How to find your purpose in life. Wondering what to do in life? What you’re leaving behind?
9 life purpose questions to ask. And 2 to avoid.
German philosopher Frederick Nietzsche said, “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.” Viktor Frankl echoed this sentiment in his book “Man’s Search for Meaning.” Viktor Frankl survived a concentration camp and went on to write one of the most important philosophy books of all time.
Man has been asking about the meaning (or purpose) of life since the beginning. We know Aristotle was questioning it in the 4th century BC. Whiny singers have been questioning it in pop songs more recently.
But not everyone knows their purpose. I’m 39 and spent my entire 20s wandering vaguely from goal to goal with no real purpose. And even after I figured out my purpose, I got distracted (I’m like a squirrel with a shiny object) a couple times. Once for a couple of years!
So, how to find your purpose? Try the questions below.
(Quick note: if you like this article, check out “Keystone Habits: Transform Your Life” and “Change Your Perspective, Change Your Life.”)
Table of contents
Your purpose can change
I firmly believe everyone has a purpose. Some people find that “woo woo” or on par with crystals and telling the future by the stars. {Shrugs.} Each to their own. Mark Manson, who I highly respect about matters of living a meaningful life, doesn’t subscribe to the idea that “we were each born for some higher purpose.”
Despite that, he goes on to point out it’s important to live a life of purpose. So, whether you believe you’ve been given a purpose…or whether you believe we assign one to ourselves, this is an important issue.
People who report having a purpose in life live longer and are happier (source & source).
Now that we firmly know we should HAVE a purpose, I should put in the caveat that your purpose can change throughout life.
Just because you poured your entire being into being a full-time mother for 5 years (or 10…or 15) doesn’t mean you don’t have a further purpose now that being a mom isn’t a full-time occupation.
And just because you’ve retired from a meaningful career at age 65, it doesn’t mean you’re destined to spend the next 20 years or so with no meaning in your life.
“Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become the next moment. By the same token, every human being has the freedom to change at any instant.”
Viktor Emil Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning
How to use these questions
- You have to actually take some time and think about these questions. It’s even better if you write down your answers. So grab a few sheets of paper, give yourself at least 30 minutes, and start pondering the questions below.
- Honesty is vital.
- I’ve worded each “question” in a few different ways. The reason is that one particular iteration of the concept might “click” better with you than another. So, you don’t need to answer every single sub-question. If the question “Who inspires you?” doesn’t help, try the alternative “What issues inspire you?”
Life purpose questions to ask
Another way of looking at life purpose is also to ask “What can I do with my time that is important?” (Thanks to Mark Manson for that perspective on life purpose).
Limited time
One of the best ways to figure out how to find your purpose is to imagine that you have limited time left to live. If you had limited time, what would you do? Try these questions:
- If you have one year left to live, what would you do?
- If you have one month left to live, what would you do?
- If you have one week left to live, what would you do?
- If you have one day left to live, what would you do?
- If you have an hour left to live, what would you do?
- If you have one minute left to live, what would you do?
Spend some time, think about it, and write it down.
Now, look at what you would supposedly do.
Compare it to how you actually spend your time.
Are you reflecting the values that you profess?
Ideal life
Another way to think about life purpose is to imagine your ideal life.
- What is your ideal career?
- What is your ideal diet?
- What is your ideal home like?
- What is your ideal body look?
- How would you describe you ideal life?
- How would I describe a perfect day?
Now, look at what you need to do to reach that ideal. You may not have an exact idea, but a general one will do. For example, if you want a high-powered career, it’s pretty certain that long work hours are going to be required. For an amazing physical body, healthy food and exercise hours are going to be needed.
What are actually WILLING to do? In other words, what are you willing to sacrifice?
“In some ways suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice.”
Viktor Emil Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning
Inspiration
Knowing what inspires you is another way to gain insight into your life’s purpose.
- Who inspires you? Be honest. Some people are inspired by people starting from nothing and becoming famous musicians. To be honest, I don’t find that the least bit inspiring. But a kid who grew up poor who starts a successful business? That I find inspiring. So everyone’s answer to this question will be different.
- What issues do you think it’s important to take a stand about?
- What social issues outrage you? (Um, this question only works if you’re not outraged at everything…if you’re one of those people, though, you’re probably not reading this post.)
- Who would you like to be like?
- Which of your friends do you most admire and why?
Ideal life
- If you couldn’t fail at anything, what would you do?
- If you could be anything in the world, what would you be?
- What contribution do you want to leave to the world?
- What do you want to be remembered for?
- What is something that if you had no fears, no doubts, and no need to please others that you would do in this life?
Money
The following questions are a bit cliché. And I know some people don’t like them. I still remember the sceen in Office Space where someone points out that figuring out your career by answering this question doesn’t work because no one would ever choose to be the janitor.
