When you lack clarity of vision, you will lack clarity of your purpose. When you lack clarity of purpose, you will lack clarity of why you do what you do.

When you lack clarity of your ‘why’, your enthusiasm will drain away. You will lack drive and motivation. Ultimately, you will lack effectiveness.

You know this to be true in your own experience. How many times have you been doing something you weren’t interested in doing and said to yourself, “What’s the point? It doesn’t matter whether I do this or not. Nobody will care.”

This lack of enthusiasm is a direct result of your lack of purpose. You see no reason in doing it. The result is inconsequential.

You find no meaning in your actions, nor do you put any value in the outcome.

So you give up. You get up and walk away and go and find something that you want to do, something that you value more.

That ‘value’ you seek is like a treasure you are hunting, because:

When you value something, you treasure it. And what you treasure, you keep close to you, you keep it safe and secure.

When it goes missing, you frantically search for it, and this you will keep doing until you find it again and it’s once more in your safekeeping.

Having clarity of purpose is like that treasure. When it’s close to your heart, you are filled with meaning and enthusiasm for life.

When it’s lost, you are lost. Your life feels meaningless and you feel disenfranchised, just going through the motions.

Aligning Your Life Purpose

When considering your overall Life Purpose, it will help you to focus on four aspects: personal and individual purpose, family and relationship purpose, community and national purpose, and global and humanitarian purpose.

A good way is to start big and work smaller. For instance, begin by targeting your global purpose, then your community or national purpose, then your family purpose, and then your individual purpose.

In this manner, you will naturally align these four aspects of your overall ‘Life Purpose’ and you will naturally align with the enthusiasm and passion that drives this purpose.

To use my own Life Purpose as an example, my global or humanitarian purpose is to help humanity become an awakened species.

This I do through writing personal development books that are available worldwide, providing online self-help courses, international speaking, and publishing motivational videos and podcasts via my social media channels and my personal website.

My community or national purpose is to connect with people in my local area and in other cities and regional towns that want to improve their relationships, boost their confidence, lift their well-being, increase their effectiveness, and reduce their stress.

This I do through my coaching and mentoring programs, public speaking, face-to-face and online workshops, and my books.

My family and relationship purpose is to provide a safe and non-judgemental space in which my immediate and extended family members, friends, colleagues, and associates can have an open discussion about the meaning of life, God, spirituality, love, sexuality, religion, politics, hope, faith, and any other topic important to them without the fear of being labelled, dismissed, or cancelled.

Knowing Your Life Purpose

In my book, The Flea Circus, I discuss how my personal and individual purpose is to awaken to the truth of who I really am and to reflect that truth to the best of my ability through my thoughts, words, actions, and behaviours.

Do I fail? Yes, of course.

My thoughts aren’t always pure. My emotions sometimes get the better of me. I sometimes say things that I later regret, and my behaviour is sometimes wanting.

But my intention is to always improve, to grow, to learn, to be better today than I was yesterday, and to be better tomorrow than I am today.

Q: Now consider your global purpose, national purpose, family purpose, and individual purpose. How do these align into your overall ‘Life Purpose’?

Your 1-Word

Another exercise to get clarity on your purpose, and thus help you to be more effective, is to consider your 7 Life Segments (see Figure 3: The 7 Life Segments) and the underlying commonality that unites them.

Of course, you are the underlying commonality that unites your 7 Life Segments, but what is the thread that weaves everything you say you are with everything you do? What is the thread that weaves your being with your doing?

In my own life to date, my general experience includes being a son, brother and cousin, a student at school and university. A traveler, a boyfriend, a husband, a mate, a friend, a foe, a father. A co-worker, a bartender, a waiter, a barista. A cricketer, a footballer, a hockey player, a poker player. And more.

In my professional career I’ve been a medical doctor, a writer, a publisher, a digital marketer, a professional speaker, and a transformational coach.

I searched for a long time to find a word that best described who I am and see myself as being, a transformational messenger, with all my different and varying career paths. It was difficult, but I eventually created my own word—Life Practitioner.

Q: What is your ‘1-Word’ that best describes who you are and what you do? Why did you choose this word? You can create your own word if you need to.