Purpose in Life: 12 Questions You Should Ask Yourself
At one point in your life or several, you might have asked yourself: “What is the purpose of my life?” This is especially so, if you are feeling depressed about your situation in life.Many people have asked this question: from lowly ranked people living mundane lives to successful, rich and famous people. There are many people from all walks of life who feel an emptiness in their life for some reason.
If you are one of these people who question your purpose in life, here are a few questions which might help you to find your purpose in life:
Note: These information were based from my life as well as from online sources discussing how to find your purpose in life.
12 Questions to ask yourself regarding your purpose in life:
1. Have I studied life broadly?2. What do people appreciate about me?
3. Who am I?
4. Where do I belong?
5. What fulfills me?
6. What makes me happy?
7. What are my passions?
8. Who do I want to emulate?
9. What is my life purpose statement?
10. Do I accept myself?
11. Am I taking care of myself?
12. Am I happy having no purpose in life?
Final Words
The Details:
1. Have I studied life broadly?
Life is very broad. This is especially apparent when you go online and see other people living very different lives from yours.
From differing cultures, education, economy, geography, laws and so on, other people from all over the world are living very different lives from yours.
What you consider as unimportant things in your life might be very important to them, like their beliefs, ethics, festivals, politics and so on.
As a result others might have found already their purpose in life which you have not considered before.
Others might have passions that you don’t know about, like saving mountain gorillas in Africa or rescuing children trapped into forced labor.
By studying broadly the life of others, you are likely to find out what your purpose in life is if you cannot find it in your own life.
Travel the world if you must, experience the things you just read about and watch, talk to other people about their hobbies and what they care about; by opening yourself to the world, you are likely to find your purpose in life.
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2. What do people appreciate about me?
Maybe your purpose in life is not apparent to you, but apparent to others. For example, does a lot of people tell you that you should be a comedian because you have a penchant for comedy and you seem to enjoy it?
This might be a sign for you that you should seriously consider being a comedian. Sometimes, we are blind to our own purpose in life and we need other people to tell us.
Start asking your family and friends regarding the purpose of your life, because they of all people should know your personality, desires and skills.
You might even be pleasantly surprised by the answers of your family and friends. They might just give you an answer that you have not anticipated at all.
For example, while I was still pursuing a career in information technology, a few people I know would comment that I should seriously consider a career in writing as well. They were impressed with my technical writing skills.
Their words never left me and in the later years of my life I devoted a great deal of my time in writing which I totally enjoy.
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3. Who am I?
Before you can find your purpose in life, you must know who you are. For example, there are parents who force their children into studying for degrees that they do not really like.
As a result, these children take on jobs related to their degrees which they do not particularly enjoy, making them miserable.
If you don’t know what you like, hate, enjoy and so on; and depend on other people like your parents to determine your personality and choices, you would never find your purpose in life.
Don’t make the mistake that your career and successes define you. You might have a successful career and family life, but you might be miserable in reality. You might just realize one day that a successful career and a family life is not what you want in life.
How the world sees you is very different from how you see yourself. Don’t live for others, find your own identity in life.
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4. Where do I belong?
No one can be truly independent from others. At some point in your life, you would need an urgency to belong to a group or someone.
In fact, there are people who do not wonder about their purpose in life, rather, what they want out of life is to find a partner, friends and group.
For example, there are people who do not aspire for knowledge, fame or fortune, rather, they just aspire to be married, have a family and live the rest of their lives being with their family.
In essence, many people’s purpose in life is to be married and have a family, they don’t care for anything else.
If you are an ambitious person, you might think of these people as simplistic with no ambitions in life. But to these people, this is their only purpose in life, and they are happy achieving this even with the absence of fame and fortune in their lives.
If you still single but already successful and rich, yet feel an emptiness in your life, maybe having a partner and/or a family might be your real purpose in life.
The same can be said in finding a group to belong to. For example, there are religious practitioners who are perfectly happy being single as long as they belong to their religious order.
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5. What fulfills me?
Are you successful, rich and famous but still feel like your life is empty? Chances are, you are not fulfilled with the life you are living.
Many people don’t feel fulfilled in life because they don’t see the value of what they are doing or have. For example, a popular entertainer might not be fulfilled with their career as an entertainer because they feel that they don’t provide anything tangible to society.
But this same entertainer might feel fulfilled once they realize the value of the entertainment they are providing to their audience: like making their audience forget temporarily their problems in life.
If you think that you are living an unfulfilling life, make an analysis on how what you’re doing is affecting society. If you deem that what you’re doing has a use in society or to some people, maybe you have found your purpose in life.
If you really feel that you are not contributing anything to society or to at least one person, maybe its time to do something else that is more fulfilling according to your tastes.
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6. What makes me happy?
