how do i know what my purpose is?

Audio Transcript:

I used to feel like, 'Oh, my purpose is something that I need to really clearly delineate and get exactly right. This statement that's 100% correct. And, I feel like this is it. It's unchanged. I've defined it, it's finite, it's in stone. This is what I'm about.'

And that's not it. I don't think that's what purpose is. I think the very fact of having a big why is in itself the big why. The desire to find purpose is in itself a purpose. So I think this need to wanna get it just right is this sort of old way we're used to relating with ideas of highest self or higher beings, or religion or callings or all of this is that there's a right way and a wrong way and you gotta get it right or else you're wasting your time or you're not gonna reach enlightenment or whatever it is.

But I think when you really look at any of the ways of living, the religions, the philosophies, whatever. They are, just that. They are ways of living. So when we're even thinking about purpose or something like that, that is also a driving force, a guiding North star in our lives, it's not so much about what you're doing, it's about how you're doing. It's about how you're living. Not 'am I doing the right things', but, 'am I having the right experience?' Am I doing these things in a way that represents all of my values, my goals, my role models? Am I doing my life in a way that aligns with whatever the tenets of my innermost religion are?

So I think when it comes to the 'big why', resist the temptation to get hung up on clearly and precisely defining it to the Nth degree or with a very specific set of words. Now, if you're able to do that, hallelujah. That's great!, But also be open to that, changing every 5, 7, 10, however many years. It may not stay the same for the entire of your story, and that is fine because that would suggest that you are still an organic living, volatile evolutionary being.