When looking for a life purpose, we often think of spending time in nature, being alone, or traveling to a remote corner of the world.
Today, I want to propose a different angle – finding your life purpose through the business you create. You can’t express yourself better than through what you make every day and your contribution to the world.
Yes, you can become an entrepreneur and find your life purpose through your contribution.
Entrepreneurship is a lot more than just starting a company. An entrepreneur must have a strong vision of the future and use that vision to construct something completely different, to get the rest of the world one step closer to the reality they want to create. The vision must inspire others, giving meaning not just to the entrepreneur himself but also to those who follow them.
But how do you “find” a purpose and business deserving your time, energy, and intellect?
Can’t you just wait to stumble on a chance instead?
No.
If you’re currently struggling to discover your own entrepreneurial vocation, your purpose, consider the process I will be outlining below.
It’s simple and straightforward, but it takes commitment. I hope you believe that it is worth investing at least as much time in your “life quest” as you would on job search, master’s program, or other entrepreneurial training.
Start with the End Result in Mind
You need to consider what is most important to you as you pick your mission in life.
Think not only of your present goals but of what is likely to remain important to you for the next 50 years. What do you think the world needs to change? What role do you have to play in improving it?
I sometimes hear people say they don’t know how to plan their whole life, but that answer is insufficient. Entrepreneurship theory is focused on coping with confusion and moving ahead through ambiguity. You may not have all the aspects set out right now, but you should have a strong understanding of your principles and beliefs and what makes your life worth living.
Start by challenging everything to help you decide your ultimate goals. Speak to those you trust and respect, those you consider to be reliable, and ask what they value most in life. Meet people in their seventies and eighties and ask them what they love most about their lives.
Figure out what appeared to be important along the way and what they considered to be genuinely important after a lifetime of contemplation.
Ask for their biggest joys and regrets.
When you explore their successes, defeats, and memories, you’ll discover a perspective for yourself. Read great literary works and books on philosophy. Spend your time alone in a peaceful place. If you are religious, re-examine the foundations of your belief system. The idea here is to ask many questions, analyze your conclusions, call your own bluffs, reflect, and challenge again.
If you put in the time, you should be able to slowly and purposefully narrow the region of darkness around who you are, what you believe, and what you want to manifest in the world as a result of those fundamental values.
Look from different angles.
One of the fundamental concepts you need to adopt when you discover your call is to be practical. Consider the many roles you perform in life—wife, parent, community leader, mate, sibling—think of the many places where you split your time.
To help you decide which roles really matter, imagine a photo of your funeral and ask yourself what you want people to think about you when they look back on your life.
You can’t really pick a mission without specifying your goals. By setting goals, you encourage yourself to do as much as you can by freeing your time and mental resources from misaligned activities.
When you consider your calling and your goals, be sure to think about the tough decisions that will be needed. Ask yourself if the goals you define are worth the unavoidable trade-offs. If you don’t have tough decisions to make, you haven’t been rational or honest in your evaluation. Recognize possible issues now, and think about principled resolutions to prevent stopgap steps later.
Build a schedule
Now that you have large guardrails in mind – principles, purpose, and specific objectives – decide what you need to do on a step-by-step basis to achieve those goals.
Establish markers to judge your success, going from decade to decade, to identify what is needed to hit the next plateau.
Imagine yourself at 70 years of age; what does your life look like? Now, think of 50 years of age – where are you? Now, let’s get closer to home. What about the age of 30, where you are now (or whatever age it is)?
Think about where you need to be and what you need to do at the age of 30 to fulfill your goal at the age of 70.
- What skills, knowledge, and personal communication do you need to build now that will support your mission later?
- Where are you going to live?
- What lifestyle can you afford, considering the trade-offs between improving future skills and saving cash for future needs?
- What emotional, social, family, and career pillars do you need to set up today to expand on that line?
It is important to realize that the lifestyle and trade-offs you make during this early phase will set the pattern for the rest of your life. Don’t encourage yourself to emphasize “presenting yourself” instead of investing in the future. Build a schedule. As you work your way back from your perfect life at the age of 70, you should be able to build a very detailed list of tangible acts and achievements that function as “stones” on your path.
In the end, be able to pivot. Acknowledge that the universe is going to throw you curveballs, and you will need to make course corrections. Using the principles to help lead the way in these circumstances. You can now determine which of your ideas are so central to your vision that they can never be broken.
7 Practical Steps to Find Purpose Through Business
I know firsthand that if you don’t pursue the intent of your soul, nothing else matters. When you’ve found it, you can align all aspects of your life in that direction. You can do what you love and live in flow—you just need the right inspiration and the right way of thinking, and you can do the right thing.
1. Understand what life is meant to be like.
“Living with a purpose” means doing what really matters to you in harmony with your ideals and beliefs. I can’t tell you what that means to you, but you know when you feel it—and when you don’t—living your like with purpose both at home and at work through your career or business.
When you’re not “you,” it’s all foggy and colorless.
