For the longest time, I was living unconsciously and without a life of purpose. I felt trapped in my self-sabotaging thoughts, negative patterns, and boring, unwanted daily routines.
Not only was I unconsciously living the same day on a loop, but I was also not living in the present. I was too anxious about the future. I was crippled with regret and shame about the past. I had no sense of direction. I had no personal “compass” to point me where I could begin to improve things for myself.
One day when it all became too overwhelming and came crashing down on me, I decided it was time to shake things up. Because otherwise I only had 1 result – stagnation (read destruction).
I decided this unconscious repetition of the same day on a loop needed to stop.
Rule #1 for living a life of purpose: Don’t let your life get stale
Life can get monotonous if you keep doing the same things over and over again without any change.
It is on you to not allow your goals, vision, and life to get stale.
You need to regularly introduce new experiences, challenges, and opportunities into your daily life to add excitement and freshness – the kind you want.
It’s a myth that people don’t change.
I believe we as human beings, grow and evolve every single day. What mattered to you yesterday may no longer hold the same significance today.
- Normalize changing your mind.
- Normalize evolving rapidly.
- Normalize shedding things that don’t serve you.
Take time to reflect on where you are and where you want to go. This aligns your actions with your goals. It ensures you’re living a life true to yourself.
- If you don’t consciously create your challenges from time to time, you will be given challenges.
- If you don’t set your own goals, you will end up accomplishing someone else’s goals.
- If you don’t create your enjoyment, you will get sucked into pleasure-seeking.
- If you don’t prioritize your growth – your way, you will be forced to grow.
- If you don’t create a routine for yourself, you will be assigned one.
Rule #2 for living a life of purpose: Don’t be on a hamster wheel!
Instead of mindlessly following set motions of everyday life, you need to find what truly brings you joy and add those activities to your daily life.
The more you make your daily life fun (not just pleasurable), the easier it will be to avoid self-sabotage.
Time is a finite resource, perhaps the most precious one we possess. Which means we have a finite time to make our goals a reality.
Each day is irretrievable.
So, it’s vital to use them in ways that bring you growth and joy. By living on your own terms, you ensure you don’t waste this valuable resource. You avoid activities that don’t fit your goals, values, or aspirations.
How To Create A Life Of Purpose & Joy
Think about your life for a moment and ask yourself: why should you not build each day of your life to fit your ultimate vision?
When you live with purpose, effectiveness, and joy, something magical happens! So, by aligning your daily actions with your long-term vision, you will create meaning that fills your whole life with coherence.
In essence, living and enjoying each day according to your own terms is essential for maximizing our limited time on this planet by:
- making the most of our cognitive abilities
- crafting a life that is meaningful and fulfilling
- creating top-tier agency in life
Are You Using Your Mind or Is Your Mind Using You?
Step 1 is to quiet the non-stop mental chatter and gain clarity on your thoughts and emotions. By understanding your mind’s tendencies and biases, you avoid negative thought patterns that drain your energy and productivity.
When you fail to make effective use of your mental faculties, you risk falling into patterns of inertia and complacency.
Your goal is to use the full potential of your mind so you can cultivate creativity, problem-solving abilities, and emotional resilience. All of which will help you to navigate life’s challenges better.
And how do you accomplish this?
By gaining unmatched clarity about how you are going to spend every minute of your time.
Let’s begin designing your life of purpose:
PHASE I: REFLECTION
Get your journal and begin reflecting on what’s happening currently in your life.
- What are you doing right?
- What are you doing wrong?
- How do you feel on a daily basis?
- What’s not helping you to move in the right direction?
Take your time with this exercise. It’s key to find your current time and energy “vampires”.
PHASE II: PRIORITIZATION
The above exercise will help you identify what you DO NOT want.
After that, you need to identify and get clear on what you DO want.
- What do you want your daily life to look like?
- How do you want to feel on a daily basis?
- What would make your life feel like a daily vacation?
Again, get very specific and write in detail.
Once you have it, write down which goals are going to help you accomplish the above-mentioned vision?
Break them down into yearly goals, quarterly goals, monthly goals, and weekly goals.
Make a list of EVERYTHING that’s currently sabotaging or harming your growth – in all areas of life.
You need to focus on their complete elimination by making them conscious to yourself.
PHASE III: EXECUTION
Once you get rid of all that limits you, you unlock lots of mental space and time for what you do want.
In the above list, in front of each of the things in your “sabotage” list, specify HOW do you plan to keep it away. Be specific and make a solid plan to cut each one of the items on that list. Now, make a list of the things that you will need to do daily to materialize the goals you have set for yourself. What routine do you need to set in place?
Habits are the foundations of success in any domain of life.
Now make a plan for the next 10 days. Write down every single thing you are going to do in the next 10 days to stay on track with the goals you have set. Specify every action.
The whole 10 days should be in front of your eyes with a crystal clear plan.
Write out:
- your morning routine
- your work routine
- your self-care routine
- everything else you need to do
Stepping Into The Flow
Mention EVERY SINGLE THING you will do each day.
Seriously, write down every single thing, including your coffee and meals. Put them all in a to-do checklist. Wake up each day and get going. Begin taking things off your checklist, MAKE ZERO EXCUSES for these 10 days. Just execute, execute, execute.
At the end of each day, just before going to bed, note down in your journal for just 5-7 minutes:
- how your day was
- how you felt throughout the day at different points of the day
- what went well
- what didn’t go well
- when did you feel like falling off your routine
- what did you say to yourself during those moments to keep yourself going
Remember: your only goal is to not fall off the wagon for these 10 days. You say you are going to do something, you do it.
10 days are good enough time to build this habit and promise-keeping into your life. Once you begin doing this and start seeing the results, you will automatically feel the need to keep going.
And that’s the kind of positive and intentional loop we want to create.
