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.

A more productive Python learning experience

I’ve recently decided that I’ve wasted a large portion of my working life not teaching myself things and learning new skills. This is all too evident when faced with a difficult job market like we’re facing at the moment. As someone with primarily Microsoft experience and having worked mainly in that area and with the software and hardware systems which are common to the US military, I find that I’m often facing a skills gap when trying to apply for jobs in the open market. I left the US Air Force in December of 2007 and worked as a web developer and Linux/BSD server admin for a while and during that time I realized more than anything else that I didn’t know enough and needed to learn more. My goal overall is not to be a developer, though I am interested in doing work of that nature to some extent. Since I enjoy writing but can’t immediately make the jump from IT, my short term goal would be to understand current technology and development enough to be able to write about it with authority in something like technical writing, which is more my style. I’ve dealt with technical writing and documentation some in the past, and I enjoy it.

That being said, I’m not exactly sure how to go about this process. I suppose the best way to write about topics is to understand them and in order to understand them you have to gain some practical real world knowledge of their working. This is where I come up against some problems. I want to be able to understand some of what modern programming is about. I’ve got some experience with HTML/CSS/PHP but I want to delve into something like Python. I hear a lot of good things about it so I decided recently that I was going to take it up. My problem is that I often find it difficult to learn programming languages and have failed several times to learn one or another in the past, due to not sticking with it in the long run. This time, I’d like to avoid that. Here is how I intend to do it:

Initially, I started reading some guides and tutorials on the internet, which is a great way to start learning without having to spend a whole lot of money on a big book. The problem with tutorials is that in order to do the stuff written in them, you’ve got to change windows. This means that you end up switching back and forth between your browser, PDF or text file and your terminal window, IDE, etc. I hate this. Yeah, it’s easy enough to switch on a Mac and I can do it pretty quickly, but I don’t want to have to do it at all, and I don’t always have my other monitor available for the task. Enter Learn Python.

Learn Python is a program which was imagined and implemented by Daniel Jalkut of Red Sweater Software. Essentially it is a shell window and a browser window smashed together. You can have your shell and browser panes top to bottom or left to right according to your preference, and when you close the program, it saves the URL so that when you open the program again you can continue your tutorial where you left off. It brings a level of productivity to the learning process which I didn’t have before and I think it’s great. If you’re thinking of learning a programming language or just want to gain better understanding of the shell, etc. it is a great way to view tutorials on any subject and input commands to replicate the results. I personally wanted to use Python 3.0 instead of the default version which comes with OSX so I installed it and changed the Localizable.strings file (Show Package Contents > Contents > Resources > English.lproj) to read:

"/usr/bin/python" = "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.0/bin/python3.0";

Another great resource I’ve found for learning Python is the site ShowMeDo.com, which has learning paths and screencasts from very beginner levels to more intermediate and advances lessons later on. If you follow the learning paths, the lessons come with prerequisite lessons you should view before you do others and it really starts you off with a fresh (or refreshed) base of knowledge. This includes various linux command line knowledge and using tools such as subversion for source code version control. This method of learning is great for visual and auditory learners, and you can follow along or pause the video if you need a bit more time. It’s definitely worth checking out if you’re trying to learn. They also have paths for Java, Ruby, C and web frameworks like Django.

Lastly, I’ll just list some of the better beginner guides out there for Python. I’m by no means an expert on the subject and I do have a long IT background but I’ve approached this learning process as if I knew nothing at all, so if you follow what I’m following you should be able to pick it up in time, probably faster than I can. As I said, I don’t really aim to be a developer. I want to write about this stuff. I think I’m fairly good at explaining things in writing, but you tell me. If anyone out there has any advice on pursuing the noble path of technical writing, let me know. Anyway, here are the guides.

A Byte of Python
Dive Into Python
The Python Tutorial
Non-Programmer’s Tutorial for Python
Introduction to Programming using Python
Learning to Program
One Day of IDLE toying