5 Ways to Know & Live Your Purpose

Many of us spend our whole lives searching for our purpose. If you’re like me, you read some purpose book at some point in your life which confirmed that you’re probably doing it wrong, so you search and fret and worry that you’ll get to the end of all this and NEVER have found your true purpose. Those are ALL LIES. I have great news for you, Mama!

Purpose is God-given

The first way to LIVE YOUR PURPOSE is to know you are already purposeful and complete and loved and enough. You are God’s child and when He created you, He filled you full of purpose. You already have ALL the value you are ever going to have and you are ADORED by your Father. You will not FIND your purpose out there, because it not OUT THERE. IT’S IN THERE—put there by God and indisputable. Purpose is the reason why something exist and you exist to be loved by your Creator & to share that love with those you meet.

Your purpose is not what you do but who you are. Once you know that, you can decide if you want to do it with more intention, with more focus, with more love, etc.

You are free to choose

And since you start from this place of being fully loved and fully known and fully accepted, you can CHOOSE what you want to do with your time and resources and gifts. You can choose to start showing up to everything you do with your whole heart. Since you are filled with purpose, you bring the purpose with you. So often we think if just had THAT important job, or that perfect spouse, or that certain gift, we’d have more purpose and our lives would be more meaningful. Your purpose is not your job’s job. IT’S YOUR JOB to choose to think and believe that your are the PURPOSE and MEANING bringer to everything you do.

Jobs are terrible at making us feel purposeful. So are husbands and children and money and just about everything we seek happiness and purpose from. It’s YOUR JOB to make yourself happy and it’s YOUR JOB to decide what you do with your time to LIVE OUT your purpose. You get to choose! And there is SUCH freedom in that.

Instead of choosing to see our purpose and choosing to choose what purpose we want to live out today, we often indulge in being stuck and confused. Being stuck means we don’t have to offer ourselves and our gifts to the world. It’s a sly way of hiding.

Those nudges that we’d like to do this or that or that we’ve ALWAYS WANTED TO (fill in the blank)? Those desires are God-given. We can choose to use our gifts however we want. What a privilege to do something that creates more love and kindness and goodness and beauty in the world. We’ve made it too complicated. And we are looking in the wrong places.

Not having FOUND our purpose is the perfect excuse for not taking the action in our lives that we should take. Looking for the perfect purpose is just a way to hide.

Take massive action, because you can

That brings me to the third thing I want to share with you about living your purpose. Living your purpose takes action! Decide what you want to do and do it! Make a plan. Pick a thing. Go all in. Give yourself a time limit. You are a walking talking action taking bundle of purpose!

But don’t expect that now all of the sudden, your life will have more meaning and purpose. It means what you make it mean. So, make it mean something that motivates and energizes you to keep growing and learning and evolving. Stop looking around for purpose and start taking action from a place of peace and rest and love. Do it because you’ve been given these gifts and this opportunity. Do it because you can. Do it because, WHY NOT YOU?

Purpose meets obstacles

The fourth thing I know about living your purpose is there will be obstacles. I love the part in Lion King where Simba realizes WHO he is and WHAT he was put on earth to do. He is told over and over, YOU ARE THE SON OF MUFASA. He leaves his comfortable life to enter back into the pride land and take it back from Scar and his minions. He put feet to his purpose and life got HARD. But he knew they were right—he was the son of Mufasa. And you are the daughter of God. Did you hear that, YOU ARE THE DAUGHTER OF THE LIVING GOD. And whatever obstacles you meet, He will be with you and go before you and fight for you.

Just because things feel hard doesn’t mean you’re not on track. It more often means YOU ARE. Hard things are hard because they matter. Let it be hard. Don’t quit because it’s hard. Purpose is hard. Choose to step into it anyway. Don’t let confusion win. It’s an obstacle that’s easy to give in to.

I don’t know my purpose, I don’t know what I should do with my life, etc. YES YOU DO. Nobody knows better than you.

Overwhelm and busy-ness are great way to stay stuck too. Stop making excuses and start taking action on your dreams. If you’re already enough and you’re not needing to make yourself feel more worthy, what do you most want to do with your life? And why are you not doing it?

The discomfort and the obstacles ARE the pathway to get the results we want.

Purpose on FIRE

The last thing I want to tell you about purpose is to live your purpose ON FIRE! You MUST manage your emotions around this topic to do all those things you know you are capable of doing. Stop telling yourself you don’t know what you don’t know what your purpose is. What do you want to THINK AND SAY about your purpose instead? Stop saying you’re confused and overwhelmed and start telling your brain what you WANT it to think about your purpose and about your life. This is SO POWERFUL, mama!

Do you want to feel inspired? What will you need to think in order to feel inspired? What action will you take from a place of motivation and inspiration? Practice that thought and that feeling before you sit down to plan your week or do your work.

Remember purpose on fire takes massive action! And the mama who KNOWS that she KNOWS that she KNOWS that every little thing she does is part of her calling and purpose in life will stand in awe of the life before her and SHOW UP for all of it—for the glamorous parts, for the awful parts, for the parts that feel meaningful and for the thousandth load of laundry. You are exactly where you are supposed to be doing exactly what you are called to do. You are a gift to the world. You are free to love and serve in whatever way you want. You ooze with life and meaning and love and purpose because you are your Father’s daughter.

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