(ThyBlackMan.com) Every person has a purpose. Not every person knows how to go about determining how to unearth that purpose. Here are five simple steps to defining and designing your true purpose.
Step One:
Let Your Purpose Find You
Premise: You have a purpose; you must bring it into focus amid the clutter of life. Life will not hand you your purpose on a golden platter. In order to discover your purpose, you just have to live your life. It’s somewhere in the chaos.
Quote: Count your age by friends, not years. Count your life by smiles, not tears.
-John Lennon
Life Fix: Consider how the ophthalmologist uses the different lens to correct your vision. The more he flips the lens, the clearer your focus becomes. Keep flipping the lens (read: keep living and learning) and your purpose will become clearer. Learn to dream with your eyes wide open.
Step Two:
Stand for Something
Premise: A lot of people have never taken a stand on anything and thus don’t have anything to stand on. Purpose is defined when we match our talent to a cause. Only then will you begin to see that it’s much bigger than you.
Quote: The opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice – its conformity. -Grove Patterson
Life Fix: What do you stand for? What’s bigger than you? What would make this world a better place? Answer these three questions and you will have unlocked the mystery of your purpose!
Step Three:
Stop Thinking Like the Group
Premise: When we emancipate ourselves from the tyranny of group-think we open ourselves to new channels of self-growth and development.
Quote: A committee is a group that keeps minutes and loses hours. –Milton Berle
Life Fix: From neuroscience we now know you literally have to ‘override’ your brain to limit the effects of group-think. A part of the brain emits an ‘error’ signal when an individual deviates from group opinion, triggering a host of behaviors designed to get us to conform to group behavior. Do not ignore that mental alarm! Usually the group is not self-invested, meaning your specific goals become irrelevant.
Step Four:
Move Past Motivation-Inhibitors
Premise: Motivation-inhibitors prevent us from moving toward what we really desire.
Quote: He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else. –Benjamin Franklin
Life Fix: The three most common inhibitors are ‘No’, ‘I can’t’ and ‘I’m broke’. The average person says ‘no’ at least seven times a day. When it comes to positive possibilities, say yes! When you say “I can’t” you need at least seventeen people to convince you that you can. Who are we to declare ourselves broke when we live in the most prosperous land ever civilized! On top of that, if you’re a believer, your daddy owns the cattle upon a thousand hills! Today, become ‘how can I’ oriented!
Step Five:
Tap Into Your Editorial Power
Premise: One of the greatest advantages we have at our disposal is our ‘editorial power’, the ability to redo it until we get it right.
Quote: Always do what you are afraid to do. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Life Fix: The writer of Habakkuk in the Holy Bible is instructed to “write the vision.” A few words down, however, the prophet is further directed to “make it plain”. That’s called ‘editorial power’! It’s our ability – indeed our mandate – to write and rewrite. It’s hitting the redo button and not ever giving up.
Follow these five simple steps and move toward your purpose!
Staff Writer; W. Eric Croomes
This talented brother is a holistic lifestyle exercise expert and founder and executive coach of Infinite Strategies LLC, a multi-level coaching firm that develops and executes strategies for fitness training, youth achievement and lifestyle management. Eric is an author, fitness professional, holistic life coach and motivational speaker.
In October 2015, Eric released Life’s A Gym: Seven Fitness Principles to Get the Best of Both, which shows readers how to use exercise to attract a feeling of wellness, success and freedom (Infinite Strategies Coaching LLC, 2015) – http://www.infinitestrategiescoaching.com.