6 quick ways to find your purpose

We all feel adrift from time to time, like we’ve forgotten what our purpose is in life (or like we haven’t found it yet). Here are six quick ways to rediscover your purpose and live a happier, more fulfilled life

Ask yourself questions

Getting to know yourself again – what you like and don’t like, what makes you happy or brings you a sense of fulfilment – can be a great starting point. Self-reflection can help you to examine if the things that you do really are as important as they used to be, or if there are other things you could try that might make you happier. 

Asking yourself these questions is the first step towards trying new things, stepping out of your comfort zone, and finding your purpose. We all continue to learn, change, and grow constantly throughout our lives – it’s no surprise that means that our purpose can change, too; so give yourself time to think through the big questions and get to know yourself all over again. 

Transformational Coach Ilse Passet shares 10 questions to help you find your life purpose. Before you get started, Ilse suggests setting aside dedicated time alone. 

“I encourage you to set some time aside where you are in a quiet place and preferably alone to start working on the questions. Have a pen and paper ready and follow your gut; write down the first thing that comes to mind without analysing it. For the best results, approach this process like a child would - with curiosity and no judgement or fear.”

Explore your interests

As we get older, it can be easy to forget the sheer joy that exploring things we love can bring us. Making time for our interests becomes a nice-to-have, rather than something we focus on or even make time for. Exploring your interests can help you to find big and small things that make you happy and, over time, might even help spark an idea to help you find a bigger purpose. 

Turning interests and hobbies into your life’s work doesn’t always have to be the end goal, though! Just rediscovering hobbies (or uncovering new ones) can bring a sense of fulfilment and joy all by itself. Develop skills, connect with new people, and find ways to ensure you are enjoying yourself – not just focusing on getting through the day. 

Discover more about why hobbies are important and how working with a coach can help.

Discover what brings you happiness and joy

Joy can be fleeting. Sparked by specific little moments or events, we all want to experience joy and be happy. But happiness can be longer-lasting, creating a sense of contentment and satisfaction that lingers. 

We all want to be happy. But understanding what that actually means for us can be tough. For such a simple question: What makes you happy? The answer can be complex and hard to understand. Wanting to be happy is a great end goal, but discovering what makes you happy is key. Working with a happiness coach can help you to talk through what happiness means to you, try different exercises to help you find your strengths, weaknesses, values, and help you to refocus all of these, allowing you to identify your purpose and find ways to feel happier in day to day life.

Set meaningful goals

Goals are a bit more like having a destination – one specific point you want to reach. They are something you can measure, that is tangible, with a clear beginning and end. Your purpose, on the other hand, is more like your reason for setting that goal. Goals are milestones you achieve and set aside on the way, while your purpose keeps going – changing as you grow and learn. 

Re-evaluating your goals, setting smaller milestones, and reflecting on if these goals still serve your wider purpose – if they still give you a sense of achievement, fulfilment, or happiness – can be a great way of sitting with your purpose and seeing how it may have changed. Sometimes, it’s easy to get lost focusing on big, hard-to-achieve goals, that we forget the motivations behind them are what’s really important – and what we really need to sit down with and consider. 

Coach Sarah Clark shares six ways to create meaningful goals.

Working with a coach

Coaches can help to support you through making changes, learning new skills, and achieving life goals. Working with a coach can help you to identify your core values, discover what means the most to you in life, and help you to refocus and find a purpose that helps you to feel both happy and fulfilled. 

Working with a professional can help you to create a sense of accountability that going it alone may not offer. A coach often can offer unique insight and support, helping you to focus on yourself, here and now in the present, working together to create a roadmap to help you to move forward and discover where it is you want to be. 

Julie Crowley, NLP & Hypnosis practitioner, Mindset Coach, and Business Coach, explains more about why coaching helps. “Coaching provides you with personalised guidance and support based on your specific needs, challenges and current goals. Although it is a process that adapts to any needs, it is specific to your circumstances.”

Working with a coach not only helps create a sense of accountability but also can help you to more clearly track changes and progress in developing skills and furthering knowledge. It’s easy to lose track of the changes and progress we have made, when we don’t have help or support there to remind us to reflect and to cheer us on for the success we have managed. 

Discovering your purpose can be a big task. Being kind to yourself, and finding your support network along the way are key to helping you move forward and focusing on where – and who – you want to be.