During an interview for The Inside Success Show,(http://www.TheInsideSuccessShow.com), the host, Randy Gilbert, asked me,”What is it that stops people from knowing and living their purpose?”What a great question, I thought, in part because over the years I’ve identified four significant obstacles that stop people from becoming clear about their purpose
Here are the 4 primary obstacles I’ve learned in over 10 years as a life purpose coach that keeps people from clarifying or living their life purpose.
NOT KNOWING TO THE ASK THE QUESTION
In my observation of the world, it appears there are still a lot of people who aren’t even asking the question, “what is my life purpose?” Obviously, it’s hard to become clear about your life purpose, much less live true to it, unless you’re asking this question. Yet, in our culture, many people seem too busy to stop long enough to reflect upon such a question — a classic case of placing the cart before the horse.
MISIDENTIFYING WHAT YOU DO AS YOUR LIFE PURPOSE
Since founding Life On Purpose Institute in 1996, I’ve asked thousands of people one simple questions — What is a life purpose? I’ve found it’s revealing to look at what a person’s perspective is regarding life purpose since it plays an important part in how they address the primary question,”what is MY life purpose?” In asking this question, I’ve found that 60-70 percent of the people who responded have a similar theme to their response which is: A life purpose is what I’m meant to DO while on earth. And for most of these people that equates to either their job, career, profession, or a primary role in life such as parenting, being a good spouse, employee or community member.
What people don’t seem to notice when looking from this perspective is that a life purpose is meant to impact ALL of ones life, not just a portion of it. The good news is that there is another perspective of what a life purpose is that will allow you to live true to your life purpose in all areas of your life, making it possible to live on purpose in each moment of your life. Consider your life purpose from this Life On Purpose Perspective: Your life purpose is the context, vessel, or container into which you pour your life.
(For more about this perspective, visit http://www.wbradfordswift.com/lop)
Next posting, we’ll look at the other two primary obstacles to clarifying your purpose.
