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Part 3 – Day 7: The Purpose of Life

Finding Your Real Inner Drive

Everything on earth has a purpose and so do you. Once we tap into it, we’ll get immense inner drive, fulfilment and joy.

Today’s world is changing more rapidly than ever before so it’s very important to find that thing in ourselves that is constant, doesn’t change and is always available. That’s our purpose and once we find it, it’ll give us certainty and a sense that life is happening for us and not to us.

Goals alone are not enough. It’s common to achieve them and think: is that all there is? The purpose of goals is not to achieve them, it’s what they make of us as people, who we become. And ultimately, there has to be a meaning to the person we become or we’ll never get the drive to get the edge.

We must answer the question “Why am I here?”.

And before deciding, let’s remember the three most important decisions that we’re constantly making:

1. What to focus on

We must find an empowering focus out of any situation

2. What something means

We determine what everything mean to us, which can be extremely empowering or disempowering.

Usually people live in fear because they can’t control what happens in life, and the thing is that we can’t, but we can control the meaning of every event.

3. What are we going to do

If something hasn’t happened yet, it doesn’t mean that it isn’t going to happen… unless we give up.

What is driving you today?

Is it our drive to prove someone wrong, is it our parent’s will, is it our fear of pain, is it our sense of competition, is it our desire for happiness?

We’re all driven by something, and usually we don’t choose that consciously, but what if we take control of it now?

What if we let our lives to be driven by something much more empowering such as a sense of purpose? A sense that there’s something out there for us to do, someone he have to become. And we don’t even have to know what it is, but we need to trust that every day more of it it’s going to come out.

Is it pain-driven?

As we already know, pain and pleasure are the main drivers of our lives. And although a sense of purpose or associating pleasure can override the pain, let’s take a look to how our brain tries to discover the source of pain and creates those associations in the first place.

It follows this three steps:

  1. What’s unique in this situation when I feel this pain?
  2. What was happening (what’s the event or what did I do) at the same time I felt the pain?
  3. What’s consistent about it?

Eg: A kid touches a burning stove.

  1. The unique thing is that I was the stove was warm
  2. I felt the pain when I touched it
  3. The first time isn’t consistent, but if he tries again and feels the pain one more time, it’ll be.

This simple mechanism can create false -or generalised- associations, if we choose bad answers for those questions.

Eg: Associating marriage to death. After getting married, a man started beating physically and emotionally his wife and eventually his kid. The mother who’s feeling extreme pain and fears for her life and her kid’s life, chooses these answers:

  1. The unique thing is living with a man and being married to him
  2. The event was trusting him
  3. The consistency is that every week with him has the same painful results

That woman ended the relationship but afterwards had trouble finding a new partner and the reason was because she’d associated pain to men and marriage in general instead of to that particular man and marriage. And that trusting was the source of it, so trusting was equal to death.

How to know our life’s purpose?

We decide what it is.

We discover it and decide “that’s it”. Probably later on we’ll refine it but right now this is what I’m here to do and as long as I’m doing it, I know I’m on track.

For most of us, the meaning for our lives is here today and it’s preparing us for a greater meaning in the future if we just use all of our life experience, the pain and the pleasure, to become more.

By living by our purpose, we’ll be delivering all along the way. Not only when we achieve something but every single day.

📚 Recommended reading

Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl

This is one of the two most recommended books by Tony Robbins. Viktor Frankl relates his own story in the nazi concentration camps, how he survived, what he learned about the psychology of the prisoners and how you can use it today with what he named Logotherapy.

Why people don’t succeed or “win” at the game of life

There are 7 things that a lot of people do that prevent them from being successful in life:

1. They don’t know the purpose of the game

It’s almost impossible to win at any game if we don’t know what our purpose is.

If we don’t live by our purpose, we’ll be living by someone else’s.

2. They have rules for themselves and everyone else

We want people to be or behave a certain way and if they don’t we get angry, frustrated, sad, etc.

A lot of rules will come out when they’re broken and we say things like “If you loved me, you wouldn’t do X-Y-Z” or “I opened him the door and he didn’t even said thank you”.

3. Their rules are in conflict

Many times we have rules that are in direct opposition.

Two rules in opposition could be something like: “In order be happy I need friends” and “I can’t make friends if I’m not happy”. Or the contradiction could also happen in just one rule: “I need money in order to make money”.

4. Even when they play by the rules, they don’t always win

If we don’t give events an empowering meaning, we can’t create strong disempowering associations.

5. Sometimes they get rewarded for breaking the rules

We exchange short-term pleasure for our values and therefore we loose our purpose and the long-term pleasure that it comes from living it.

6. They have to work with other people who all have the wrong rules

We believe they’re wrong and try to change everyone else instead of trying to learn from them.

7. They think it’s a life-and-death game and they put so much fear and pressure on themselves that they never truly live

The game is life-and-death and that’s why we have to live full on, but every moment is not life-and-death, we can’t put that pressure onto us or we’ll never be able to live fully.

Seven strategies to succeed

Essentially, by doing the opposite of the things that make people fail, we get the 7 strategies to succeed:

1. Decide the purpose of the game (at least for right now)

Remember that all decision making is value clarification

2. Have fewer rules about how to be happy

Be compassionate and understand that everyone has their own reasons to do what they do or be what they are.

3. Make your rules consistent

Don’t change them as you go.

It’s like in finance. If you are financially free at a specific amount of money, don’t change it as you get close to it. Instead achieve it, celebrate it and then set a new goal (or rule in this case).

4. Celebrate, give yourself pleasure whenever you win

Even when no one else does. Winning or loosing is an inner game, so no matter the result, if you’ve done your best, it’s a win.

5. Commit to your highest values

Give yourself a short burst of pain if you violate your sense of purpose in life, this is the way to keep ourselves on track.

6. Be compassionate, know that everybody has different rules

In any relationship, try to understand the other person/people’s rules.

7. Don’t take life too seriously

And don’t take yourself too seriously.

Finding your purpose

Sometimes not getting our dream gives us our destiny. As in the film Field of Dreams where doctor Graham fails at his dream of being a baseball player and therefore discovers his purpose of becoming a doctor.

Life is about two things who we are and what we do. Discovering that sense of meaning will give us a path to who do we want to become and what do we want to do.

👉 Assignment

STEP 1: Think of what did you want to be when you were a kid.

Why did you want that? What purpose was that serving

Probably today is still relevant.

STEP 2: Remember a time when you felt like you’re really on a roll, flowing and thinking “Yeah! this is it, that’s what life is about!”.

Put yourself in that state, see what you saw, feel what you felt, hear what you’re hearing…

Now do the same for another situation like that, feel it in your body.

Is there anything that’s similar between this one and the other one? Between the situation and what you wanted to be as a kid?

Think about a third situation like that, put yourself there.

And with all those feelings, if you were going to say what the purpose of your life is in a simple phrase, a sentence or two, what were you going to write?

The purpose of my life is to __________________________________

– State it positively
– Make it brief and choose words that are emotionally charged for you
– Include who you’ll become, it must include yourself and other people
-Write it in a way that you can achieve/experience it every day, not when you die

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Disclaimer

By any means I think these notes are a substitute of their source, so if you try to learn just from here, you’re going to miss a lot of information.
Nevertheless, if you use them as a way to remember or clarify some ideas, they can be very helpful. At least they are for me and I hope they are for you too!

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