Aspects of life purpose

[Preety_India]

I made the following outline for my life purpose. 

(currently I do a peanut paying job). 

If you have something to add, I'll be more than glad. Looking for more ideas that I can integrate into my life purpose. 

1. Charitable element. 
2. Steady income. 
3. Passion.. Something I'm passionate about 
4. Generates enthusiasm 
5. High Conscious Activity and Contribution (I want to do something that is worth my time and worth my Life) 
6. Creative expression - this is huge for me because I'm an expressive person. I can't live without some form of creativity or creative expression 
7. Encompassing of my skills
8. Aspects of spirituality(the outline for this is very unclear at the moment) 
9. A comprehensive life purpose. I'm a multi faceted person. I can't settle for one particular activity. It has to be comprehensive. 

 

Thanks. 

 

[Michael569]

I think this is a decent list of traits that a LP should have. The last point is something I would try to brainstorm a bit. 

On 02/09/2021 at 1:58 AM, Preety_India said:

A comprehensive life purpose. I'm a multi faceted person. I can't settle for one particular activity.

This could become an issue. It will be hard to dedicate thousands of hours to the pursuit of your passion if you are torn among many passions. There will always be a conflict of interest and at some point, you are likely to arrive at crossroads. I think the more specific & targeted you can be the better. 

Think of yourself as you would of a medieval blacksmith. He is the master of his craft, the best in the town and he regularly works to perfect his art. he knows his time is short and so despite his passion for nature, he has never become a naturalist. Despite his passion for riding, he has never become a horse breeder. And despite his passion for archery, he has never become a fletcher. This is because he knows it wouldn't be realistic to dedicate his time to multiple professions. 

It is ok to have many passions and hobbies but life purpose needs to be above all that. A single point of focus that you can laser-zoom in to and chip at it every single day becoming the best so that you can share your gifts with others. It is hard to do that by being jack of many trades, despite this being the preferred scenario especially here in the west. People overestimate the importance of knowing a little bit about too many things. 

So the answer your question , I would say the key thing to integrate is to get super specific on what it is your life purpose will revolve around. Once you get that, you know what your focus is, you can buy the right books, find the right mentors and set sail to your destination. 

But if this is unhelpful, ignore

[Preety_India]

9 hours ago, Michael569 said:

I think this is a decent list of traits that a LP should have. The last point is something I would try to brainstorm a bit. 

This could become an issue. It will be hard to dedicate thousands of hours to the pursuit of your passion if you are torn among many passions. There will always be a conflict of interest and at some point, you are likely to arrive at crossroads. I think the more specific & targeted you can be the better. 

Think of yourself as you would of a medieval blacksmith. He is the master of his craft, the best in the town and he regularly works to perfect his art. he knows his time is short and so despite his passion for nature, he has never become a naturalist. Despite his passion for riding, he has never become a horse breeder. And despite his passion for archery, he has never become a fletcher. This is because he knows it wouldn't be realistic to dedicate his time to multiple professions. 

It is ok to have many passions and hobbies but life purpose needs to be above all that. A single point of focus that you can laser-zoom in to and chip at it every single day becoming the best so that you can share your gifts with others. It is hard to do that by being jack of many trades, despite this being the preferred scenario especially here in the west. People overestimate the importance of knowing a little bit about too many things. 

So the answer your question , I would say the key thing to integrate is to get super specific on what it is your life purpose will revolve around. Once you get that, you know what your focus is, you can buy the right books, find the right mentors and set sail to your destination. 

But if this is unhelpful, ignore

That Was super helpful Michael. Thanks a lot for your insight on my post. 

I appreciate your time. 

 

[Preety_India]

7 hours ago, Knowledge Hoarder said:

No. You have to choose one activity, in which you become worldclass, or at the very least good enough to make living. You can't be doing 4, 3 or even 2 things at once.

Of course, within one activity, there are also many subskills to learn. That's not the same as doing 2 things though. Ideally, your LP should be as niche as possible, while still being marketable. So for example, let's say you wanna become a writer. Ok great, now what genre is your book going to be? Science fiction, fantasy novel? Etc. etc., untill you find out what exactly are you gonna write.

And even then, your LP can slightly change within that one niche. However, it's important to stay there, and not mixing writing with, for example, programming. That wouldn't work out very well would it?

I can't help being all over the place and versatile.. 

Versatility was one of my core strengths. 

But I understand your point and how it can stop me from pursuing one particular thing. 

 

[Matt23]

3 hours ago, Preety_India said:

Versatility was one of my core strengths. 

I think there's a difference between being Versatile and being Unfocused.  If you get my drift.  

I agree with the other guys as well.  Trying to do too many things will just make your energies scattered and diffuse, and this will then make the quality of your work less.  Compared to focusing all your energies on one thing, this will greatly increase your odds of making something of higher quality.  

And like @Knowledge Hoarder mentioned, you can be versatile, but try to be versatile within one domain which is as specific as possible.  Like, you can have a marshal arts fighter who is extremely focused and masterful of one very particular style (say, Karate).  Yet, since he's mastered that one particular style so thoroughly, he is extremely versatile within it.  So he can use all the moves expertly and isn't limited by his lack of mastery and experience (or versatility) with several of the moves.  

Likewise with basketball.  There are players who only have a few moves they rely on.  With these guys, it doesn't take long to realize their limited "toolbox" to then be able to defend them easily since you know what's coming.  Whereas someone who's mastered many many many moves will be wayyy more difficult to guard since he could do anything.  But still notice, he's versatile within one very specific sport.  

I guess the key is to find the right balance between these two things:

1. Narrowing down (specifying your niche)
2. Broadening enough (so that you can thoroughly master your niche)

I also think that most people have a habit of being too broad and not narrowing down enough, so my advice would be to probably focus on the the narrowing down part.