This must be one of your top criteria whenever you’re trying to find your purpose in life. Happiness makes your life satisfying, which is essentially saying that you find your life worthwhile.
Don’t care if others tell you that what you’re doing is useless and what makes you happy makes no sense.
As long as you’re not hurting others & yourself and not destroying anything, it is perfectly right to pursue the things and activities that makes you happy.
If you are pursuing the things that makes you happy, there is a high likelihood that you would persevere hard to achieve them and be very knowledgeable of them as well, even to the level of an expert.
These are two important ingredients of success. By pursuing what makes you happy, there is a high likelihood that you’ll find success in it as well.
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7. What are my passions?
Each one of us have their own passions in life, things and activities that we would rather have and do most days of our lives.
For example, there are people who are passionate about becoming wealthy that they spend all their days chasing after it.
Others are passionate about love and would go to the ends of the earth just to find someone that they love and loves them.
Others have much simpler passions, like being passionate about a sport, a hobby, a possession, and so on.
Don’t let others tell you that your passions in life are nonsensical, again, as long as your passions don’t hurt you & others and don’t destroy anything; it is perfectly right to pursue your passions.
Things that make you happy and fulfilled might be different from your passions, but nevertheless, your passions might be your purpose in life.
For example, if your passion is to collect action figures, this activity might not fulfill you but at the same time it might make you happy.
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8. Who do I want to emulate?
You could also find your purpose in life by analyzing the people you want to emulate. Do you want to be a successful musician one day? Perhaps a politician or a businessperson?
Usually, the reason why you want to emulate someone is because they are living the life you want to have for yourself.
If your purpose in life is to be just like your idol one day, then you should study their life so you would know how they came about their life now.
By analyzing their life, you would know the advantages and disadvantages of becoming just like your idols.
There are people who have actually patterned their lives after their idols, like the multitudes of professional Elvis Presley impersonators who dress like him even in real life. Many of them are not bothered by this, in their minds, they are living the life of Elvis.
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9. What is my life purpose statement?
You should sit down and write in paper what is your life purpose statement. It can be as short as a sentence or can be several pages long.
Your life purpose statement would serve as your compass in life and would guide you down your path in life.
Writing your life purpose statement might seem laughable or extreme, but nothing gives more clarity to the mind than your thoughts written down in paper or in your word processor.
You might even put dates in your life purpose statements with the intention of creating start dates and deadlines on doing your purpose in life.
For example, you might determine that climbing the top of Mt. Everest is something that you have to do before you die, you could set a schedule on when you are going to do it.
You might have also determined that your purpose in life is to become a billionaire. You could draft a life purpose statement stating out how you plan to become a billionaire one day.
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10. Do I accept myself?
It might seem that finding your purpose in life is a very urgent matter in life that you essentially have to spend a lot of your time and resources finding it.
But assess yourself first, Am I happy with myself and the way my life is going? Could I be living another life instead?
Chances are, you are happy with your life and just happened to stumble with the question of what is your purpose in life.
If you do, it would be probably other people telling you that you need to have a purpose in life to live a complete life.
But don’t worry if you can’t define your purpose in life, a lot of people can’t define their purpose in life either, but they just like you are perfectly content with how their life is doing.
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11. Am I taking care of myself?
If you are at a loss with having a purpose in life, there is one that you should have at least: to take care of yourself.
Many so called life experts would tell you that helping others should be one of your purpose in life, but helping others is a purely optional thing. Let no one make you feel guilty from what is being forced down on you.
You have to take care of yourself by taking care of your health and your finances. You don’t have to ask experts to know that these are two of your more urgent purposes in life. You can live even without finding a purpose in your life but without your health and finances, your life would be miserable and even fatal. Delay looking for your purpose in life until after your health and finances are in order.
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12. Am I happy having no purpose in life?
A lot of people are happy even though they haven’t found their purpose in life. They are not even thinking about it.
An overwhelming majority of people have more pressing problems than finding their purpose in life. For example, for many people, their sole purpose in life is how to find their next meal.
They don’t even look ahead in the future, for them, surviving for even one more day is already an accomplishment in life.
This is an unfortunate reality in life you should consider if ever you feel unhappy not finding your purpose in life. For an overwhelming number of people globally, their purpose in life is to just survive in life and nothing more.
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Final Words
Finding your purpose in life is an age old question that have a lot of answers depending on the people you ask.
There are a few ways to finding your purpose in life, like finding what makes you happy, what you are passionate about, and whom do you want to emulate.
A more in depth analysis of finding your purpose in life might entail knowing the world broadly, how you perceive yourself and what other perceive you to be.
But you don’t have to worry even if you haven’t found your purpose in life, many people haven’t either and don’t even think about it.
For a vast majority of people all over the world, their main purpose in life is just to survive life. This might sound simplistic, but for many people, even surviving on a daily basis is an accomplishment in their life already.
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