Changing With Purpose, On Purpose

youIQ – Episode 4

This week on youIQ, the topic is purpose. How are we to determine our course during times of change and challenge without knowing our purpose? Purpose serves as our guide through our ever changing life, giving us direction.

Determining purpose can be difficult, with so many different ideas of purpose being presented by different people. Whether you believe in one life purpose, or several, make the effort clarify your thoughts on this incredibly powerful concept. Once you begin to clarify your purpose, your journey will become more clear, and navigating the waters of change becomes more natural.

Exercise: Clarifying Purpose

Create 10-20 statements about what brings you joy or fulfillment. For example: I feel fulfilled when I help others clarify their purpose. Please take some time (a week perhaps) to create and edit these statements, so that each one describes something that elicits an emotional response when you read them.

Once completed, determine which 5 resonate with you the most. Which 5 are the most important to you? One way to do this is to compare every one to another (1 vs 2, 3 vs 4, etc) until you come up with your top 5. Or, you can rank each statement on a scale of 1-5, with 1 being of utmost important and 5 being not nearly as important.

There is no wrong way to do this exercise. The important thing is that you put the time into creating the statements, a give the ranking process serious thought. Through this, even if you don’t clarify your one purpose or even your top 3, you will at least have a better idea of the things that are of great importance to you. From there, you can begin making decisions and changes according to these important beliefs.