Life purpose – it’s a phrase that gets tossed around like a hot potato these days… a hot potato with a heavy weight attached. It seems innocent enough. Who doesn’t want to thrive, doing exactly what they came to Earth to do? But with an internet full of life coaches, articles and personalized offers on how to find your life purpose… the search for that ‘one thing that gives your life meaning’ often does us more harm than good. I want to share an aspect about your life purpose that you probably didn’t hear before.

The exhaustion of finding your life purpose

I receive new clients every week who have exhausted themselves on this search. Confused and hurt by an inability to find that “one thing” that will open up the gates to personal passion. Spending weeks, months… even years on this discovery journey and spending thousands on methods designed to figure it out…

In a world obsessed with finding the life purpose formula – you can learn it naturally through intuition and play.

Sure. There are those lucky few who already knew what they wanted to do with their life early on and stuck with it through years of school. But there are many more of us who need to let our path unfold by taking one step after the other. One day at a time.

Purpose does not always equal the one thing that comes naturally to you. Sometimes purpose stems from the exact thing that seemed impossible at first. Sometimes it’s something that you simply love doing. And would not mind doing it over and over again for the rest of your life. 

A different approach to finding your life purpose

I want to suggest a different approach to finding and living your life’s purpose. A light and playful approach. An approach that consists of curiously exploring the things you love. Diving deeper and deeper into the opportunities you have at this right moment. When you pair curiosity with hard work, you’ll develop the skills that you’re searching for. And if you’re consistent, those skills will grow steadily over time.

I love the example of Elizabeth Gilbert. Her book „Eat, pray, love“ is a beautiful memoir of the kind of action it takes to discover your life purpose. From a marriage that she didn’t quite fit into, she listened to her heart which was burning with desire for discovery. And she continued on her path to discover her life as a writer, artist and thought leader. When she got on that first airplane to Rome, she wasn’t following a perfectly-laid-out procedure. She just knew she had to go out and get curious until she landed on something.

Can you imagine if Gilbert stayed home and took an online course to discover her passion instead? We do not have to go halfway around the world, but we can live by this example. To find your purpose you must discover it, bite by bite, journey by journey. But most importantly you must be willing to make mistakes on the way. 

This is your personal invitation to curiously explore the things that bring you joy. 

Great things have come from a little playful experimenting. A little fun in the kitchen can lead to the next Julia Child. Experiments with wanderlust can lead to such adventures as Gilbert has had. Even a few masterpiece novels have been written down on a napkin (hello, Harry Potter). 

The universe is constantly guiding us to make choices. You have many many chances, every day to go in a new direction. Each choice that you make from a space of intuition will inevitably lead you to doing things you love. When you do something you love, you become naturally more curious about it. And that leads you to discover new worlds and the more you learn, the better you become. Each step of your journey will fall together like a huge puzzle starting to make sense.

What would you choose to fill your next hour with, if you had it to spare?

What is it that you can’t stop doing and thinking about? It can be something rational like bookkeeping (yes, there are people out there who love it and are geniuses at it!). It can also be something creative like writing, painting or the love of wine. 

Yes, wine! A good friend of mine loves wine so much that he decided to study to be a sommelier. Just for fun because he loves wine. The last time I checked in with him, he had crafted his own side business. He sells high quality, yet not well known wines and it’s been flying off the shelves. I know for a fact that he discovered this through curious play. If he hadn’t followed his passion of good wine just for the pleasure of it, he might still be Googling which life path number he is.

Take the pressure out of finding your purpose and allow yourself to enjoy the discovery. 

Invest time in the things you love without being too focused on an outcome. A life purpose can also be something that changes and develops over time. Some of us have one career and follow it for our whole life. Others change their career and all the bits and pieces come together beautifully and add to each other.

Ask yourself this: If money is no issue and I never need to work a single day in my life again, what would I do? 

Very often, it’s not that we don’t know what we would love to do, it’s just that we think it would never be possible for us to earn a living doing it full-time. There are infinite solutions on your path towards doing what you love… whatever it is, look for possibilities to add play into your daily choices. 

Have trust in yourself and the universe – your journey will unfold more beautifully than you can imagine, but only if you’re ready to ease into the discovery process instead of forcing a solution.

So, instead of buying another self-help book with a little red wagon or parachute on it, answer this – what are you going to curiously play with today?