“Your life purpose isn’t just about you. It’s about you in service to others…but the ‘others’ include you.” Paraphrased from Life On Purpose: Six Passages to an Inspired Life.

My client had moved through the first four passages of the Life On Purpose Process like a real A++ client. He’d uncover much of his Inherited Purpose and had clarified his life purpose and created a very powerful and inspiring life purpose statement. Now he was at the point of creating a Purpose Project that would allow him to contribute and make a different as he expressed his true purpose.

He was called to work with young children who were disadvantaged and I was excited to see the Project take form.

Then he was diagnosed with a second bout of cancer. It set him back on his heals, as such news would anyone. He’d been diagnosed and treated for another form a couple years previously. It was one of the significant points that had him really want to identify his life purpose. Suddenly, in the midst of an already full life, running a very successful business with his wife and another business partner, just starting his new Purpose Project — it appeared that life was interfering.

But His life on purpose needn’t stop.

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Your Life Purpose Includes YOU
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It was time to remember one of the paradoxes of the Purposeful Path. While your life purpose isn’t just about you — it’s about expressing your life purpose into the world in service to others….But, and it’s a big But…your life purpose does INCLUDE YOU.

For example, my client’s life purpose statement is to live an extraordinary life of generosity, passionate service, playful creativity and peaceful happiness.

So, he was well on his way to expressing and experiencing this out in the world by being generous with disadvantaged children and passionately serving them by playfully creating a nonprofit or joining forces with an existing one….then a major crisis struck — life happened.

And, at first it looked like he had to “put his life on purpose on the shelf” and deal with the cancer. But something shifted dramatically when he realized that he was included in his own life purpose.

So, for now, while his focus has shifted to his wellbeing, the context within which he pours his life doesn’t need to change. He can continue to life true to his life purpose. In fact, the more he does the more he will be empowered to deal with the cancer in a loving, healing manner, rather then deal with it from the fear, lack and struggle of the Inherited Purpose.

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Staying On Purpose through Questions
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One way he can begin to make that shift in perspective is with questions, like:

** “How can I be generous to MYSELF in this moment as well as with those around me?

* In what ways can I be passionately of service to MYSELF and allow others to be as well (like my wife and my doctors)?

* How can I continue to be playfully creative with what life has dealt me while continuing to experience peaceful happiness?

Now, don’t get me wrong, dealing with cancer is a real challenge. But this time there’s a new context within which to hold it and whenever the fear, lack and struggle pops up, which of course it will, my client has a new place to pivot to and new way to practice being.

How about you, my fellow travelers along the Purposeful Path? What is the context into which you’re pouring your life? Is it based in Universal Love, a sense of abundance, and a willingness to flow with life, or are fear, lack and struggle appear to be running the show?

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What do you think of this article? Did it serve you in some way? If so, how? Do you disagree? That’s great too. Let me hear from you. Share your thoughts and perspective, either on the blog here, or send me an email. I really do want to hear from you.