How I Found My “Why” in Life After Struggling for Years

“Your purpose in life is to find your purpose and requite your whole heart and soul to it.” ~Gautama Buddha

Each time I start a new course, training, or venture, the teacher or leader asks me “why?” “Why are you here?” “Why are you taking this course?” “What’s your ‘why’?” “What’s your purpose?”

And I’m never prepared.

You’d think by now, without all the years of working on myself and studying, I would have an wordplay on the tip of my tongue.

Yet, I find “why” to be a difficult question to answer.

I have wondered, “Do I really not know? What’s the block?”

Then it dawned on me.

The reason I find it difficult to wordplay the “why” question is considering I don’t have just one.

I have so many whys and I’m motivated by so many things that my throne just gets overwhelmed and rolls up into a wittiness when I think I have to come up with just one.

So I get stuck, yank a blank, and can’t wordplay the question.

This was an enlightening insight for me considering previously I thought I was only unliable to have one purpose.

Yes, allowed.

I would take what the authors, teachers, and books told me well-nigh purpose very seriously. I thought they really meant I could only have one unexclusive purpose, and that’s that!

So I spent a unconfined deal of time trying to icon that big purpose out, to find, as one teacher guided me, the “why that could make me cry.” To no success.

It was a relief when I realized and wonted how multi-faceted my purpose unquestionably is.

It doesn’t make it wrong, bad, or insufficient. It makes me smile and relax and allows me to enjoy the many aspects of my being.

It has brought me a stronger sense of inner peace also, by letting go of trying to fit myself into a mold that someone else made.

That’s right. I am breaking the mold and creating my own one.

Here’s what I midpoint by a multifaceted purpose.

Purpose #1: Personal Growth

Without a doubt, I am driven by my relentless interest in growing as a person in all aspects of my life.

For example, I read a lot well-nigh health and fitness. I’ve been doing CrossFit for over four years. I’m unchangingly adjusting my nutrition to find one that works plane largest for me. I love growing into the weightier health and fitness version of myself.

The vision of myself at a CrossFit matriculation when I am ninety is a huge motivator for me. I don’t overly want to be a undersong on my loved ones. That’s wrapped up in this “why” also.

I have studied psychology, trained as a therapist, and been in variegated forms of therapy my whole life. There are wondrous emotional teachers and healers who I follow.

I am unchangingly striving to grow into the happiest, most well-balanced person I can be who is kind, supportive, and loving to myself and others.

My spirituality is my rock. I have meditated for over forty years. I have read spiritual books and studied warmed-over texts in school. I listen, I learn, I try. I hope to alimony raising my consciousness forever.

And I learn well-nigh my craft, my work, my business. I never stop learning.

Yes, indeed, personal growth is one of my “whys” in life.

Purpose #2: Fulfilling My Potential

I have unchangingly had the idea that I was capable of much more.

I was an athlete as a child. I played and watched a lot of sports.

I was uplifted and excited when I saw people breaking records and pushing themselves vastitude what anyone thought was possible.

And I loved the arts. I was mesmerized by ballet dancers doing no-go things on stage. And musicians performing at their best. Plane paintings by remarkable painters took my vapor away.

It’s genius that I was seeing. People pushing themselves to be the very weightier they were capable of.

The idea that humans, meaning me too, could excel in that way fascinated and wrapped me.

I want to do that too. Fulfilling my potential is a huge “why” in my life.

Purpose #3: Making a Difference

I want to unstrap suffering in the world.

Perhaps seeing my parents suffering with sadness and peepers and not stuff worldly-wise to help them fuels this purpose.

Even so, my momentum to unstrap suffering has evolved into something very satisfying and motivating.

It is the cornerstone of my work; it colors all my relationships. It gives me a reason that is vastitude myself.

Being of service is flipside way of looking at this particular “why.”

I’ve noticed that if I’m not careful, my first two “whys,” personal growth and fulfilling my potential, will alimony my focus a little too self-centered.

I really do want to be a impetus for positive transpiration in people. It’s moreover pretty well-spoken that I’m not driven to go out there to unquestionably transpiration the whole world.

At times, I have felt some guilt for not stuff increasingly zippy for social change.

But over the years, I have come to understand that the transpiration I help facilitate in the world is very personal, individual, and intimate. And that’s okay.

Whether it’s friends, family, or clients, nothing feels increasingly meaningful to me than seeing someone’s whole energy shift, burdens lift, and excitement return to their faces.

Pretty sure my love of alleviating suffering counts as part of my life purpose.

So let’s try this again.

“What’s your why?” you ask?

“It’s personal growth, fulfilling my potential, and alleviating suffering in others.”

That just makes me so happy. There is such a life lesson here in my sensation of my multifaceted purpose.

We are so influenced by others’ teachings that sometimes we forget to squint deep inside ourselves for the answers we seek.

Yes, we can learn wonderful things from the stories and studies of people, yet our truest and most profound learnings must come from within.

Rather than taking lessons at squatter value, we must explore them, put them on like a new piece of suit to see how it fits, how we look, if it suits us, and if we really like it.

We want guidance to resonate with us. That ways it’s in structuring with our nature.

Having one purpose just didn’t fit me. I’m not a one-size-fits-all kind of person.

And now, permitting myself to be myself, to recognize and embrace my multifaceted purpose, has given me much increasingly inner peace.

The internal struggle with myself has subsided.

I get to be who I am, regardless of what the experts may teach.

Uh oh, I think I may have landed on flipside “why.” What’s my purpose in life?

Purpose #4: To be myself

I love it.