Life Purpose: 8 Key Points

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1. Having a purpose to our life is universal.
We all came to this lifetime with an intention. We have gifts we came to offer and learning we came to integrate.

2. Our life purpose is unique.
Each person’s life purpose consists of their own blend of talents and struggles, carried out in their own way.

3. Living our purpose asks us to be courageous.
Since we all have our own unique path, if you are truly going to follow yours then at some point you are likely to feel you are making a choice that other people don’t understand and wouldn’t choose for you. Friends and loved ones may advise you in a “logical” direction that is counter to the choice you feel intuitively drawn to make. It takes courage to listen to your own sense of what’s right for you.

4. Our life purpose requires effort. 
Our life work is not always the easiest thing for us to do. Engaging with our life purpose usually requires patience and practice. I often see people get frustrated when they hit a bump in the road–for example, I’ve worked with many writers who felt that writing was part of their calling, but who begin to doubt their calling when they struggle with writing.

5. Opportunities arise when we are on the right path.
When we are engaged with our life purpose, doors will open up for us that would not have otherwise opened. Even though we have to show up and put in the work to make our life vision a reality, there are often synchronicities and opportunities that appear.

6. Following our life purpose is a process that reveals itself as we go.
There is a timing to some elements of our life purpose. When we stand back, it makes sense to us that our entire life purpose wouldn’t happen or be available to us all at once, but rather that it would be an unfolding throughout our lives. We can get impatient that things aren’t unfolding the way we want them to. In some cases, it may not be time yet. There is an important sequencing of events, both in our individual lives and in the greater world.

7. Difficulties have an integral role in our life purpose.
Dealing with the challenging aspects of our lives can sometimes feel like it’s getting in the way of accomplishing our life purpose, when in fact transcending and learning from these challenges is a vital part of our purpose.

8. Both giving and receiving have a place in the purpose of our lives.
Just as it is part of our soul contract to offer our assistance in various ways during our lifetime, it also part of other people’s contract to assist us. I’m not talking about a sense of entitlement or “he owes me” kind of thinking. I do want to point out that receiving is just important as giving in the grand scheme of life. Our culture tends to promote the idea of self-sufficiency to the exclusion of accepting help. Being willing to receive support as well as to give it is a major life lesson that many people in this country are working with.