Many of us give far too little consideration to our life’s purpose. We just get up, go to work, pay the bills, grab meals and entertainment along the way, go to bed at night and then do it all again the next day. Our culture doesn’t train us to think critically about what we’re hardwired to do best. The answers to the following questions can help you identify, articulate and pursue your true purpose.

  1. What are you good at doing? What comes more easily to you than for your peers? Perhaps you’re naturally gifted at working with people, or maybe you have an intuitive ability to lead and inspire others. Maybe you’re good with numbers, highly-organized or extremely creative. Are you better at working with your hands or with your mind? These are important questions because the things you do well are not always the things you will enjoy doing—at least not yet.
  2. What can you be paid to do? Let’s face it. We have bills to pay. Life isn’t cheap, so we have to be engaged in activities that are remunerative for the better part of our lives. Even after retirement, many of us will need to find part-time jobs to support the reduced income we will be receiving from the work we did earlier in our lives. But there’s a more important factor than paying the bills involved in asking this question. By determining what we could be paid for, we’re also discovering what skills we have and what aspects of our personality the world values.
  3. What does the world need from you? When you look at your surroundings, do you see opportunities for your skills to make life a little easier for others? Do you see places where you could naturally “plug in” and contribute to something larger than yourself? Are there needs that are going unmet in your community over which you would like to take ownership? What about the next generation? Are you doing your part to develop young lives and prepare them for the realities of life? Such questions invite us to look beyond our own selfish interests and to see ourselves as citizens of a larger community with a key role to play.
  4. What do you love to do (or what would you love to do)? This is where the rubber meets the road for longevity. Feeling a sense of personal fulfillment in the things we spend the majority of our time doing during the waking hours of our lives is as close to a “fountain of youth” as we’re likely to find in this world. For better or worse, the span of time we’re given is ours to enjoy. Let’s do things that bring us enjoyment—not things that make us go home feeling unrewarded, unappreciated, and dreading getting up in the morning to do them again.

People who do things every day with a clear sense of how and why the world needs them to do those things persist in them longer, draw more enjoyment from the work they do, feel more valued by others around them, and (you guessed it) live longer and better as a result.