What is the purpose of life? E46

June 14, 2022

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Have you figured out your purpose in life? Then you are for sure one of the lucky ones. Lots of people struggling with finding theirs or even question if there is one. And this is for a very good reason. In today’s episode, I want to dig deeper into the topic of having a purpose in life and what this actually means – what the purpose in life means to me. So stay tuned.

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I am going to share what my purpose has been in the past. What I thought that my purpose in life was and what I made my purpose in life. Because there in itself you have already the first answer about what the purpose in life is. It’s our decision.

It’s our decision what our purpose in life is.
It’s our decision if we don’t have a purpose or don’t believe in a purpose.
It’s our decision if we believe that we have not yet found our purpose and create a need for one in our life.

You see – It’s all our decision as we are the creators of our complete life and therefore as well the creators of the purpose of our life.

My previous life goals

But let’s go back to the past. I never really had a well defined or inspirational purpose in my life. I never had a big mission like some people have that want to heal as many people as possible or help nature to recover. That’s what I would have called an inspirational purpose and I still do. So I never had one of those. If you do have one of those, congratulations, I am so happy for you and I appreciate you.

So I never had one of those big purposes, but I had beliefs that fuelled me and guided my path until a few years ago. They were statements that felt like facts: like this is how the world works and that’s what we are here to do and to achieve.

One of these beliefs was to make money. Most of us need money to pay the bills, buy food and pay the rent or the mortgage for a home. So something that I worked towards for most of my adulthood was to make money and to keep increasing it. I thought this is a good goal to have so kind of like a purpose. We humans always want to evolve, to grow to develop ourselves and not to stand still. And I associated this with my career, my status and the money I was making. (Episode 39)

The other belief I had was that I need to climb the career ladder for me to be of value. If I don`t have a promotion every few years and a bigger and better career I am not worthy. So I made this kind of my purpose. I would not have called it my purpose but it was kind of my north star, my guiding light throughout my adulthood. I always identified myself heavily through my work. For others, this might be the same, or it’s their family, their children, or something else.

Seeing the truth behind these goals

Now looking back at these 2 beliefs that guided me for a long time, I can see that they were very strong and impactful to me – but at the same time let me to my burnout. They did not make me happy or fulfilled. They did not make me feel suddenly worthy or whole. Not at all. It was more like the opposite. With every promotion and every salary increase, the novelty of it wore off quicker and quicker and the joy that came with it was smaller and smaller. I did not realize back then that it is not a life’s purpose to live towards money or a career and that it could not make me happy in the end.

These kinds of beliefs or life achievements that I set myself came from a survival perspective, from a scarcity mindset and from a feeling deep inside of me that I am not whole or that I am unworthy, not enough. (Episode 33) That’s what it was for me. But I never knew that, I never realized it while I was in the middle of it. I somehow knew that I was not getting any happier but I did not know that I was trying to fill that gap inside of me with a new job, more money, nicer homes, and better holidays.

So, what is your life’s purpose at the moment?

Do you have one or do you have a goal or something you want to achieve as I had? Do you have a one, five and ten-year plan? I had those for a very long time. And I even reflected on this recently, that you even get asked to have those when you are in the corporate world. You get asked in interviews, in internal promotional panels or in your annual review with your boss what your next plans are. Where do you see yourself in the next 5 years? Where do you want to be in 10 years’ time? It has become so common to ask and answer these questions as if you HAVE TO have an answer. Like life demands you to have a 10-year plan. And if you don’t then you just don’t have life figured out yet. I remember that I was looked down on by leaders in my companies if I said that I am open to new things and that I don’t have a plan. And after that experience, what did I do? Of course, I prepared myself a 5 and 10-year plan! As if this is the most important part of being alive.

But it is not!

“Life, god, the universe is not asking you to have a 10-year career plan. That is not why we are here on this earth and in this life – that’s not why we decided to be born into human existence.”

Now I am going to tell you what I believe at this moment in time. You can agree, you can disagree, you can agree with parts of it. I am just giving you another perspective, my perspective on the purpose of life. The understanding that I currently have from what I learned in the last couple of years, from what I have experienced in the last few months and in my meditations and what is currently making sense to me. I am sharing this with you because this way of thinking about the purpose of life makes me live more happily, and more relaxed. It makes me enjoy my life more and be less stressed. I am giving you another possible way of looking at life in case you are searching for something that makes you happier, less stressed and more relaxed about life.

My way of looking at the purpose of life

I believe that my purpose on this earth is to experience – whatever that is. My soul chose to experience something in this life. We manifest ourselves in this physical 3D world to experience life. In other dimensions where we exist, there is no life how we know it. There we have very different kinds of experiences than here. And this definition for me means that we experience all kinds of things throughout each life and that our soul welcomes that. The good and the what we might classify as the bad. It all lets us evolve and grow. Ever heard the phrase We learn out of our mistakes or we grow out of hardship? Or have you ever looked back at a situation that back then seemed difficult but now you can see what you learned out of it, how much you have grown through it and that without it something would be missing in your life now?

“So this is what life is about for me. Very simple: Collecting experiences, experiencing life, growing and evolving. And most importantly, having the most fun and enjoyment while we are doing it!”

And what this made me realize is that we don’t have to become anything, we don’t have to achieve anything in particular. The experiences my higher self wanted me to have in this lifetime do not have to be big, they don’t have to do with earning a lot of money. And this is a big AHA moment and a huge moment of change for me. As you can imagine giving that most of my adulthood was focused on exactly that. I am still in the process of letting these beliefs go. But the more I can let them go, the better I feel.

So what am I supposed to be doing?

So you might be wondering: Well if I don’t have my career or the goal of making more money, what am I supposed to be doing? It’s not about not having goals and not doing anything, I see it more as a balance.

We want to collect experiences and we do that all the time already. But I did not collect them while I was happy, most of the time I did not enjoy myself. I was rather putting myself under pressure to perform, to achieve and when one goal was reached, move on to the next higher target. I did not live in the moment and enjoyed what I was doing, but rather lived for the future, planning, organizing, and worrying about the future.

“But what we truly want to do is to collect these experiences with more love, enjoyment and gratitude. We want to be more present and enjoy life in itself.”

Yes, I have still goals, I still want to build something for myself, and I still want to fulfil my dreams but now it’s more about enjoying the journey. Enjoy the moments while doing it. And if I don’t enjoy something, then I will stop doing it. In the past, I have thought a lot that I am supposed to be doing certain things to reach the goal of my career or a higher salary. No more of that!

Life is to be enjoyed now, lived with fulfilment now and not in 5 or 10 years.

Now, I live more in the moment. I try to be more present and find enjoyment, and fulfilment in what I do every single day. And that includes small things like cooking or ironing my shirts. I am much more focused on how I feel than what I achieve. That is a very different way of living and I am still learning it. I keep reminding myself when I fall back into my old way of thinking and judging myself for not having finished something in the time I planned to.

So, in a nutshell, my purpose in life is now about collecting experiences and learning from them, growing from them, and not judging them too much as good or bad. and focusing on how I feel, focusing on a state of being instead of becoming a certain status or title.

I hope I was able to share the idea that I have now about life and its purpose. And hopefully, I inspired you to see a new perspective on life for yourself. And bring more joy into each moment. Every single day.

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