? Is there unresolved conflict in your mind which is sabotaging your best intentions? Do you love your life?

Listen for the clues

When we are feeling at our worst it is often a clue to stop and take stock of our choices. Are they serving us? Is it time for change? When we immerse ourselves in a task our minds can flood us with conflicting thoughts. Pay attention to when these thoughts come up. They may be signals from our subconscious minds which are alerting us to new possibilities or solutions to some of our biggest problems. Write them down.

If our activities are continually being sabotaged by our subconscious mind, it can be a signal that we are going in the wrong direction in life. When we are happy in our day to day activities, it is a signal that we are ‘on purpose’. Often when we ask for help we expect the answers straight away. They often come from our subconscious mind when we are busy and not thinking about them anymore. Pay attention when they do crop up. This is almost certainly a message from your subconscious mind alerting you that you need to change your course or take some new action.

De-clutter your environment

Our environment plays a huge part in our mental make-up and effects our world in unseen ways. Take a look at the environment in your house and it will likely reflect your life in may ways. Doing a mental ‘house clearing’ can start with clearing your physical environment. Get rid of distractions and chaos and your life and path will become more clear.

Meditation

With all the current distractions in our lives like ipads, ipods, laptops, and TV screens, our minds are being constantly drawn in several directions at once. How can we choose a path when our minds are constantly distracted? If we want clarity then we need to start with where we perceive the world from – our own minds. How can we hear the messages from our inner mind when the ‘surface’ is like a stormy sea. Only when the surface is calm can we see the bottom – (Confucius say)!!

Meditation allows us to calm our minds and tune into what is important. Think will become clearer and you will operate from a calmer standpoint once you learn to calm down the often turbulent inner state.

Do something you love

Doing something you love is a sure fire way to know you are on purpose. If there is one thing which can cause dissatisfaction in life it’s knowing that you don’t enjoy your job. Even doing something you love for a living has its problems but doing something you hate is a recipe for a disappointing time! If you are looking for a new direction in life try watching this series of videos created by the founders of the SFM Stuart and Jay.