How To Find Your Purpose And Passion In Life Immediately

Every day, people talk about their passion and their purpose. When I was a child, I always wonder if everyone truly has a purpose on earth. I just can’t stop myself from thinking that ‘finding your purpose’ is a cliché and it’s overrated. The usual question in my mind used to be “Can’t I just live my life anyhow without a need to follow some abstract principles like finding your purpose and following your passion?”

Don’t blame me, I have a curious mind. I always seek to find answers by questioning everything that has ever existed. I remembered asking my teacher if it was a must to have a purpose to fulfill on earth and my teacher told me that God created everyone for a purpose. So, in order to live a fulfilled life, everyone has to find their purpose. Then I turned to my teacher and asked her one question that left her dumbfounded. She couldn’t answer my question. I was only 6 years old and I asked her “What is the purpose of God?”

Growing up, I had thought that finding your purpose in life is a very serious thing to do. I even thought that I have to have reached a certain age (adulthood) before I can clearly figure out my purpose. Well, everyone I knew made it sound like it’s a mystery that needs divine guidance, and spiritual sensitivity. In as much as I won’t rule out those things, as I grew older, I come to realize that finding your purpose and passion in life is very simple to do. Finding your purpose is as simple as eating your breakfast or lunch.

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What is a life purpose?

Little did I know that I was right all along when I thought that we should just live our life anyhow we want to live it. Through years of searching, I later realize that purpose is all about living your life the way you want it. Is that definition new to you? I will explain further. You will agree that someone else cannot truly determine your purpose on your behalf. Purpose is a personal thing. It comes with the gift of life. Immediately we were blessed with the gift of life. When we took our first breath outside the womb and started crying in the hospital, our purpose was already made manifest within us. It’s already there.

So when people say that everyone has a purpose on earth, they are right because everyone who is breathing has a life. The life we live is our purpose.

According to the dictionary, purpose is defined as the reason for which something is done or created. It is the objective or goal that you intend to achieve. But I will simply define purpose as your life. How do I mean? If purpose is the reason for which something is done or created, then in order words, we can say that your life is the reason for which you are breathing.

Living your life is the objective or goal that you have to achieve. Therefore, purpose is about you calling the shots for your life. It is about living your life exactly as you please. So what is your life purpose? It is living the life you want to live. In order words, if you are not living the life you want to live, then you are yet to fulfill purpose.

Sadly, so many people are not fulfilling their purpose because they don’t know how to live their life. They are yet to understand that they are supposed to live according to their own terms and condition. They go about trying to please everyone, trying to adhere to all the rules and expectations, and working so hard just to fit in. As a result, they couldn’t find their purpose; which means that they are yet to find their life and live it.

What is passion?

Passion is a strong emotion of desire, a drive to do something. Passion drives you to go all out with something and makes you really happy doing that thing. You are happy because your emotion is poured into that thing and it is what you want to do. Passion is about doing what you want.

So today, if I say that I want to teach you how to find your purpose and passion in life immediately, it means that I am going to teach you how to live the life you want by doing what you want.

6 proven ways to immediately find purpose and passion in life 

I will teach you 6 proven ways to discover your life, live it and live it to your satisfaction. The 6 ways are in the form of questions to help you to quickly find your purpose.

1. What is your personality?
2. What do you do consciously and unconsciously?
3. What makes you happy or angry?
4. Who or what inspires you?
5. What’s your picture?
6. What has your past experience taught you?

What is your personality?

Personality isn’t taught, it is who we are. When a child is born, you can tell the child’s personality from watching and observing how the child behaves. Our personality is made up of the traits and characteristics that we possess and this makes us unique. Our personality defines who we are and that’s why it is logical to start from here when finding your purpose. Since finding purpose is about living the life you want, it is important to understand your life first.

Your personality reveals your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. What are your thoughts about yourself, people and the world? What do you feel about yourself, people and the world? What is your behavior towards yourself, people and the world? If you can answer these questions genuinely, you will be able to comprehend who you are, and what you want.

I am an INTJ-A (Introverted, Intuitive, Thinking, Judging and Assertive) and knowing what I love doing, it makes sense that my personality is INTJ. You don’t know your personality? You can do the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) test. Just search online for a free personality test, like the 16personalities website.

When you know your personality, everything about you will make sense to you. You will know why you act or think the way you do and then you can think of activities to do that are best suitable for your personality type.

