How to find your purpose in life: advice from a psychologist

2024 Author: Miguel Ramacey | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 06:11

Lack of purpose in life does not yet make a person unhappy, but the meaninglessness of existence gives rise to inertia, and it, in turn, deprives us of a sense of joy and harmony with the world around us. There are a lot of ways to find a goal, as well as options to realize it, and they are all individual, but there are universal methods for determining the formula of your life plan.

Why you need to set goals

“Help me find a purpose in life” is one of the most common phrases that psychologists hear, and it is most often voiced by adults, accomplished people, suddenly faced with the problem of a promising vacuum. They perceive the goal not only as a tool for their future development, which, in fact, it is, but also as a kind of way to transform themselves into another, more perfect personality. People want to become wiser, richer, more in demand and see only one obstacle on the way to this brilliant future - lack of internal motivations.

But in fact, the main obstacle to the implementation of this intentionis a complete misunderstanding by a person of his true desires. He wants to get rich, but continues to go to boring jobs with a tiny salary, dreams of speaking several languages, but is not ready to devote one hour a day to learning a foreign grammar. His fantasies are not supported by goals, which means they are ephemeral, fickle, and unrealizable.

How to find your purpose, how not to lose momentum, how to recognize your highest desires among momentary needs?

From one task to another

Throughout life, a person sets himself, even unconsciously, hundreds of large and small goals. Some of them are carried out, but not in all cases, and getting the desired result, a person experiences satisfaction. To be more precise, the more internal energy and other human resources spent on achieving the plan, the more likely that after the completion of the plans, the individual will feel in prostration.

Attempts to organize yourself for new achievements immediately after the implementation of the previous plan will not lead to anything good. A new goal takes time to form into a desire, then into a dream, and only then move into the planning stage. It's easy to get in the right mood, and it's best to start by allowing yourself to achieve many small goals with instant rewards. For example, cook and eat your favorite treat, go to the movies. On the principle of "planned - implemented - enjoyed."

After some time, the body's energy reserve will recover, and the person will againwill be ready for long-term planning.

How to define your new goal

The pause that determines the transition from a completed goal to the formation of a new one can last from a couple of days to several months. Difficulties in finding a new task arise, as a rule, for those people who have not learned to control their actions and who have been under the close supervision of their parents throughout their childhood and puberty. It is difficult for these people to single out their own preferences from the mass of imposed desires and responsibilities, and even in adulthood they subconsciously wait for instructions on how to act from outside.

Psychologists in this case advise you to first make a return trip - not to the visualization of your future, unformed goals, but to the years of carefree childhood, when the child was free to choose entertainment to his liking and was not yet squeezed into the framework of parental priorities. What was the greatest pleasure then? What interests were defended even under threat of punishment?

Often, using this simple technique, people really begin to re-experience that feeling of happiness from the opportunity to live their own life, unedited by someone else's interference, that filled them in childhood. Old dreams are remembered, and often among them is the key to the Highest goal, which became possible to find only by abandoning the stereotypes instilled in an adult.

Rules for setting goals

Psychologists have identified 5 universal rules for finding your goal and realizing it correctly:

1. Ifthere are several tasks, and they do not tolerate the order of execution, then they should at least be in harmony with each other (a bad example is the desire to spend several years traveling the world and open your own store near your home during this time).
2. Goals must motivate for development, for a constant challenge to their capabilities.
3. Intangible goals (like becoming a yoga guru) must be supported by a quantifiable component (buying a big house, starting your own yoga studio).
4. Besides the "goal of a lifetime", a person needs to have short-term plans for a year, five years, ten. By achieving these goals, a person grows as a person and can analyze his life according to the stages passed.
5. A large task that requires several years to complete, it is advisable to divide it into 90-day segments, each of which will be indicated by its own achievement bar.

One has only to temporarily lower your plan, allow yourself to be "fired up" with new plans that are different from the original ones, as the motivation will quickly fade away, and it will be very difficult to return it.

What should be the "big goal"?

Finding the true purpose means deciding on the meaning of your life, so do not rush into the appointmentto the main role of those tasks that fit into the short deadlines and do not promise full satisfaction. For all people, a big goal has its own criteria and lies in different values - someone dreams of becoming a great singer, someone - to create their own amusement park.

