3-Step Approach to Finding Your Purpose

How do you find your purpose?

Finding your purpose involves a 3-step approach that: 

1.  Seeks clarity, 

2. Gets direction, and 

3. Leads to action. 

i)   In seeking clarification, you must be clear about your identity. 

ii)  To get direction, you must determine your place of purpose. 

iii) To lead to action, you must discover your purposeful work. 

These three need to be understood to clarify your reason for existing. 

1. Seek Clarity

Your first step in seeking clarity is knowing your identity. Identity is a very complex phenomenon. It encompasses individual, group, social, racial, religious, and political perspectives, but to find your purpose, we will look at it from an individual's standpoint.

The dictionary defines individual (personal) identity as “A phenomenological sense of oneself as a separate individual being with a distinctive personality and a 'true self' persisting over time.”

It refers to your uniqueness as a person, your nature and origin, your abilities and limitations, your current state and functions, and your purpose for existing. 

Every person on earth is unique, with no exact duplicate. Your fingerprints are unique to you alone.

Understanding Your Identity

To proceed with this exercise, you will consult the notes you took from the information you gathered about yourself in “How to Find Your Purpose.”

Use the information you gathered about yourself as input to understand your identity better. 

When you are asked, “Who are you?” You would normally answer by saying, “I am John” (put your name). 

Your identity, however, is more than just your name.

There are many other components you include as part of your identity. 

Research focuses on these different components of identity, but to understand your identity in the light of purpose, I will focus more on narrative identity. 

Narrative Identity is about "how individuals construct and narrate their life stories to create a sense of self-continuity and meaning".  

This provides a person’s life with a sense of understanding of “how I have become the person I am becoming." 

Therefore, use the information you gleaned from the different information sources in “How to Find Your Purpose” to understand your identity better. 

To do this, we will look at your; 

1.  Nature and origin, 

2. Abilities and limitations,  

3. Current state and functions

i. Nature and origin

This speaks to your nature and origin. For example, I am John, a human created by God to be godlike, to prosper, multiply, rule, and be a caretaker of God's creation on earth. 

Your humanity is your nature. Being godlike is your spiritual connection to God. 

To prosper means that there is a general blessing given to the inhabitants of the earth to thrive. 

You multiply anything you have when you use it to bless others. 

You rule by exerting influence through thought leadership. 

You take care of God’s creation through your vocation. 

ii. Abilities and limitations

Your abilities, traits, talents, motivations, strengths, and limitations speak to your capacity to perform personal, social, and professional tasks. 

This section should give you an idea about how you will show up in the world. 

You must take the recommended personality tests below to help you with the information for this section. 

It is that information that provides insight into how you interact in the world. 

To provide a more robust assessment of your identity, please take the recommended personality tests below.

Recommended Personality Tests to help you understand yourself and who you are better:

1. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

2. The Clifton Strengths Assessment

3. The DISC Personality Test

4. The Enneagram Personality Test

5. The Big Five Personality Test (OCEAN)

6. The 16 Personality Factor (16PF) Test

7. The HEXACO Personality Inventory

iii. Current state and functions

This section clarifies the function you carry out or prefer to carry out in your personal, social, and professional spheres. 

This speaks to your personal, social, and professional roles in your home, society, and workplace. 

You wear many caps as a godlike human caretaker.

You are at your current version but constantly working and growing, as you go through life, to become your best self.

Clarity: Putting it Together

Your full identity might be different from what you think today. Understanding who you are comes after deep inquiry.

Your full information about yourself will give you a robust summary of who you are. 

That is the early stage of finding your purpose. You first gather information about yourself. 

You then seek further clarity by understanding your identity. After crafting your identity, you move to the next stage.

The next stage will be to find direction, which is to identify the area of life you are called to serve. 

2. Get Direction

We will look at how to locate your place of purpose.

Your place of purpose is like a “location” that aligns with your spiritual, mental, physical, or professional space. 

That is the place from which you are to operate. The place of fulfilling your purpose. That location or place is different for everyone. 

To illustrate this concept, let's look at the lives of five individuals. They are considered people who lived with purpose while on Earth. 

Their story will shed more light on what it means to have a place of purpose.

CASE STUDIES

1. Adam vs Paul

The first is Adam. When he was created, he was kept in the Garden of Eden and told to tend the garden. 

When he sinned and fell from grace, the Lord came calling. God called out to Adam and said, “Where are you?” (Genesis 3:9). 

Adam answered while still in the Garden of Eden, which meant that God was not asking about his physical but spiritual location. 

He was no longer in communion with God. His place of purpose was spiritual.

They were now at different spiritual wavelengths because Adam was now in a fallen state, separated from God, and no longer in his place of purpose. 

His place of purpose was spiritual, not physical, because he was still alive but no longer able to live as God intended. 

