How to Discover Your Life’s Purpose – 7 Questions to Ask

Editor’s note: This article was originally published at Dumb Little Man. It has been reposted here with the permission of the author.

“Everything created solves a problem.” – Mike Murdock

Your eyes see, your ears hear, your nose smells. Doctors solve medical problems, lawyers solve legal problems. Your shirt keeps you warm; your watch tells you the time. Everything created solves a problem.

I believe you were created to solve a problem and your success is dependent on your ability to discover that problem and solve it. Finding this problem is discovering your purpose, solving this problem is accomplishing your purpose.

Today I want to discuss 7 questions that will help you discover your purpose.

7 Questions to Help You Discover Your Purpose:

What do you love to do?
Your purpose is directly related to what you love. The most purposeful people in the world spend their time doing what they love. Bill Gates loves computers, Oprah loves helping, and Edison loved to invent. What do you love? Is it reading, writing, playing sports, singing, painting, business, selling, talking, listening, cooking, fixing broken things. Whatever you love, it’s directly related to your purpose.

What do you do in your free time?
Whatever you do in your free time is a sign of your purpose. If you like to paint in your free time, then that’s a “sign.” If you like to cook, then that’s a sign, if you like to talk, then that’s a sign. Follow the signs.

I love to learn in my free time, I have an obsession with learning. Of course, this is a sign of my purpose …which is to teach.

What do you do in your free time? What would you like to do if you had more free time? Would you teach dance a class or a business course?

What do you notice?
A salesman notices an uninspiring sales pitch, a hairdresser notices someone’s hair is out of place, a designer notices a awkward outfit, a mechanic hears something wrong with your car, a singer notices when someone’s voice is out of pitch, a speaker notices an uninspiring speech.

What do you notice? What annoys you?

I notice when information is not presented in a clear, practical, and simplistic form. This is a sign of my purpose. I’m obsessed with practicality and simplicity. When I teach, I try to teach in a very practical and simple way.

What do you love to learn about?
What kinds of books or magazines do you like to read? Do you read about cooking, business, or fishing, whatever it is, it’s a sign. I’m always reading about self development, particularly as it relates to successful living. Of course this is also related to my purpose, which is to teach people how to succeed.

What do you love to learn about? If you have a library, what books do you have in that library?

What sparks your creativity?
Is it painting, designing, building, speaking, or selling?

Writing sparks my creativity. I often feel like a sculptor or painter when I write. I carefully sculpt ideas on paper, ideas that impacts people’s lives; it’s a very creative process. Each word must be crafted for maximum impact.

What sparks your creativity, do you have ideas for new food recipes, or a new creative automotive Web site?

What do people compliment you on?

What “fans” do you have? If no one likes your cooking, then you probably won’t make a good chef.

Do people compliment your writing, or your singing, or your amazing ability to sell? Once again, this is a sign of your purpose.

People always compliment me on my speaking ability, something I was too frightened to do for most of my life. I find it intriguing that my purpose was hidden in something that I was frightened to do.

What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail?

Would you start a salon, go on American Idol, start your own business? What would you do if success was guaranteed? It’s a sign to your purpose.

I’d do what I’m doing right now, which is teaching. Nothing is more important to me, what about you?

In Closing

These questions are signs to your purpose. They’re pointing you in the direction of a specific purpose. One question alone doesn’t tell the whole story; you must look at all of your answers collectively. Each answer is a piece of the “purpose” puzzle.

Study these questions, and your answers, and you will be well on your way to discovering your purpose. Thank you for reading!

Written on 11/30/2009 by Mr. Self Development who is a motivational author that offers a practical guide to success and wealth; support him by visiting his blog at mrselfdevelopment.com.

Creative productivity

I don’t know if anyone who happens upon my website really knows about my history of web projects. For the most part, nothing has really taken off in popularity. I’ve got this blog, but I’ve also got a blog over at Riding the Wind which is dedicated to spiritual matters, my daily life, my photography and my creative writing/poetry. It hasn’t been updated in a little while because I’ve been busy with this, but I fully intend to continue posting there. I’ve also got another site. HandRooster started out as a little project my wife and I started for fun. We decided to make a webcomic. I wrote the comics and she drew them, and for a while we were pretty productive. It was fun but after a while I found it difficult to come up with new standalone ideas and I didn’t want to have Steph constantly grinding away on super long projects. Some of our comics were much better than others, and we were occasionally accused of ripping off one popular comic or another, but we didn’t really care that much because we weren’t huge comic readers. The only comic I used to read was Penny Arcade and there was no way we could copy that stuff. Anyway, after a while Steph started to find it was taking her a really long time to do these comics and she didn’t really want to do it anymore, so it sort of died out. I didn’t really want it to die out because at this point we were getting some decent traffic and it was the most successful thing I had ever done on the internet. We had actual fans and it was rewarding in that way if not in a monetary way.

I decided to draw the thing on my own, but I think I found it even more difficult than she did, because I am in no way an artist. I can’t really draw, so it took me many hours to create simple stick art. One thing led to another and I found myself lapsing and nothing really got done. That is, until now. I’ve just posted an update on the site and while I make no promises about my reliability in updates, I’ll try my best. You see, I’ve got a new method.

I started to think about how I could adapt my system in order to be more productive in making a comic. Originally, I was creating the comic with Autodesk Sketchbook Pro and a Wacom tablet. Sketchbook is really great software if you can actually draw and I love the way it is designed for a tablet but every line I make is a shaky squiggly line and I have to blow things up super huge in order to make things smooth. Basically, I suck at that. I’m not an artist. I’m more of an idea guy in general. This problem had me looking for other solutions. I tried Photoshop and some other software but I still had similar problems. I tried to draw things on paper, thinking I could scan them in to do coloring, etc but it turns out I’m even worse without an undo button, despite finding it easier to make normal lines. After all of this, I decided to try Adobe Illustrator. I’d tried it before and found it difficult to get used to, but I used to use Macromedia Freehand with some success years ago before the comic. I decided to give Illustrator another try. It was not easy, but I did find a way to use it which was much quicker and less labor intensive for me. The result can be seen over at HandRooster. It isn’t a work of art but it is the basis of a webcomic, in the loosest sense of that word. I’m thinking about starting to create longer story lines after being inspired by a comic written by Mr. John Campbell of pictures for sad children.

I think what I’ve learned through all of this is that creativity is work too. It’s not easy stuff and in order to continue to create, you must give something of yourself. It’s natural to have highs and lows of activity and to find yourself searching for inspiration or ideas. It’s natural to want a break sometimes. It’s also possible to rejuvenate your creative energy and continue to create. Sometimes you’re going to have critics and hatemongers hounding you and sometimes you’ll start to believe that what you’re producing isn’t worth anything but the good thing about continuing to do anything is that you’ll only find better ways to do it and gain skill in the process. Since the whole talent thing has been proven to be nonsense and mastery is really about lots and lots of practice, why shouldn’t your (or my) projects be out there for the world to see just because you’re new to the process?