Life Purpose: Finding Meaning to your Life
By Douglas Woods
Have you ever wondered as to the meaning of life? Have you ever asked
yourself why you are here? Do you ever feel your life lacks a purpose? If
so, then you are not alone. Yet have you ever found an answer to these
issues?
Questions such as these have been taxing even the brightest of minds for
centuries and yet we still seem no nearer an answer that satisfies everyone.
Philosophers, religious leaders, lifestyle gurus and politicians have each
at various times pondered upon these issues and come up with an apparent
answer. Their answers, though, have rarely been totally satisfactory and
have often been more a way of bringing people round to their way of thinking
rather than solving the deeper mystery of the meaning of life.
Nowadays, while politicians and religious leaders may still debate or
preach upon the meaning of life, individual people are finding new ways of
searching for a meaning to their life. Indeed, there would appear to be a
shift away from looking for the one deep answer to the meaning of everyone’s
life; people are now increasingly searching for a purpose simply for their
own life.
The ‘one size fits all’ theories are being eschewed in favour of a more
individual approach to finding life’s purpose. People seek not so much the
purpose of life in general but rather the purpose of their own life.
In searching for a purpose to your life, there would appear to be two
broad approaches that you can adopt. One approach is an ‘external’ approach
and the other is an ‘internal’ one.
The external approach would involve outside agencies, such as religious,
charitable or political groups and adopting their beliefs and attitudes. You
can choose to join and support such groups and allow their philosophies and
practices to become your own. Your life purpose then becomes one of
advocating, promoting or supporting the cause of your chosen group. Quite
often this approach is seen as very popular, the group provides a ready made
answer for your questions and often a sense of camaraderie and support from
fellow members. Often, though, there is also a sense of compromise, for it
is rare that any one group or organisation will match entirely with your own
beliefs and viewpoint. So you may find yourself having to forego or bury
some of your own beliefs in order to fully promote those of the group.
The internal approach is to examine your own life, your own beliefs and
your own values and to see what these tell you about your approach to life.
Sometimes, though, we are uncertain about our own beliefs and our own values
and we may feel the need for help in discovering and clarifying them. This
is one of the things for which people increasing call upon Life Coaches to
help with. Discovering your own beliefs and your own values, including your
limiting beliefs (that is to say, those beliefs that hold you back), are all
part of the core work of a life coach. Indeed several life coaches now
openly advertise there services in helping people to discover their life
purpose.
Yet, are there advantages in this ‘internal approach’? The internal
approach does not provide quite the same ‘ready made’ answers as the
external approach but there does mean that there is less likelihood of you
having to make compromises. The internal approach also has the advantage of
helping you to understand yourself better. The appeal, for many people,
though is that the internal approach allows you to find the purpose to your
own life rather than giving you one that has been predefined by someone
else.
Douglas Woods is a fully qualified life coach. You can read more about
his work on his website at
http://www.dougwoods.com.
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