Imagine being an introvert (personality) and your passion is to live the life of a celebrity. At first, it might look like your passion and personality are going to be at war against each other but it won’t if you already have the understanding of who you are.

As an introvert, you will start thinking of ideas and find your way to become a celebrity. For example, let’s assume you love art. You could come up with ideas like making art that people care about and displaying your artwork on YouTube. With time, you will become a YouTube celebrity. Of course, you don’t have to deal with people all the time, yet you will be well known by people and be regarded as a celebrity. You will be able to fulfill your purpose. Having a clear understanding of your personality will help you to create a balance between your personality and your passion. When you know your personality, it will be easy for you to think of all the things you love to do. Hence, you will be able to start living your life the way you want.

What do you do consciously and unconsciously?

Can you answer the question right away? If you can answer the question, then that’s a clue for you to live the life you want and be happy. If you can’t, just think of that thing you always find yourself doing. That thing that when you start doing, it is always as if the time stood still. Watch out for whatever activity that makes you lost yourself in it, that activity is most likely your purpose. It is your clue to living a fulfilled life. Right now, I need you to reflect on your life. Think of that thing that makes you forget to eat, bath, or poo. Think of what you can’t stop or refrain from doing.

I’m 64% introverted but when it comes to telling or hearing stories, I am always an active participant. Just to contribute, I could easily formulate an interesting story right away and engage everyone. When I am telling a story, please don’t call me to come and do something else because I won’t leave the storytelling gathering.

In my junior high, we didn’t have a DVD player at home so it means I couldn’t watch the latest movies. However, when I am with my mate and they started talking about the various movies that they have watched, I would also tell them the movies I have watched – well, the movies I wrote in my head, chose the cast and directed. They would ask for the title, and again, I will name each movie. One day, my friend asked “Ayobami, I couldn’t get the interesting movie…hmm… yes, the one titled endangered you said you watched. Where did you buy yours?” I laughed.

Telling and hearing stories is just something I love to do consciously and unconsciously. Before I knew it, I became a motivational speaker and love to tell stories (either true story or frictional story) and use it to motivate people. The truth is that I don’t look like a motivational speaker because I look reserve, and quiet but as soon as I take the stage, you will have doubt as to if the person who is talking is the same person you saw a while ago across the room. The transformation is always massive, and it is simply because I am doing what I love to do.

If there is something you do consciously and unconsciously, I would advise that you should mark that thing because your purpose lies there.

What makes you happy or angry?

Our emotion is a crucial part of our life and it can lead us to find our purpose and passion in life. What is that thing that makes you happy? Hmmm, think…think…think. What is the reason for your happy memory? Is there any incidence that happened in your life that makes you smile? There you go, that’s it. That’s a clue to your life purpose.

Anger could also lead you to find your purpose in life. Have you been a victim of injustice and you are so angry about it? That could also be a clue to your life purpose. A young man went for a job interview and after the interview; the HR told him that he did great and that he already got the job. He was happy and was expecting to resume the following week only to be told two days after the interview that he was no longer needed. He found out that the pastor of the church that the HR attends told the HR to find a job for his brother-in-law. So the HR replaced him with the pastor’s brother-in-law who didn’t even undergo any interview process.

He got so angry about everything and while thinking about it, he thought of ways to make a change and he came up with an idea. He spoke with two of his friends and they started a business together. They started a Recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) business. They went to different companies and signed contracts with the board of directors, assuring them that they will get the best talent for the job unlike the common practice of office politics where the unqualified gets the job and reduces the company’s productivity. Today, his company is named among Forbes 30 under 30 for Africa.

Whatever it is that makes you happy will lead you to fulfill your purpose. And whatever it is that makes you angry, it will inspire you to make a change in that area and you will be able to fulfill purpose.

Who or what inspires you?

Inspiration is everywhere but you can’t feel it if you can’t recognize it. If you can’t find inspiration, you can’t live the life you want. This is because life is full of challenges and being inspired by someone or something is what helps us get through those bad days. ‘Midnight’ inspires me. I know you might find it strange but it’s the truth. The quietness and innocence of midnight draw me in and inspires my creativity. I’m more productive at midnight and that’s why I always wait till midnight time to do the important things in my life. I would sleep during the day and work at night. Well, this arrangement is working for me because I’m my own boss, my hours are flexible.

