Change Yourself: Discover Your Purpose

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about life in general. It’s complicated, hard, messy, and doesn’t necessarily come with an instruction manual unless your a follower of Jesus. It also gives us extreme joy, direction, happiness, and fulfillment. However, even with a manual we get it wrong sometimes… okay, most times. Arm chair quarterbacking life isn’t an option unfortunately, we can’t go back in time and correct anything, however, we can use the lessons of the past to shape our future and present. What I have learned more than anything these last 5 years of the hardest times I’ve ever been through in life is this, what I think matters. The energy between my ears, the self talk, my impressions, thoughts, how I see myself and others….everything matters and is tied to my subjectivism and world view. Putting that into simpler form… what I think is simply what shapes my reality, at least personally. It’s that simple. My success in this life is tied directly to how I perceive myself. What I think about me and how I see myself. It shapes everything. My relationships, my disciplines, attitudes, future…everything. Eeeevvveerrryyyttthhhiiinnnggggg!

"You become what you think about." – Earl Nightingale

If you’re skeptical, then I encourage you to read the works of Viktor Frankl. Now this man, he has a crazy story. An Austrian neurologist, psychiatrist, and Holocaust survivor. He was in Auschwitz, yeah, and endured unimaginable suffering. He learned something during his time as a captive facing horrors of the unimaginable, and that was this… He observed that prisoners who found meaning-even in the immense suffering- were the most likely to survive. Frankl’s experience showed him that those who found a reason to live—whether through love, faith, or a future goal—were far more able to survive extreme suffering.

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

-Viktor Frankl.

His experiences led him to the conclusion that even in the most brutal conditions, we have the ability and freedom to CHOOSE our attitude and find meaning in our suffering.  That’s crazy, and very empowering. I have found this to be true in my personal journey. No matter how much of the brown oozy human waste that life is throwing at you, you have the power to overcome it and grow past it… if you choose to do so. Suffering within itself is meaningless, but the power we take from our suffering and throw it into how we respond is very powerful. It’s a simple shift of the power dynamic. Take the negative energy we feel from our hardship, take a “time out” and step back, and then say a big F U to the negative and transfer that power towards a positive response. This emphasizes the power of perspective and personal responsibility even in the worst conditions. He taught that we are not defined by our past or our suffering but by how we choose to respond to life. When you discover your purpose, you shift your self-image from victim to author of your own story.

"When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”

So how do you do this? Glad you asked….

Personally for me it starts with purpose. What is my purpose? Why the heck am I even here today? All peoples have a purpose, whether if you’re religious or not. Some people just go through life reacting. Reacting to a feeling, emotion, circumstance, without any direction at all. A wave of the sea, blown and tossed about by the wind. Chaotic right? However, if I not only know my purpose but also define my life around my purpose then my “reactions” to suffering, heartache, struggle, etc doesn’t just become second nature but also automatic. My purpose is the foundation of my life, the building block, corner stone, from which everything else is built upon. When you live with purpose, your identity is no longer shaped by external circumstances but by your values, goals, and contributions. You measure yourself by it and no longer through external validation. So that woman in the Starbucks line that snickered at you? Doesn’t matter. The driver that flipped you off in traffic? Nope. That “friend” of yours that only calls when they need or want something? A partner that gaslights you because of the reaction that their behavior caused you to have making you think or feel that your the problem? The depressive, anxious feeling that you have no control over your life?… None of it matters. I spent my whole life people pleasing and walking on eggshells, always trying to seek my validation from external outside sources instead of coming to understand who I actually am and how God views me.

The point is this. Once I identified my purpose I was able to start making my decisions based off that dynamic. It became my foundation, my road map to how I respond to life’s situations, and gave me the power to no longer live my life based off of what other people want from me or think about me. I finally was able to take control and rise above my insecurities into a new plane of success and lasting joy, even with all the human or animal excrement flying through the air at me.

I'm creating who I want to be through this powerful yet simple concept.

I’ll share how I achieved this and hopefully you’ll get a few helpful golden nuggets along with way.

This is the start of a series of blogs on how to help others find their purpose in life in order for them to finally be able to take control, decrease stress, say goodbye to anxiety and depression, and live the life of abundance Jesus meant for us to.

Peace!