Purpose 101: What Is Your Purpose?

purpose

I cannot tell you how to live your life.

 

In fact, it would be completely naive, self-centred, and egotistic if I said there is a right or wrong way to live life.

 

Unfortunately, this was me a year ago…

 

I used to think that my life was the way you should be living life: I was living in central London, had a solid corporate job,  and my body was on point – ‘who would not want to live my life!?’

 

A year down the line my mentality completely changed…

 

When I took a step back and assessed my thoughts and actions I became shocked at how single-minded and obnoxious I was:

 

The first time I recall thinking ‘wow, what am I actually thinking?’ was when I was speaking to my friend about my very smart sister who decided to become a trainee teacher; I was telling him how she is too smart to be a teacher…

 

I forgot exactly what my friend’s response was but it made me heavily re-evaluate that thought; how on earth can I say that someone is too smart to be a teacher?

 

Teachers change lives.

 

Teachers literally shape the future world.

 

Teachers inspire kids to go out and become doctors, scientists, and astronauts.

 

Teachers are adding more value to the world than I definitely was.

 

How could I say that the right way to live was to not be a teacher?

 

This initial thought made me think deeply about my other fundamental thoughts on what it meant to live a truly fulfilling life.

 

Once again, I would like to stress that I cannot tell you exactly how to live your life (for the above reasons). That being said, over my journey I have identified a few factors which I feel have helped me develop a more positive and internally satisfying approach to life; hopefully, this may help add some perspective and insight to how you see your life.

 

I have split this into 3 main areas: self-worth, contribution, and mentality.

 

Personally, I feel that all of these 3 areas need to be addressed for all round vitality; they all interconnect, affect each other, and play an important role in ensuring that you feel motivated, happy and at peace with yourself.

 

Without further ado, let’s get into it!

 

Why do you wake up in the morning?

sleep

 

I have found that we all want to feel some sort of value; a reason to get out of bed and go out and live life – this is where self-worth and contribution come into play.

 

Self-Worth

 

Self-worth is the process of adding value and progressing through your personal life. This tends to be most often found in the form of a career or learning and developing new skills.

 

Have you ever been in disbelief at how relentless Cristiano Ronaldo and LeBron James are? At how they are able to train consistently and religiously for years and years on end?

 

I believe this is largely fuelled by an inner desire to strive to become better version of themselves each and every day; they are driven by self-worth.

 

For most of us this level of commitment is a bit on the extreme end. That being said, I do feel we desire to better ourselves on a daily basis in order to help us feel that core feeling of self-value.

 

In my life I strive to achieve my self-worth through growing InvincibleMentality, fitness, and my corporate career.

 

In my opinion, fitness is one of the purest forms of achieving self-worth; actively becoming a fitter, stronger and healthier version of yourself gives you an incredible feeling of empowerment.

 

If it were not for fitness and working on transforming my body back at 14 I genuinely do not believe I would possess the levels of ambition and motivation which led to me doing well in school and striving to achieve success in both my career and other personal projects.

 

*If you are looking to get into fitness, be sure to check out my Ultimate Guide To Getting And Staying Lean*.

 

In terms of career, the drive often comes from feeling appreciated and valued by peers, achieving promotions, and gaining more responsibility as you progress in the field. In terms of entrepreneurship (InvincibleMentality for myself) the self-worth derives from growth and the mark you are making on the world.

 

A common trait with achieving self-worth is that it very much associated with progression and self-improvement; in all of the above examples the self-worth derived from some sort of growth.

 

Self-worth can also come from developing your hard and soft-skills; for example, you can learn a musical instrument or aim to be better at socialising and public speaking.

 

There are a myriad of diverse ways in which you can obtain a sense or progression and self-worth in your life;  how you choose to achieve it is up to you.

 

Contribution

 

This is the process of adding value through helping others.

 

Prime examples of this are being a teacher teaching or volunteering for a charity.

 

I feel this also plays an essential role towards our approach and feeling about our livelihood; as much as we want to do well for ourselves the most gracious and content people I have  ever come across give and contribute to others in abundance.

 

I cannot tell you the scientific or neurological reasons why giving adds fulfilment to our lives, however, from personal experience I can tell you that helping others gives you a different, deeper form of internal satisfaction; one that stems from a source of selflessness and gratitude, and not from self-interest.

 

If you think about it, would you want to look back on your life and realize that all you have done is take from the world when it has given so much to you?

 

So what are the ways we can contribute and give to the world?

 

My main source once again comes through InvincibleMentality; it is my way of sharing and contributing to the lives of others.

 

Receiving an email or Facebook message from someone saying thanks for helping them in gives me such a hear-warming feeling; one that is worth me continuing regardless of whether this blog loses or makes money.

 

Other forms of giving which I apply in my life include just being nice on a daily basis, like opening the door for someone or helping someone carry their luggage up the stairs; you can do so many little things on a daily basis which can all play a part in ticking your daily contribution box.

 

Another core form of contribution is through raising, supporting, and helping friends and family; contribution does not have to be building houses in third world countries… the source could be literally right in front of you.

 

Personally, I feel there needs to be a balance between self-worth and contribution.

 

Sure, giving is the most selfless thing one could do. That being said, if there is no element of personal growth in your life you may not feel complete; developing yourself gives you a sense of accomplishment and achievement.

 

The reason I stress the word ‘may’ in the above sentence is because it is not definite; someone can be completely satisfied with devoting themselves to give to the world without any care of the impact that it has on them. In fact, I am in awe of the people who have the mind-set where they can spend their life giving in the purest sense.