In any case, the goal should be specific - not just to sing on stage, but to become the best performer according to an authoritative publication, not just to build a couple of attractions, but to have 10,000 visitors in the park daily. If a person has a subconscious fear of such concretization of the desired outcomes, then he did not set his goal, or, before setting it in front of him, he needs to work on removing his internal blocks.

The third important criterion for the highest goal is its practical feasibility. You can't learn how to spit fire or become the captain of a non-existent space fleet, but you can master the practice of fakir or unlearn aircraft piloting courses. Everything should be within the limits of the possible achievable and, of course, supported by real actions.

How to find your purpose?

Fear often prevents people from seeing their true purpose. What if, being an economist and making good money, a person suddenly finds in himself a long-repressed desire to write books or play the guitar? What then is to quit a good job and start from scratch? It’s easier to pretend that all your life you have dreamed of dealing with finance and you have nothing to do with creativity. The fear of being left with nothing motivatespeople to hold on to routine work, to go to an unloved job, in general - to run around in a circle of their closed comfort zone, where everything is already arranged and adjusted.

However, psychologists are sure: if a person really finds his goal and allows himself to be set on fire by it, then, whatever this goal may be, it will lead a person to a level of life that he had never dared to dream of before. True, for this to happen, he should be completely sincere with himself and honestly answer the questions below on unlocking his inner potential. And after setting a goal, finding solutions is much easier.

What gets my attention?

The notion of "reality transerfing" that has existed since recent times (the author of the term is Vadim Zeland) describes a phenomenon known to all psychologists - a person attracts to himself what he thinks about. If he secretly dreams of becoming a writer, the existing reality will constantly remind him of this desire through newspaper articles, chance meetings with other writers or book lovers, etc.

There is also the opposite phenomenon - the individual himself snatches from the general information flow the information that corresponds to his secret ideas, and the more he thinks about it, the more necessary information is directed in his direction. How to find your goal, focusing on this law? We must focus our attention on the information that comes from the outside world with alarming obsession, and analyze it from the point of view of ourown thoughts.

Most likely, having directed his thoughts in the right direction, a person will find a huge number of coincidences between his thoughts and signals sent to him from outside.

What makes me original?

How to find your purpose? There are no people without talent, and even if a person himself is only vaguely aware of his own capabilities, he must have heard more than once about some kind of original ability that others do not have. It could be an excellent writing style or a rare manual skill.

It is impossible to succeed by broadcasting only mediocrity and pipelined possibilities to the world. Everyone who has ever risen head and shoulders above the crowd knows that the main secret of fame is the ability to present their individuality. Finding a goal by setting your talent as a driving mechanism is the easiest and most interesting way to achieve a result.

What is my motivation?

Even when it seems to a person that he is inactive and his life is meaningless, it is not. Something constantly stimulates him to take small steps, makes him look at beautiful pictures in magazines, buy himself various little things that are not included in the list of essential items. All these almost imperceptible stimuli make up the dynamics of a person's movement through life. Of course, they cannot lead to some significant goal, but they are quite capable of becoming part of some major motivation.

A person should remember a few of their strongestmotivations lately, which made me literally shake myself up and get down to business with enthusiasm. Most likely, strong emotions will reveal a direction at the end of which it will be possible to find a goal. A person can still perceive it on a subconscious level, but it is there!

My interests

All people, without exception, have a secret or overt occupation to which they are ready to devote all their free time, but most often this is hindered by a lot of household worries that take away the opportunity to devote themselves to their favorite business. Time managers and specialist coaches say: it is in this activity, even the thought of which brings pleasure, that the formula for human happiness is hidden, its direct goal, dictating the meaning of all life.

If, despite being tired, a woman enjoys cooking a multi-course dinner, perhaps the key to her success lies in the field of running her own food blog (which also brings a solid income). Or she decides to open her own restaurant, or star in a popular TV show and become a famous chef. The main thing is to remember: what seems to some to be empty fantasies, tearing a person away from his real tasks, for others is already the norm of life.