Finding Your Purpose in Life is Easier Than You Think

Do you feel like something in your life has gone missing? Maybe you get through each day instead of actually living it, and boredom has become the default setting. If any of that sounds familiar, there's a good chance you're moving through your days without a real sense of purpose. That was me until about two months ago. I still don't have the whole thing figured out, but I'm working on it, and the difference is already obvious.

For years I carried around the feeling that a piece was absent. Wake up, rush through the hours, go back to sleep, repeat. I couldn't wait for each day to be over, which is a strange and sad thing to admit about your own life. It pulled me down into a depression I didn't want to name, and it cost me relationships along the way.

What shifted things was a counselor I'd started seeing. He asked me, plainly, "Where are you going with your life?" I told him the truth: I had no idea. His response stuck with me. "Find out. Find out now if you actually want to live." I sat with that for a week or so before admitting he was right. I wasn't living so much as breathing. Still alive, technically, and not much more than that.

So I built myself a plan to figure out what my purpose should be. It's going well, and I want to walk you through how to put together a plan of your own. Having something to aim at genuinely helps you get where you want to go and have what you want to have.

The first step is honest: decide where you are right now. Before I could plan anything, I had to look squarely at my starting point, and my starting point was depression. Admitting that was hard. I kept asking myself how I'd let things slide so far. Eventually I realized the how didn't matter. What mattered was marking the spot I was standing on, because you can't map a route without knowing where you're leaving from.

Second, decide where you want to go. For me that meant staying married to my husband and being a good mother to my kids. It also meant choosing a purpose: helping other people through whatever they're carrying. That might be an addiction, a rocky relationship, or just the ordinary weight of day-to-day life. I've always wanted to help others. The change was moving it from something I said to something I actually prioritize.

Third, work out how you'll get there. I'm still in the middle of this one, and that's fine. The progress has been good and the plan is holding. This step covers a lot of ground: who you want around you, who you want to become, what you value, what goals will move you toward your purpose, what actually makes you happy. All of it feeds into the route.

A purpose makes the ordinary days worth having. Mine have gotten better, and so have I. The people in my life notice it too. They're more eager to be around me than they used to be, back when I was just counting down the hours. Decide where you are, decide where you're headed, and start figuring out the path between the two.