Creating a Purpose Oriented Life For Success and Happiness

|| Abundance || Stress || Career || Communication || Concentration || Creativity || Emotions || Self-Esteem || Fear || Happiness || Healing || Intuition || Leadership || Love || Maturity || Meditation || Memory || Mental Health || Peace || Mindfulness || Inspiration || Negotiation || Personality || Planning || PMA || Reading || Relationships || Relaxation || Success || Visualization || The Secret || Master Key System || Videos || Audio || Our Books || Being the Best || Resources ||

by Jayaram V

You may see people who are easily bored, who cannot spend time alone and who are always in search of new friends and excitement. You may also find them complaining about how they are misunderstood or how they do not receive enough attention o how their feelings are not reciprocated. In most cases, those who engaging in such a behavior end up losing friends and feeling lonely, ignored and empty. You may also see it happening in marriage relationships or love relationships. Too many expectations can ruin any relationship, however old and matured it may be, and marriage is no exception.

It is OK to search for and establish satisfying relationships, seeking love and friendship, and experience the sense of belongingness, but it should never be as a compensatory behavior to overcome your lack of self-esteem or your need for approval and appreciation. Those who do not seem to find a definite purpose in their lives or behind their actions fall into this type of self-defeating behavior. Any confusion which they experience in their minds about how and why they want to lead their lives or for what ends will manifest in their actions and relationships.

If you want to achieve fulfillment through dependence upon others with unrealistic expectations, you are bound to feel disappointed. To all such people, I have a simple advice. Find a central purpose for your life. If you cannot find it or if it  is not obvious to you, which is the case with most people, create one. Make it the most important aspect of your life and your journey upon earth. Build your life and your goals around it, and spend your quality time trying to achieve it.

Creating a purpose is like attaching an engine or rudder to your life. The purpose will drive you towards your cherished life and keep you busy. When you have a central purpose in your life, you will clearly feel the difference. The chances of you feeling lonely or bored become slimmer, and so are your chances of developing a dependence mentality or looking to others with expectations.

Instead, you will feel internally focused, energized and motivated to move forward, even if there are innumerable hurdles and disappointments.  This is also the secret to be unique, independent and self-motivated. You will not be easily shaken out of your beliefs and plans, or your determination to pursue them. It is as if you have a found a perennial source of inspiration within yourself, and solved a mystery.

What do we mean by purpose? A purpose is the reason or the rationale behind your actions. It explains why you should exist, why you want to live, pursue any goal or engage in any action. It reveals your intent behind your actions or your endeavors and provides with direction and motivation in the pursuit of your goals and dreams. It is like having a road map with a navigation system or GPS.

However, the purpose has to be explicit. It must exist in clear terms before you undertake any action so that you will have clarity and focus to engage in it. Some purpose is always implicit in all our actions, because we engage in actions mainly due to desires. However, it will not be effective unless you think about it in advance and make it clear to yourself where you have to put your energies and resources to proper use and in which manner or direction you should proceed.

From a purely objective thought process, life is a rather random and chaotic phenomena, although outwardly it may seem to be different. There is no apparent purpose to life. No one is born with a set purpose. No one has a clue why one is born, and why one has to live upon earth, or for what end. We cannot even fathom why the universe exists and for what end. No one can tell, not even science, why life exists of all the places upon earth, and why this little piece of rock in the gigantic universe is populated with such diversity of life.

However, we cannot live randomly, nor can we live a disorganized life without suffering from the consequences it creates. To impart order and regularity, we need to find a central purpose and establish meaningful goals.  The purpose can be for a simple cause or a higher cause. It may be as simple as finding fulfillment and happiness through self-actualization, or it can be as complicated creating a legacy or knowing who you truly are. It may be only about you, your family or others.

Therefore, to achieve success and fulfillment in life, know that it is important to have an explicit purpose for every important action or project you undertake. You should know in advance why you want to undertake a particular action or achieve a particular goal. If you are not clear at the outset, you should spend time thinking about it and finding the rationale before you venture further.

Whether it is choosing a career path, marrying a person, buying a home, cultivating relationships, pursuing certain goals, you should first settle upon purpose before you define your goal and pursue it. If you do not have a purpose, you must create it in such a way that it aligns with your needs, values, beliefs, passion and interest. It is also important to have a purpose for your whole life.

You may read The Difference Between Purpose and Goals