At the same time, you’re bored and distracted, always tired. Even small things sound like a daunting task. You’re trying to find out why you’re feeling down and taking anti-depressant pills to remedy it. The list could go on. If you continue to disregard your higher self, you will be given nudges—even a slap in the face—to get your attention.
Life is correct when you’re in alignment. It’s fast, and everything just works. You feel alive, passionate, and illuminated from inside. You’re not worried about how to get where you’re going; you’re sure of yourself, even though you’re afraid at the same time.
2. Tap into your call.
Avoid looking for answers beyond yourself. There’s just one thing: be who you were born to be. You will find a lot of exercises online to classify your call, but you don’t need them. Deep inside, you already know what makes you feel alive. You just need to pay attention to that.
In that case, practice communicating with yourself and tuning in to what’s buried there by saying, “What do I need to learn or listen to? “Trust the answer, then. I think a diary is the most powerful way to do this, but you can do it as part of meditation or while walking or driving.
3. Trust yourself and forget about what others say.
We are instinctively intuitive until we study the “rules,” but there is no right or wrong way to live. If you’re not following your instincts, you’re working on the terms of others—and no one can tell you how to be.
There’s always a new approach to it. I despised creating marketing enclosures before I began doing my way to them. Visionary leaders are doing things differently; that’s why they stand out. They’re challenging the rule to discover what’s best for them.
Imagine that you were good. No one will doubt you because you’re at the top of the world. Who would you have been? How are you going to act? Trust and self-confidence are the secrets. Decide deliberately that you do what’s best for you. Place your hand on your heart and say, “I trust my ability to make the best decisions for me.” Do this for any area of life that is important to you.
4. Acknowledge the fear and take the first step.
If you’re not ready to start your day, pull the bandaid off. Please make a shift or start taking action. Although preserving alignment will take practice, you don’t have to work forever to get there.
The unknown is unsettling. We feel safe and secure with the way things have always been. Fear is part of us, and it’s always going to be there, but it can’t control you unless you let it, so take action against your goals anyway. You don’t have to know how to feel ready or worthy.
When I finally realized that I didn’t do my soul work after years of hardship, I moved around the world to start working with my dad. With nearly no money, I gave myself no choice but to succeed in pursuing my passion for helping others online. It paid off; I never looked back again. Although your route might not be as drastic, you need to take the first step.
For example, many people want to step into the affiliate marketing business but don’t know how to. They over-complicate the process and never get started. But, in reality, all they need is a
- domain name,
- hosting account,
- affiliate marketing software,
- and some basic know-how on how to dive into the affiliate business.
That’s all, yet so many people never even give it a try!
Affiliate marketing, digital marketing, and content marketing are the most profitable business right now. After the COVID-19 lockdown, everyone is diving in. You might be able to try yourself out better, when you start with an already established business model.
5. Reconsider your to-do list.
Time is precious, and you have to value how much you use it. If you don’t know what counts in advance, you’re going to waste it all on things that don’t drive you forward. I’m constantly outlining my goals and aspirations in a document called “Creating the life I want.” I make sure that I set those goals for myself (not others), define the activities that will get me there, and plan them every week.
Quick forward to a year from now as you work on purpose. Does that matter on your to-do list today? Is that the way you got there? Check the things on your list and either delete them or delete them. Often it’s worth paying someone else to do stuff so that you can concentrate on what really matters: the projects that will get you where you want to go if you do it every day.
6. Check in with yourself every day.
Before you get up in the morning, ask yourself what’s important today. What’s going to make you sleep well tonight? Most of the things we do every day disconnect us from ourselves, so practice turning. Just sit down or diary anything you need to get out for 15 minutes. Let go and forget the outside world—even if you have to start by noticing the world you made for yourself.
Before you make a decision or take action, ask yourself:
- do I want to do that?
- Does that feel right?
- Am I so excited about this?
- Make this a day-to-day habit by setting reminders to check-in; else, you’ll fall into old habits.
7. Recognize that you’ve got everything you need.
This can be awkward at first, and sometimes it still feels like work. But when you’re working for the right thing, it’s worth it. You can either opt to deny yourself or say yes to your heart and soul, but you can choose what you’re going to get in your life. Do your work today to make your dreams come true tomorrow.
If you believe that this is going to work out, it will. Don’t stress if you don’t get the answer you expect today. Success takes some time, which is why most people are giving up. You’re never going to look back and say, “I spent too much time being me,” so keep going. It’s difficult to fail to be you.
You’ve got everything you need. You will become who you are supposed to be when you know who you are.
Conclusion
The process I mentioned above is not a silver bullet, nor is it an easy, straightforward exercise for a spare Saturday. This idea liberates true entrepreneurs since they realize the meaning of their lives, and their vision is not just lofty dreams––they are a reality created with gloom and gloom.
In reality, as you go on your journey, your vision and intent are the most precious tools for rejuvenation and inspiration in the face of seemingly impossible challenges.
Don’t over-invest in this process. Entrepreneurs who log the hours for this work will reap the rewards not just from the start of their careers but from a lifetime of principled entrepreneurship.