Another thing that inspires me is nature. Whenever I need to make a very big decision or take a big step in my life, I would take a walk in nature. The freshness and tranquility of nature draw me in and helps me to truly connect with my inner self. I have a friend who is inspired by risk. She loves starting things she has no idea how to finish. It’s a challenge for her and that challenge is the whole driving force she needs to find and fulfill her purpose. An artist said he’s inspired by color. Just seeing color, looking at colorful pictures and playing with colors inspires his creativity.

A programmer said he is inspired by music. When he listens to classical music, he’s creativity flows. A blogger said her granny inspires her. A first-class student says the love her parent shares inspires her. A businessman said that being around passionate people inspires him. What inspires you? Or who inspires you? You have to know who or what inspires you because they will help to bring out the best in you so that you can truly live your life of happiness and fulfillment.

If you want to live the life that you deserve, know who or what inspires you so that you can reposition yourself to get what you want in life.

What’s your picture?

Imagination is a great tool that needs to be optimized to find your purpose and passion in life. Imagination gives us the ability to think of the future without any cost. Within seconds, you can create a new world with the power of imagination. What’s your picture? This means, how do you picture yourself in the future? Have you built mental scenes, objects or events that you want to happen in your future? If not, you have to. If you want to live a life of purpose, you have to have a mental picture of what to expect. There has to be a prototype and imagination can help you with this.

Start imagining the way you want your life to be in the future. Can you picture it already? Please, don’t set any limitation. I know at some point, we might be tempted to want to be realistic, but you don’t have to be realistic here. This is just a prototype. A prototype is used to test a concept so why would you want to limit the potential of your prototype? Let your prototype be without limitation. Explore the power of imagination and picture the life you want to live.

The prototype is used to prove whether the components that will also be in the final structure will work together as expected. For example, if you picture yourself working to help the homeless, you will be able to see if it fit you or not if that’s where you should really be. Or let’s say you picture yourself as the president of your country addressing your citizens, you can tell from the picture if the office of the president fits you or not. Is it what you would actually look forward to and work towards to make it come true? If yes, the realization will help you to live the life you want.

You might ask: if you use imagination to depict the future and your reality turns out to be far from the picture imagined, don’t you think it will lead to frustration and depression? No, it shouldn’t if you truly know the power of imagination. Using your imagination to picture your future gives you a wide range of opportunities, like let’s say the opportunity to use the alphabet from A-Z. Now, your reality, let’s say Alphabet B didn’t work out as planned. This simply means you still have the opportunity options to use the rest of the Alphabet from C-Z. So, you have no reason to get frustrated or depressed.

That’s why it is very important that you do not limit yourself when you picture yourself (imagine your future). Think big! It is better for something to be oversized than undersized because you can always redesign or cut the oversized to your size but the undersized becomes useless.

You can’t find your purpose and passion in life if you can’t picture the life you want to live. Start to have a mental picture of your future, it will help reassure your dream and motivate you to turn the picture to reality.

What has your past experience taught you?

It is good to always look forward, but finding your purpose in life requires that you also have to acknowledge where you are coming from so that you can measure your progress in life. Everything about you contributes to your purpose in life. Your past, present, and future will make up the full story. Everything you go through in life is all part of the journey towards your purpose and that is why you have to knowledge them (own it).

Ask yourself: Thus far, what can I learn from my life? Think of the incidences or events that happened in your life and think of the lesson you can derive from them. It is often said that experience is the best teacher. If you can reflect on your life, you will be able to gain clarity and boost your life. When I first started writing motivational quotes and articles years ago, I use to hide it because I felt that it’s not up to a certain standard. The day I find the courage to express myself to the world without regard for standards or status quo, I realized that most limitations we encountered are first created by us in our head. If there is something I learned, it is not to be self-critical. I am grateful for my past experience because I was able to learn from it.

Now I get to enjoy doing what I do because I don’t worry about what anybody thinks about how I express my creativity. It’s my creativity and whatever way it chose to flow, I will claim that ground because there is no feeling greater than being authentic.

If you learn from past experience, it will help boost your confidence, so that you won’t be afraid to pursue after what you want and fulfill your purpose.

Before I end this article, I would like to let you know a few principles that would help you find your purpose and passion in life.

Don’t follow social norms

Remember I said that fulfilling purpose means living the life that you want? It means living a unique life because that life will be based on your decisions, behaviors, goals, direction, and meaning to life. Now, if you follow the social norms, it means you will be lost in the crowd. You will lose that which makes you YOU because you will be striving to live your life like that of others instead of living like you really want to live.

