Discovering your life’s purpose and why you are on this planet is a quest. Some people dare to find it and others just drift.
It doesn’t matter if you’re 25 or 55. It is never too late to start. But finding the answer can be obscured in the noise of life – navigating the insecurities of growing up, going to college, raising a family, putting food on the table, and starting a career or a business.
We often sleepwalk into a life that has no meaning, and it simply becomes an existence. But it doesn’t have to be that way.
Amongst the busyness and the cacophony of life and all its distractions – the demands of meeting other people’s wants – we may ignore our dreams.
As Steven Spielberg reflected. “Dreams always come from behind you, not right between your eyes. It sneaks up on you. But when you have a dream, it doesn’t often come at you screaming in your face, “This is who you are, this is what you must be for the rest of your life.” Sometimes a dream almost whispers… it never shouts. Very hard to hear”.
There is no template or exact formula for discovering your life’s passionate purpose and meaning. But there are some habits and tactics that will help you in this discovery phase.
I encourage you to start a side hustle built upon your passionate purpose. I did, and it changed my life.
The big question: What should I do with my life?
Do you ever ask the big questions?
One we all ask but rarely say out loud is: “What should I do with my life?
Many people float through life like a pinball machine. Bouncing off obstacles and barriers at random with no clear purpose or intent and waiting to exit. This applies to a career, starting a business, or even a side hustle that pays for a holiday.
Being afraid to open an envelope that looks like a bill you know you can’t pay is something many of us have faced. And starting a side hustle can help remove that fear. It’s like money in the bank.
One of the biggest challenges in life is to connect the power of focused action to an intent to fulfill your purpose. Most of us get distracted and wander around chasing the newest shiny toys.
Taking the time to reflect on “What should I do with my life” and find a sliver of an answer that whispers and touches your heart is hard work. But it’s time to stop hiding under the doona, drifting through life with no purpose, and showing up without focus.
So how do you find the answer?
There is no straightforward process, but there are some things you can do to start and supercharge the journey.
The school doesn’t teach you, and often neither do parents. They just want you to be safe and secure. But what that means is they will try and fit you in a box of pre-determined ideas with protective foam, soft edges, and safety handles. They have the best intentions. They want to make sure you don’t get hurt.
But it’s their expectation and not your ideal existence. You won’t be happy. Just safe.
One of my favorite quotes is, “When I grow up, I want to be me.”
The challenge is that traveling a road less traveled will have its bumps, darkness, and storms. We thrive or drown from pain. But the truth is that we don’t learn or grow from pleasure. So when tough times show up (and they will), you need to see it as an opportunity. It’s time to grow, learn and have an adventure. Life is too short to live like a round peg in a square hole. Trying to fit into other people’s and society’s expectations. It is time to choose joyful mastery and passionate purpose over a life of conforming misery.
Start designing “your” life. It’s time to choose your unique path and be free to dream.
So, where do you start?
Tips for finding meaning and your passionate purpose
Have you ever had a quiet moment and wondered that there has to be more to existence? More to the mayhem and the busyness?
Man’s search for meaning is a deep motivation that lies inside all of us.
The need to discover our meaning in life sits in the quiet corners of our souls. It is a primal motivation that we need to unearth to fill that emptiness. And once you reveal it, it becomes the force that pushes you into the flow of life. It brings deep joy. Not just fleeting pleasure.
The challenge?
It doesn’t shout but sighs. You feel it as a hint. Innuendo. Intuition.
The good news? You can find it anywhere – in pleasure and pain.
It may rear its head on a quiet walk, reading a book, or in a conversation.
But you can also discover the inspiration and revelation of why you’re here in tough times and unexpected places.
Viktor Frankl was in a Nazi concentration camp, and with all that time for observation and reflection, he watched as some flourished and others struggled. His book “Man’s Search for Meaning” was an insight into how he found meaning in the middle of evil. If you haven’t already, I recommend reading it.
Some ancient wisdom
Thousands of years ago, an ancient Chinese philosopher wrote: “New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings” – Lao Tzu.
You can discover your answer in a variety of ways.
- Some just know from an early age.
- Some stumble onto it later in life – driven by a painful experience. (That was my journey.)
- Some need a guide to discover it.