 

If you are one of these people, please email me at mike@invinciblementality.com; I would love to speak to you and understand what your thought process and approach to life is!

 

For the rest of us, I feel a healthy balance between adding value to yourself and adding value to others is key to feeling good about yourself and your contribution to society.

 

Mentality

 

This encompasses a number of elements which I fell have helped me approach life from a more beneficial angle.

 

For as long as I can remember I have always been ambitious; I wanted to be a tennis player back when I was 7, have my own businesses (back then my main goal was to out-compete Virgin…), strived to be great at piano, and always had a knack for wanting to develop and improve myself – in other words, my self-growth box was ticked.

 

It was not until fairly recently that I started to appreciate that I although I excelled in terms of achieving external success, I had a lot to work on in terms of my mentality; I was relatively insecure with how I looked and was held back by fears, self-limiting beliefs, and a naive and self-centred mind-set.

 

Appreciation

 

There is no harm in being thankful and grateful for everything you do have in life. In fact, when you do take a moment to be thankful for everything you do have you prevent getting lost in your negative thoughts.

 

Sure, you may not like your job, you know no one in this new city you have moved to, and your landlord is mugging you off… but are you homeless? No. You have a roof over your head, a job, and the ability to know that with time you will able to build connections and friendships.

 

Being relaxed and composed

 

Are you getting annoyed at unnecessary things?

 

An ability to stay relaxed helps keep a balanced, composed and rational mind-set which will help you focus on the things that matter in life.

 

Letting someone cutting you off or a train being cancelled affect your internal emotional state and your state towards others is not the way I would personally want to go out and live my life.

 

I don’t want to let myself develop a personality where I make heavy assumptions on a person/group of people due to getting a negative interpretation of them one time.

 

I don’t want to ever yell at my future wife or children because the events at work threw my emotions out of control.

 

I don’t want to live a life where I have an inability to focus on the truly important things in life because my emotions and thoughts were clouded with daily nonsense which really do not matter in the grand scheme of things.

 

Being in a calm and relaxed state helps avoid all the above.

 

This also goes hand in hand with gratitude and appreciation; when you have a relaxed mind-set you are able to be grateful for and appreciate the important moments in life. An ability to always look and appreciate the positivies of events helps you keep a more balanced and relaxed mindset.

 

I will not go into too much detail about the techniques, methods, and thought-processes I applied to help myself make great progress into becoming a more relaxed and serene version of myself, as I have already written a 2,000 article on how to be relaxed already -check it out!

 

Honesty

 

I was not about to put this in here until I realised that being honest is one of the most fundamental aspects of allowing yourself to build the life you truly want.

 

If I did not allow myself to accept that I had some fears, insecurities, and was not the all-round beast I originally thought I was, I would never have made the steps to want to seek to re-evaluate my approach to life and re-structure it in a way which would be more beneficial to me.

 

Admitting to yourself that you have faults is not easy, but trust me when I say it is worth it; you give yourself the opportunity to work with yourself to become the person you want to be, both on the inside and outside.

 

Again, this links in with both being relaxed and appreciation; being honest with yourself is crucial to developing a clear mind-set which will allow you to see the position and state of yourself and the others around you. It also helps you appreciate the position you are in and the fact that you have the state of mind to want to improve yourself.

 

Summary

 

Once again, I cannot tell you how to live your life. However, the elements discussed in this article have personally helped me reach a mind-set and approach to life which has helped me feel more internally fulfilled.

 

That being said, ultimately it is up to you to decide what life you want to live; we all are unique individuals who have different boxes which we want to tick – find out what makes you internally fulfilled and work with yourself to create that life.

 

I hope this helps!

 

-Mike

 

Like, comment, share, and ask me anything at mike@invinciblementality.com

2 thoughts on “Purpose 101: What Is Your Purpose?

  1. Hi! I truly enjoyed and appreciated reading your article!! I am in a place in life where I would like to find just as much joy and satisfaction in employment. I wasted 25.5 years working for the government, especially the last five years. It was almost two years, I left employment because work was literally making me sick. This apparently cost the department money on the account of errors I made. Many coworkers and interns were taking time out of their jobs to help me do my job. In the end, I left for medical reasons. I couldn’t collect disability retirement nor social security disability. The physicians and psychiatrist I had felt I could continue working. They felt I was not applying myself to their suggestions. All they did was prescribe medication after medication. Instead of giving me medical leave, the personnel director fired me instead. To support myself, I had to break open my 401 (k) piggy bank. When that ran out, I had to rely on public assistance and/or family.

    Just recently, my youngest sister bailed me out again, so I would not end up homeless.

    Programs to save you from losing your home require you to have money in your bank account. The amount in my account or what’s left of it, is supposed to help me play catch up.

    I am in the process of looking for one or two more jobs. I refuse to work for the government. Even if I wanted to go back to that job, I could not secure a job from the department I was fired from. That was one of the conditions of the agreement between the union steward and personnel director. I reluctantly signed it.
    I realize I now have the freedom to work at any place I want to. More than anything, I want to feel as if I am working for more than just a paycheck. Yes, the bills have got to be paid, but I also want to have a reason to look forward to the day when I get out of bed every morning.
    Thank you for sharing this inspiring article.

    PS: Are you still awake? Your chuckle for the day!

    1. Hey Maria!

      Thank you for the reply.

      I really admire the realization you have come to; how although work ultimately pays bills, identying and finding the right job (and external activies) can add another level of purpose and satisfaction to our lives.

      I wish you all the best 🙂

      -Mike

Leave a Reply to admin Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *