10 Principles to Living with Purpose and Making Life Count

Living with Purpose

The art of living with purpose is something that many of us have challenged ourselves with since the beginning of human existence. What is your why? What is your life about? Are you living with purpose?

Do you ever question the point of the continual grind? We wake up, we go to work, we go home, we may watch a bit of television, we drag ourselves to bed, we wake up and repeat the whole process day in day out. Is this living with purpose? When do you ask yourself the “why” of what you’re doing? When do you ask yourself if this is what you were put on the planet to achieve? Living like this isn’t living, it’s surviving.

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When do you ask yourself the WHY of what you're doing? Click To Tweet

What are you here for?

I think your life is worth much more than just survival. And I think that if you can figure out your “why”, your life can be so much more fulfilling. You matter, your life matters. What is your purpose, what is your meaning for being alive? Most notably, when you die, what will people remember you for? Will they be able to say you lived your life with purpose? We need a sense of purpose to give our lives a framework. Without a framework, we risk getting lost in the trifles of daily life. When you define your purpose you will find that life tends to align itself to help you achieve it.

What does living with purpose mean?

Living with purpose doesn’t mean having a particular goal in mind, rather it’s living with a set of principles that help to shape and define your life. Mother Teresa didn’t set out to be declared a saint, rather she lived a life of contribution and love. It was her purpose in life that shaped how we remember her.

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“Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.” Mother Teresa

Living with purpose engenders happiness

People have a notion that the richer you are, the happier you will be. This means that the wealthiest people are all the happiest people, right? Some are yes, but I don’t think that’s down to their bank balances. I know some very wealthy people who look for their happiness in material wealth, yet they exist with a sense of deep yearning for something more fulfilling. They keep on buying more stuff, submitting themselves to yet more plastic surgery, rely on a line or two of charlie to get more intense kicks at social events, but they are no happier.

Living with purpose is not about looking good, it's about doing good. Click To Tweet

Living with purpose is not about looking good, it’s about doing good. It comes from being your best contributor to life. Living with purpose comes from serving others, serving the planet, living a life in congruence with your deepest values. It comes from living with a clear conscience.

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“It’s not how much we give but how much love we put into giving.” Mother Teresa

Living with purpose for the greater good

Living with purpose doesn’t necessarily mean easy, although if you know what your purpose in life is, it makes the bumps in the road ahead easier to navigate. Aligning your life with your purpose gives you a goal and that goal is supported within a framework of integrity, contribution and being part of something much greater than you as an individual. Living with purpose gives us the strength to be accountable, honest and fair, thereby transforming our lives into a cause for the greater good.

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“In some way, suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice.” Viktor Frankl

The meaning of sacrifice

There will be costs and sacrifices along the way and as a society we need to become more at ease at talking about the potential challenges and costs of living with purpose. The fear of not appearing to be strong, successful, rich, beautiful or right is endemic in our society. Nothing is uplifting 100% of the time. Yet living with purpose helps to elevate you above the superficial concerns of how you look and how you think people consider you. Living with purpose gives you the inner determination and courage to live a life of contribution and integrity.

Living with purpose gives you the inner determination and courage to live a life of contribution and integrity. Click To Tweet

How to find your purpose

Work out your values. Make sure your values don’t conflict with each other. For instance, if your top two values are adventure and security, do they align or do they conflict with each other? Use the values sheet to help you work out what is truly important to you.
When you die, how would you like to be remembered? How will people describe your contribution to life once you’ve gone?
What would your purpose look like in words? Can you write a statement about your purpose? If so, note it down and place it somewhere you can see it often. This will help to prevent others undermining your sense of purpose. It will also help to keep you on track.
When you come across challenges, whether they come from family, friends or circumstances, read your life’s purpose. It will help to ground you and strengthen your resilience to live your best life possible.

Have faith in your purpose

Look at who you are. What are your talents, what are your experiences in life, what is your personality? Use what you have already and find a way to use your talents to live your life with purpose. When you are living with purpose you will experience a sense of comfortable lightness, despite the challenges you may be faced with. There will always be a skip in your step, because you know deep down that your life is in alignment with your contribution towards the greater good, content in the knowledge that whatever bumps in the road you may face, it will be worth it in the end.

What’s your contribution?

It’s not about you, it’s about how you can contribute to making the world a better place. Living with purpose is the entire point of our existence.

Living with purpose is the entire point of your existence. Click To Tweet

I think that living with purpose is a no-brainer. It benefits you and it benefits those whose lives you touch. So what steps are you going to take to discover how you would like to be remembered. What is your life purpose? How can you contribute to make the world a better place?

“Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events. It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.” Robert F. Kennedy