But one thing I know: You can’t force it.
The slow reveal happens as you “act” on the hint and hear the whisper and step into the flow of your purpose. It’s like hunting for a diamond deep in the recesses of the earth. Even when it sits in your hands, it needs polishing.
Ancient Japanese wisdom
Ikigai (a path to life fulfillment) is an ancient Japanese method of learning and leaning into life’s meaning. The concept has four components.
- Passion – What you love
- Vocation – What you’re good at
- Profession – What you get paid for
- Mission – What the world needs
Ikigai is where what you love and are good at meets what you can be valued and paid for because the world needs it.
Some hints to help you find Ikigai include answering these questions.
- What do you love doing so much that you forget time?
- What are you good at?
The path to its unearthing is not passive. It involves leaning in. Creating, sharing, and iterating as you put your creation out to the world. Then you will change the world, and it will change you.
Your passionate purpose is not a destination. It is a unique, evolving path that needs to be fed and nourished.
As you start, you may find that you are so engaged that time stands still. The coffee goes cold, and it’s dark outside. That is one of the signs of the big reveal. You have found your flow, and you have lit a fire.
The small daily acts of accomplishment become years of major achievement(s).
A life of passionate purpose requires routine and practice. Falling in love with the process and not just the outcome.
That means showing up every day. Sitting down and doing the work. Practicing. But if you are on purpose, there is no struggle.
You can’t manufacture motivation and flow from the outside. It is an inside job.
What do science and research say about a life of meaning, happiness, and wellbeing?
Martin Seligman is commonly known as the father of positive psychology.
In his book Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-being, he outlines the PERMA model as a scientifically based well-being model. One of his five pillars to well-being, flourishing, and happiness is “Meaning.”
It is one of the best approaches I have seen about creating a life that is about innate and sustainable well-being and success.
Here are the five core elements:
- Positive emotions – Feeling good
- Engagement – Finding flow
- Relationships – Authentic connections
- Meaning – Purposeful existence
- Achievement – A sense of accomplishment
Source: Positive and Mindful Leader
Of course, there is no one-size-fits-all approach, but PERMA is one of the best I’ve seen.
My Side Hustle Success Story
Discovering why I am here on the planet has been a messy evolution.
First I decided to be an accountant, and after six months at college, I realized that wasn’t my purpose or career.
Then I pivoted into teaching. That career lasted six years as I hung in there despite a severe dislike of that calling.
So how did I make a move, and what tipped me into taking action and discovering my first side hustle?
There were a few key experiences that helped:
- My growing dissatisfaction with teaching created enough pain that I felt I needed to take action.
- I did some after-hours work selling at night (my first “side hustle”) and discovered I was making more money in a few hours than a whole week of teaching, and I loved sales.
- Then I tried three different sales jobs working for free during my summer holidays for a few days. I chose the one that “felt” right. Intuition met action and experimentation with little risk.
So I moved into the tech industry, and it felt right. It was where I was meant to be. And as I progressed with that ecosystem, I evolved.
In 2009, I took another path after a major crisis in my life that became my next “Side hustle.”
How I discovered my second “side hustle”
There is nothing like a crisis in your life to make you reflect and act.
My crisis was walking away from a failed business with hundreds of thousands in debt. And as so often happens, the downstream result was the loss of my marriage and the banks taking my family home. My younger brother offered to give me a home while I licked my wounds and worked out where I was going from there.
I was between jobs (code for unemployed) and had plenty of time to contemplate. So I read, exercised, and spent time in silence and reflection. That gave me the space to discover what would change my life.
- I read the “4 Hour Work Week” by Tim Ferriss, where I discovered the evolving and exciting new world of making money online.
- Then I was asked by a friend to go on Facebook when it was just starting to grow its influence. I was intrigued by what seemed to be a game-changer in social interaction.
- I then read a book by David Meerman Scott. “The New Rules of Marketing and PR.” It opened my eyes to the power of online content to attract a global audience. We now call that “content marketing.”
- The final tipping point was when I read a blog post from HubSpot that stated, “If you want to start a business, start a blog.”
In March 2009, I stepped into the unknown. After wrestling with WordPress, I began writing about the topic that fascinated me most – “Social Media.” No grand plan. It was just a whisper and an intuitive leap.