Social norms limit potentials and it can terminate the full potential of your purpose.

Do you want to live as the chief of naval staff of your country, but according to social norms; no woman has attained that position. You know what? Shun social norms. Don’t let that stop you from living the life you want. Go for what you want by working towards it. Break whatever barrier you have to break and become the first female chief of naval staff of your country. Don’t let society tell you what or what not to do with your life. It is your life and only you can live it. If you want to live a life of purpose, you have to be ready to do things that challenge the status quo, wreck tradition, push you out of your comfort zone, go beyond limits/ barriers and eventually make a difference in the world.

Listen to feedback

Only someone who isn’t fulfilling purpose will have no reason to face criticism.

If you truly want to fulfill your purpose in life, be ready for criticism. As you progress in life, you will notice all of a sudden that many people now feel like they have a say in your life. They would even feel like they have the right to tell you how to act and what to do. Therefore, to overcome this challenge, it is good that you too make yourself ready and prepared for them. You have to learn how to effectively manage criticism. Learn to listen to feedback and constructive criticism because it will help you grow and improve your life. Don’t be defensive, angry, or try to justify or make excuses when you receive feedback.

Seriously, a lot of feedback and constructive criticism have got me where I am today and I’m constantly looking to grow in life. However, any form of negative criticism should be immediately rejected. Don’t let their negativity get to you because you are on a mission with your life. Anytime I get bothered by the negative thing anyone is saying, I have a mantra. I keep telling myself “I don’t care”. The more I repeat it, I would later realize that my mind will be at peace and truly I won’t care about what they say. Only my opinion will matter.

Seek knowledge

I am sure you have heard over and over again that knowledge is power. You have to always seek to gain knowledge on a daily basis. Learn more about yourself, your environment, people around you and what’s happening in the world.

Have an open mind and be willing to learn and unlearn.

Unlearn the false beliefs you hold on to for so long and upgrade your mind with truth. Yes, it is your life and you will live it the way you want but I am sure you don’t want to be living it backward. You don’t want to be embarrassing yourself. And the better way to avoid that is to have a constant habit of learning.

Explore your interests

Don’t let anyone make you feel like a confused being because you are pursuing another purpose different from the initial one. It’s a myth that your purpose has to be one. The truth is that as humans, we don’t have one purpose. To burst this myth is the reason why I defined purpose as your life and I told you that your life is the reason why you are breathing. So, if your life is your purpose, it definitely means that your purpose is more than one because your life has many areas e.g. physically, financially, spiritually, emotionally, maritally, etc.

We are naturally multipurpose being. That’s why, for example, you can discover that you are multitalented e.g. you could have musical intelligence (sing, good rhythm, write lyrics, dance, etc.), storytelling, public speaking, problem-solving, social intelligence, and design thinking.

It will be unfair if you restrict your focus to only one interest. You should learn to explore your interests.

Take one step at a time to explore your interest. The truth is that your purpose can always shift and change throughout life in response to situations, time, experience, and changing priorities. In fact, some purpose is only needed for a certain period of time and you will have to find another purpose as soon as you have accomplished that one. Purpose changes and the best way to manage the change is to explore your interest.

Conclusion

Finding your purpose and passion in life is about living the life you want by doing what you want. It is all about you recognizing your own gifts and strengths and using them in your own way to contribute to the world. There is no right or wrong purpose. Every purpose is a valid purpose because it means you are living your life the way you want it.

Whatever you want in life, go for it and don’t let anyone make you feel like you don’t deserve it, after all, it is your life. Don’t let anyone make you feel guilty or mock you for choosing the path/interest you have chosen to live. Don’t think that because you are passionate about something and because that thing is your purpose, that you will always find that thing interesting to do. At times, something you are passionate about could get boring and so tedious. However, because you are passionate about it, you will always have a reason to keep doing that thing. By doing that thing, you won’t feel like you are suffering or being punished.

To fulfill your purpose in life, you have to be ready to spend your time, money, blood and sweat to what you want to achieve in life. That’s why you need to find inspiration in the everyday. Know what or who inspires you so that you can get over bad days. It will be a shame to not live the life one deserves.

Do whatever you can to ensure that the life you are living is truly the life you want for yourself.