Contrast this with the Apostle Paul. He was known as Saul of Tarsus and later became Paul after he encountered the Lord Jesus Christ. 

His place of purpose was also spiritual, but he was not in communion with God until Christ met him on the way to Damascus. 

Paul then entered his place of purpose in Christ, from where he was able to document most of the New Testament we know today by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. 

Without locating his spiritual place of purpose, he would not have been able to commune with God through the Holy Spirit to carry out his assignment.

2. Joseph

The second is Joseph. To fulfill his purpose, Joseph was sold into slavery and taken to the land of Egypt. 

He went through harrowing circumstances to eventually emerge as a prime minister in Egypt, where he was instrumental in saving God’s people from famine. 

His place of purpose was geographical. He had to leave his physical location by whatever means to his place of purpose, which was in Egypt. 

Since he would not have left his father willingly to relocate to Egypt, the circumstances of life orchestrated that move. 

This took him out of his comfort zone to where he fulfilled his purpose.

3. Mary

The third is Mary, the mother of Jesus. Mary had a visitation from the Angel Gabriel, informing her that she was to give birth to the savior of the world. 

Her iconic response was, “Let it be unto me according to your word” (Luke 1:38). 

She needed a mental shift to be in her place of purpose. 

She was to participate in something that had never happened before, and it was likely to cost her her life, given the religious culture of her day. 

She needed mental tenacity to go through with what the angel told her. 

Mary did not need to relocate physically or change her spiritual standing. Her place of purpose was mental. 

4. Simon Peter

The fourth is Simon Peter, the Apostle. Simon was a fisherman who was called to be a disciple by the Lord Jesus Christ. 

The Lord Jesus told him and the other disciples that He would make them fishers of men. 

From being a fisherman who fished for fish, he was to become a preacher who fished for men. 

His place of purpose was primarily professional. 

He had to leave his current profession to move into his place of purpose, where he would do his purposeful work. 

For Peter, it also came with a change in identity from Simon to Peter, meaning rock.

You need to get direction on your place of purpose. 

You must locate the place where you will do purposeful work.

Is your place of purpose spiritual, mental, geographical, or professional?

It can be spiritual, like the man who wanted to be a world-renowned professor but is now a globally known pastor.

It can be geographical, like the case of the young man who struggled in his native country to make ends meet but was eventually able to relocate abroad with the help of family and is now the creator of one of the world’s widely used productivity apps.

It could be mental, like the struggling lady who had a paradigm shift that brought her out of misery, and now she is a globally known life coach.

It could be professional, like the unfulfilled medical doctor who became a Harvard MBA and a renowned accountant.

HOW TO GET DIRECTION

How, then, do you know your likely place of purpose? 

There are two suggested ways to locate your place of purpose, and we will look at them below.

i) One Way - Analyze your life

One way of knowing your place of purpose is to look at your life and where it has taken you, where you are currently, and where it is taking you without any direct interference from you to manipulate that flow. 

If you notice the examples above, Paul, Joseph, Mary, and Simon Peter had absolutely no input in how they arrived at their place of purpose and how they later aligned with their purpose. 

They did not have a pre-knowledge of their path and did nothing to navigate themselves to it. 

The only person who actively interrupted the flow of his life by erroneously taking an adverse decision when the right way was in front of him was Adam. He made a wrong choice and lost his place of purpose. 

Adam had prior knowledge that he was treading the wrong path because God gave the instructions about what to eat and what not to eat specifically to him. God also handed over the Garden of Eden into his care. 

The symbol of authority, information, and knowledge was with Adam, but he allowed his love for Eve to overshadow his obedience to God.

Notice that nothing happened when Eve ate the fruit. If Adam had not eaten the fruit, nothing would have happened, and humanity would have been fine. 

Life could take you to where you like and thrive, but many times it does not. Often, it pulls you out of your comfort zone to see or experience something you might want to change, overcome, or learn from and teach others. 

Many times, your experiences, adverse or not, lead you to your place of purpose. Many times we fight it and seek to change it but when you question life, it starts giving you the answers. 

You do not grow in your comfort zone. At times, life throws you a curveball, and you have to let go and let God. 

Follow the flow of life but with intention. Question everything you meet so that you can make informed decisions at all times.

ii) Another Way - Use feedback

Another way to locate your place of purpose is to understand your experiences and the journey so far from the information you gathered about yourself from spiritual intelligence, personality tests, friends and family, teachers and schoolmates, your boss and colleagues, childhood memories, and self-appraisal. 

Harvard research on finding purpose also suggests ways in which feedback can help you discover purpose.   

This information will give you an insight into yourself that can put your past and current experiences within the context of your calling.

NEXT STEPS

When you understand your identity by seeking clarification on who you are and you get direction to your place of purpose, the next course of action is to find out what you’re to do in your place of purpose. 