“When you have a dream, it often doesn’t come to you screaming in your face. This is who you are. This is who you must be for the rest of your life. Sometimes a dream almost whispers… The hardest thing to listen to is your instincts, your human personal intuition. It whispers; it never shouts. It is very hard to hear”. – Stephen Spielberg
At first, I wrote and published while working my 9-5 sales job at a digital agency. I wrote at night and then shared my content on Twitter. As the traffic slowly grew, I changed my routine to write in the early mornings. Then for four years, I got up at 4.30 am before starting my day job.
It was just a passion project spurred by my curiosity about the digital world, social media, and content marketing.
But things started to happen as I created and shared my passion. I was invited to run a workshop in New Zealand, and they paid me for it!
Then I was invited to speak in Italy as a social media expert, and they paid me, and I flew business class. Something was happening. I finally left my employer and migrated to be a full-time entrepreneur.
But what motivated me?
Starting a side hustle or becoming an entrepreneur comes from within. I have reflected on this for years and have asked a couple of questions…
Why am I doing this, and what keeps me driven?
There are many reasons why if you dig deep. If you stack them all together, the motivation becomes a powerful beast.
The first step and foundation are to discover your intention. Then, you need to build a habit of “acting on that intention” with focused “attention” every single day.
Here is the “why’s” that has continued to sustain my fire each day. Yours may be different, but hopefully, these will help define them – you’ll need it! The day-to-day can be challenging, but as long as you remember your why, the fire will stay lit.
1. Satisfy my “Curiosity” (Internal)
As I joined Facebook and Twitter, I was impressed by the tech and noticed people’s behavior. Obsession and addiction. I was looking into the future and had a feeling that this would be a game-changer. I was curious about what lay ahead.
2. A feeling of “Fulfillment”
The sense of fulfillment added to the motivation like fuel to a fire. As I wrote and created and shared, I was growing. My website traffic and earning potential also grew!
3. A sense of “Accomplishment”
Accomplishment sounds like a destination, but it should be a series of ongoing achievements to keep you hungry. Finishing a project. A piece of art. Launching and growing a successful business.
4. Get “Positive Feedback”
I received positive comments on Twitter and my blog. They were intoxicating. Not so much now, as it is more of an internal motivation that keeps me going. But they excited me in the beginning.
5. Receive “Affirmation”
Having my partner and friends affirm that I was doing well added to the “drive drug.” I remember my partner (Toni) saying as we got picked up in a limousine in Italy, “Something is going on here,” and I replied, “Yes, I know!” And she didn’t hand out affirmations often or lightly.
6. The “Joy of Learning”
I write to learn. I “do” to learn. There is nothing like rolling the sleeves up, getting in the trenches and doing the work. As I wrote, I became a better writer. As I spoke, I became a more accomplished speaker.
7. Make a “Difference”
As I enter the 13th year of my blog, I’m driven by sharing my insights with others. All the things I’ve learned along the way. Helping people like you start a side hustle and discover a life of freedom.
8. Connect and communicate with your “Global Tribe”
One of the biggest motivations is the feedback from your tribe and global community. The discovery of this in 2009 when I started using social media was motivating and supporting. As I created and shared my thoughts and observations with them, I changed them, and they changed me. It was a two-way conversation powered by social networks. But keep in mind that your tribe is where you belong and it’s different for everyone. The digital world provides multiple platforms and forums to create and nurture that.
9. Keep “Creating”
There is an old saying, “When you stop growing, you start dying.” The ongoing process of creating is where you grow. So… start, create (a product, a service or a piece of art) and persist – I cannot overemphasize the importance of this. Remember that you are playing the long game.
Having many why’s is a motivation machine. And getting up early and staying up late will not feel like hard work.
For some of you, having a side hustle that pays for holidays, your mobile phone, or even going out to a restaurant will be enough. But for others, that won’t be enough. You’ll want to evolve from side hustle to main hustle. That is up to you.
Handing you the reigns
Not everyone is up to the quest of finding and discovering their life purpose and meaning.
But if you haven’t found it yet, don’t give up.
Keep searching.
When there is a hint, a whisper, act, dive in, and start creating. You will find the answers and solutions along the way.
There is magic in the motion.