Despite that, these are great questions to ask. Because money is such a limiting factor in many people’s minds. I did a ton of research (along with my own personal experience) before writing Personal Money Management and was surprised to find money is one of the top reasons for relationship problems.
- If money wasn’t an issue, then what will you do with it? Where would you spend it?
- If you won the lottery today, what would you do in the future?
Bucket List
There are two famous stories about bucket lists that I’ve read. The first is about Warren Buffett. In it, he was helping his pilot Mike Flint. He told Flint to write down his top 25 priorities in his career. Flint did so. Then he had Flint rank them by priority.
You might be thinking that Buffett then told him to work on them in that order. Nope. He told him to work on the top 5. The other 20? He was to AVOID them at all costs. I remember reading this in some biography of Buffett and thinking how different from my own thinking
The other story is about football coach Lou Holtz. He jump-started his life at age 28 (while he was unemployed) by writing a bucket list. He got out of a rut and focused everything on achieving everything on his list. He spent years working on it and achieved 102 of the items on the list.
Whichever method you subscribe to, writing down your bucket list can help you clarify your life purpose.
Advice to younger self
This is a great one because it can help in two ways. You often identify stuff you wish you HADN’T done. (For example, maybe taking up drinking regularly was a bad idea.)
You also can figure out what you wish you would have achieved. Which is probably still stuff you want to achieve.
- What advice would you give to yourself 3 years ago?
- If you could give one piece of advice to your younger self, what will that be?
What do you love?
Another technique on how to find your purpose is to look at what you love doing.
- What work activity makes you lose track of time?
- What work makes you keep working even when you need to pee? (Or need to eat).
- What did you love doing as a child?
Current path
Looking at your current path can be eye-opening.
My husband is military so we get the wonderful (sarcasm) experience of moving every 3 years or so. And as we were planning to move from South Carolina to Washington state about a decade ago, I realized something. I had achieved precisely NOTHING the previous three years. I looked back and couldn’t find one outstanding achievement or improvement I had made in my life.
It was sort of a mini-preview of lying on my deathbed wondering what I had done with my life. And I realized I didn’t want my life to be like that.
- If you keep acting exactly as you are now, how will your life go?
- What are you going to regret when you’re dying?
“Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.”
Viktor Emil Frankl
Questions to avoid
When figuring out how to find your purpose, there are two questions you should avoid at all cost. And I bet the first one surprises you.
Happiness
- What makes you happy?
Yep, this sounds kind of like the “what do you love?” question above. But it’s subtly different. Above, we focused on WORK that caught our attention and made us lose track of time. And we looked at what we loved doing as a child.
The reason we don’t want to ask what makes us currently happy is that humans are traditionally horrible at identifying what actually makes them happy. And what makes us happy in the long-term often involves being miserable in the short-term.
For example, new parents are generally miserably unhappy. I have a 5-month old. I can attest that the first two months were horrible. I was a zombie. That still had to keep another human being alive. But in the long-term, parents often say having children was the best thing they ever did. (And after even 5 little months, I wouldn’t change things back to being childless for anything.)
Losing weight in the short-term sucks. But healthy people are happier in the long-term. People love to mock the phrase “nothing tastes as good as thin feels.” But…honestly…it’s pretty true for a lot of people. That cake is temporary, cheap satisfaction (or happiness). Feeling comfortable in your own skin is priceless.
Not to mention, a lot of what makes us happy in the short-term (eating, drinking, drugs) is a horrible long-term life strategy.
So, if you’re trying to figure out your life purpose, do NOT look at what provides temporary happiness to you.
Other people
- What does {fill-in-the-blank-person} think I should be doing?
The absolutely last thing you want to think about when figuring out life purpose is what other people think you should be doing.
It doesn’t matter what your mom, your sister, your hairdresser, or even your partner thinks your life purpose should be.
In the case of partner, of course they should be allowed to voice some input into matters that affect the couple financially and emotionally. But a good partner is going to respect your decisions if it’s honestly good for you.
Next steps
You might have noticed that in all that text about how to find your purpose in life I didn’t share my life purpose. That’s because it’s going to be different than yours. And I didn’t want my personal experience cluttering up how you thought you should answer questions.
In case you were curious, my purpose is to help people through my writing. How I’ve done that has changed over the years. Currently (and hopefully for a long time in the future), it will be through this website and my store. My introduction e-mail to everyone says that “My goal is to help women be their best self. While doing the same myself.”
I hope these questions helped you find your life purpose. Or at least got you thinking some.
If you’re not sure where to go next, I suggest checking out my Free Printable Goal Workbook. If you can distill your purpose down into a big goal (or two), that workbook will help you start achieving. Good luck.
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