Most replayed personal development wisdom snippets: Living a purpose-driven life and how to find your purpose | #531

[00:00:02] Welcome to Personal Development Mastery Podcast and this is another snippet of wisdom where I select my most insightful moments from previous episodes. Today's snippet comes from my guest Robert Quinn who talks about discovering and living a purpose-driven life. Keep listening to learn how to uncover your unique life purpose and transform the way you see yourself and your contribution to the world.

[00:00:32] Let's dive right in. To have a purpose-driven life is to be very, very clear about why you're on this planet.

[00:00:50] Many people believe they're on the planet to eat, to sleep, to reproduce, which are the same things animals do. There's an entirely different perspective in life and that perspective is I have a contribution to make.

[00:01:18] So my purpose is my contribution to the world. How will the world be different because I was here? How will people be better off? A life purpose is not an ego mechanism. It's not something about what you acquire. I'm going to make a lot of money. That is not a life purpose. I want to have a lot of power. That's not a life purpose.

[00:01:48] A life purpose is your gift to the world. What is uniquely you and how do you give it away? And the moment you can answer that question, your life changes dramatically. In fact, everything changes. I have a good friend who has helped 15,000 people write purpose statements.

[00:02:14] He said, my purpose is to wake you up and bring you home. What he meant by that is the moment you write your life purpose and you get it right, you feel like you've suddenly come home. And you feel wide awake. Right? You feel very mindful and conscious and you can see things you didn't see before.

[00:02:44] Having a life purpose changes everything. Mm hmm. Um, we work with a lot of folks where we simply say, you've got 90 seconds. Write a one sentence life purpose. It, uh, should be simple. It should be clear. Write it down.

[00:03:04] Now, most people panic when we give them that assignment, but in their 90 seconds, they put something down and they usually don't like it very much. Mm hmm. We say, you know, that's absolutely fine. What we want you to do, we're going to give you some ways to think about this, but every day we want you to take two minutes and rewrite your sentence. It may take 11 days. It may take 25 days. It may take 60 days, but one.

[00:03:33] Morning, you're going to rewrite that sentence and you're going to run to whoever's closest to you and say, read this. You're going to be excited because you've come home and you're awake that you really will capture. Now, there are many, many things that help like list the 10 best and the 10 worst things that ever happened to you. As you look at these 20 things, what has life prepared you to do that no one else can do? Mm hmm.

[00:04:02] Now, that's a really interesting transformational question. Suddenly, because when I write my 10 best things, that makes me happy. When I write the 10 worst things, I'm depressed. I'm on the carpet. But suddenly you ask the question, what did these 20 things, what have they prepared you to do that no one? Suddenly, the 10 negative things are not negative anymore. They're teachers. Mm hmm.

[00:04:26] And so if I've had a terrible experience, that prepares me to empathize with other people who've had that terrible experience. I learned things in that process. Um, when I look at the best things that ever happened to me, why did they give me joy? What was it about them? What patterns exist across these? And as I begin to look at myself, I can derive clues as I rewrite my life sentence.

[00:04:57] And there are many, many other things that can be done, but it's personal work. It's deep reflection. It's about knowing who I am. And many people cut the process at the beginning, fearing that they have nothing. Our experience is that everybody has what it takes to write a life statement. It's just a matter of engaging the process. Thank you for listening.

[00:05:26] You will find the full conversation with Robert Quinn in episode 52. The link is in the show notes. If you have found value in this episode, consider supporting the show by visiting personaldevelopmentmasterypodcast.com slash support. You will also find the link in the episode description. I appreciate you. Until next time, stand out. Don't fit in.