I teach several classes both within the scope of Krav Maga and as a crucible / life coach where the immense and vast concept of purpose eventually becomes the topic of conversation.
And, while this topic can be incredibly complex, my goal is always to distill the concept of purpose into the most accessible ideas. In this, we can all “see” the concept of purpose and begin to move towards “activating” the concept of purpose from thought into action. In this, I offer a small group of foundational principles for discovering, choosing, and activating your purpose.
You are not on a treasure hunt for your life’s unique purpose. There is no “X” marking the spot. Your purpose is not buried somewhere in an ancient ruin – nor is it in the morass of confusion the world constantly fires at you. Your purpose is not anxiously waiting for you solve the unique riddle of your life to finally be united with it. The universe is not counting on you to rescue the galaxy from certain doom. Your purpose is yours to discover, reject, or ignore all together.
To begin to discover your purpose, flatly reject the notion of purpose as inextricably linked to the concept of predestination. This idea simply must be incorrect, given the consistency of our collective experience and observations of everyday life in others (and ourselves more specifically). We all have free will. We all do, to a large extent, exactly what we decide to do. We say what we want to say on balance, and we think what we want to think. We choose. So, activating your purpose, as opposed to searching for it in an ancient ruin is intentional, personally expansive, and the result of considerable contemplation and profound thought about how you will best serve others in this life. In this, the rewarding outcomes are abundant.
It may be helpful to reframe what some might call the conventional wisdom around the concept of purpose. Specifically, let’s reject the notion that purpose is somehow elusive and difficult to discover – with each man and woman fruitlessly trying and often failing to decode a myriad of hidden codes and clues littered across the landscape of life to unlock his or her own unique purpose.
Ironically, many people sense that their purpose is somehow hidden from them – nearly unattainable. As opposed to something that must be considered within the auspices of those pure, unique, and powerful things that naturally make you who you are in a meaningful way.
Your unique purpose is not hidden from you. Instead, consider the idea that your unique purpose is unique to you precisely because you are unique. In other words, your purpose is in many ways reflected in your uniqueness, and is therefore, best considered by looking at those things that make you unique. In this way, you can leverage those pure, natural attributes and characteristics that best describe you through the activation of a purpose aligned with those unique things.
The logical next question would be…what makes you unique? While you could answer this question in seemingly infinite ways, let’s simplify and clarify this process by prioritizing the most important and powerful aspects of who you are.
One method of assessing these powerful aspects of “you” within the context of uniqueness is to develop and consider three foundational building blocks of purpose – Potential, Principle, and Passion.
These three meta-concepts, once fully developed, will reveal much about your purpose and will also act as to shape your ETHOS. That’s saying a ton. To be clear, this exercise, as we develop it, will be a powerful tool in supporting your activation of purpose and your ETHOS (we’ll get to ETHOS in a moment). How you approach this exercise is critical. Effort and honesty will yield massive results – anything less is a waste of time.
In short, don’t move forward any further until you are ready to commit to this process, to your purpose, to your ETHOS, and to a new and powerful way of living. If you are ready, read on! Much awaits you.
As we consider Potential, Principle, and Passion, it will be helpful to define, as precisely as possible, what each of these terms means to better inform the process of moving towards an understanding of Unique Purpose and Activated ETHOS.
I often find it helpful to think in parallel terms when describing new ideas, as a means of understanding something new by connecting the related attributes to something familiar. I’ll make these comparisons in the coming weeks as I describe Potential, Principle, and Passion. However, feel free to create your own associations keeping in mind that the discipline in this process is to objectively and accurately connect one idea with another.
For now, consider the question: what makes you unique?