Many times, when you are directed to your place of purpose, the information for your purposeful work will emerge. You might not see it immediately because the version of you that journeyed to your place of purpose is usually not the version of you that will achieve purpose. 

There is a learning gap between when you arrive at your place of purpose and when you fulfill your purpose. That gap is where you move from realization to self-awareness, through self-mastery to self-actualization, and eventually to fulfilling your purpose. 

By then, changes would have taken place in you; in mindset, improvements in behavior, clarity in thought, acquisition of skills, focused investments into yourself, and knowledge that eventually make you a better version of yourself. 

The journey to find your purpose is all-encompassing and requires that you put together different pieces of your life from the information you have gathered about yourself to create a narrative that is unique to you. 

A narrative that will eventually guide you into crafting your vision and mission statements, and with time, your brand.

3. Take Action

Your purpose is key to self-fulfillment, life success, and well-being. While it is not easy to know your purpose at first glance, it is critical to discover it. 

Research has provided tips on how to find your purpose through feedback and self-appraisal, which we discussed in the last post. 

We boiled the discovery process down to a 3-step approach to guide you. 

Therefore, to discover purpose, take the 3-step approach to seek clarification, to get direction, and to take action. 

We will discuss the third step in the 3-step approach to finding your purpose. This will help you to identify your call and take action to achieve your purpose.

Your purpose is something you cannot resist. You might not recognize it, but you will have an affinity for it. 

It is not necessarily what you prayed for or asked for, but it beckons you.

To illustrate this, we will look at the story of a young man who fulfilled his purpose on Earth. 

From there, we will draw out lessons you will use as a guide to discover your purpose.

Case Study

In about 1000 BCE, a young shepherd boy was born. He was the youngest son of his father but spent most of his time tending sheep in the backside of the desert. 

The dangers to sheep tending were various, including attacks by predators. 

David, the shepherd boy, was not more than seventeen when he successfully defended his sheep from a lion and a bear at different times. He killed them both.  

It was no surprise, then, that he feared no man. 

He later confronted a Philistine giant, Goliath, who stood against his nation in battle, which he considered disrespectful to God, and eventually killed him with a slingshot to his head. 

This marked his transition into the army. He became the king’s armor bearer and later a war general. He became a warrior of no mean repute and later the king. 

He was also a poet who penned most of the Psalms, a songwriter, and a musician. He was an excellent Harp player. 

He is credited with unifying the twelve tribes of Israel under one monarchy, expanding its territory, and establishing a prosperous and powerful kingdom. 

He was a righteous leader who made Jerusalem the religious and political center of Israel. His dynasty ruled Israel for centuries. 

He led Israel to numerous victories in battle and is remembered for his faith, courage, leadership, penning hymns and psalms, establishing the Davidic dynasty, and his military might. 

He was not without his struggles and flaws, but for this discussion, we will focus on his accomplishments and legacy. 

David’s story is found in 1st and 2nd Samuel in the bible.

Purposeful Insights from David’s Life

1. He did nothing to manipulate his circumstances. 

2. Everything that happened to him was unscripted.

3. He did not turn away from dangerous situations but dealt with them even at the risk of his life.

4. His actions were not self-serving but for the greater good.

5. He sweated his assets, as we say in business. He explored and used fully every talent he had.

6. He did not play small but gave his best in every endeavor. 

7. He was as excellent off the battlefield as in battle. He did everything well.

8. He was purpose-driven and God-focused.

9. He was a shepherd, king, warrior, priest, prophet, minstrel, harp player, poet, songwriter, husband, and father.

10. He wore multiple caps and fluidly moved between the different roles. 

Journey to Purpose

Notice how warlike situations always came his way. He killed a lion, a bear, and a giant. 

His courage, dexterity, and strength led him down the natural path of a career in warfare. He became a soldier renowned in battle.

His musical abilities made him a natural choice when Saul needed a man to play for him and calm him down. 

His proximity to King Saul prepared him firsthand to live like royalty. That became his environment, and he later became king.

His poetic talent and songwriting skills are enjoyed today through his psalms, prayers, and hymns.

His God-oriented disposition made him a vessel that could receive and declare prophecies through some of the Psalms about the messiah.

David clearly understood he was a godlike caretaker with zero tolerance for anything that opposed God. 

His place of purpose was both geographical and professional. 

He left the grazing grounds for the palace and the care of sheep to lead men. 

Your Purposeful Work

What have you overcome, and which path has opened up for you?

What talents and abilities do you possess? Maybe they’re currently dormant. Identify and use them.

Identify your caps and be intentional about wearing them well.

What human situation or problem infuriates you?

Conclusion

Tackle anything life places before you. Do not be self-serving. This will bring you to prominence. 

Use your skills and abilities in the service of God and humanity. 

If God has a divine assignment for you, He will let you know. He has His way of getting your attention. Trust me!😁