Take a moment before you begin reading this article and stop whatever you are doing for a while. Close your eyes and feel the present moment sink in. Next, ask yourself if everything that you are now and everything that you have, is all that you ever wanted? For some the answer might be a ‘yes’ while for others, the real purpose of life is still a blur, and that’s okay.

Life, you see, is pretty interesting and all of us are either going with the flow or are swimming towards our goals. But it is here that we fail to make a choice. Creating a purposeful life lies completely in your hands and let’s understand how.

Going with the flow

When you are going with the flow of things, you are simply floating with the tide. Isn’t it better then? There is little effort required from your end and you are confident of the fact that you will reach some destination in life. It is better for a while, but in the longer run, you realise that you have lost your sense of purpose. So, how do you create a life for yourself that is purposeful? Do you create a long-term goal and swim towards it for the rest of your life?

Swimming towards a goal

It is a normal human tendency to stick to a long-term goal that gives you a sense of direction. But that is where we could get stuck. In trying to fulfill that long-term goal, we steer our lives in a single direction with a single-minded determination to accomplish all that we have planned. What we fail to realise is that as we grow, our ambitions change. You might have wanted to be a doctor or a teacher when you were 10, but that rapidly changed to wanting to be an engineer when you were 20 and at 30 you wanted to be an entrepreneur. 

Also read: 3 mental hurdles you must overcome to achieve your goals

Seeking the real purpose of life

The real purpose in life shouldn’t be only about sticking to your long-term goals but rather learning and growing along the way so that you end up becoming a better human being every single day. After all, aren’t we all a sum of our actions and experiences? So your focus should be on improving your life and creating value in everything you do. Be creative with your life and set short-term goals that you can accomplish and then move on to the next.

To get you started here are some thoughts on how you can achieve a sense of purpose in life:

1. Do things that sparks joy

Ask yourself, if this is the life you want for yourself? Create a list of things that make you happy. There is no point being stuck at a place that is hard for you to accept every single day and drains your life force. Instead, do things that spark joy. Your efforts will be rewarded, and you will end up enjoying life in the process.

Also read: Declutter your business the Marie Kondo way

2. Plan a short-term goal around a thing that gets you excited

Plan a goal around a thing that gets you out of bed super excited in the morning. It could be launching a new product website or a mobile app or even taking up the skydiving lessons you have enrolled for. Whatever the reason is, take it up and finish it. This way you are opening up to experimentation and creativity and by doing so you are getting closer to your life’s purpose.

3. Open up to the rest of the world

Creating a meaningful life doesn’t always lie in doing things alone. A greater joy lies in interacting with different people in your community and society at large. You can grow only if you open to learn from others. It is this exchange of thoughts and ideas that creates a meaningful life.

And as Hunter. S. Thompson put, “A man who procrastinates in his choosing will inevitably have his choice made for him by circumstance.”

So will you simply float towards what life has to offer or create a purpose out of your life? The choice is yours to make.

Also read: 5 critical questions for leadership success and life happiness

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