The One About Your Life Purpose

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:00:32]:
Hello. Welcome. Welcome back. Welcome to another episode. This time, we are gonna be looking at well, we’re gonna be looking at your life’s purpose. We’re gonna explore what life’s purpose is. We’re gonna explore how it can help us, and we’re gonna start taking a little bit of a look at how you can figure out what your life’s purpose, would be. Don’t expect to crack it all in in in this one, episode, but this will hopefully give you something to think about and, get you, at least exploring what your life’s purpose might be.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:01:09]:
That’s the plan. So, do remember, as always, if you enjoy this, give us a like, a share, a comment, a subscribe, a review. Give us a review on your favourite platform. All of these things really, really do help. Remember, we’re available on all the major podcast platforms, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Audible, Spotify, YouTube. We’re on Grow Radio. We’re on all the t the, all the other main, podcast platforms. You’ll find us everywhere, basically, absolutely everywhere.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:01:40]:
So let us dive in. So we’re looking at, your life’s purpose. So I guess the first thing we need to do is define what the heck is a life’s purpose. So it’s it’s essentially it’s your central motivating aim. It’s it’s the reason you get up in the morning. It encompasses all your goals, your direction, the meaning you find in your daily activities. All of this is defined by, your passions, your values, the impact you want to have on the world around you. Unlike short term objectives, your life purpose is a long term guide.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:02:19]:
It helps you to make decisions, helps you overcome challenges, helps you to stay focused on what truly matters to you. So that’s kinda what the life’s purpose is. Now many of us go through life without really realizing what our purpose is. Hopefully, this will help you to start to, to explore that in a little more depth. Some misconception. Let’s cover some misconceptions about what a life’s purpose is. Biggest misconception I’ve come across is people think that it must be a grandiose, huge purpose. No.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:02:57]:
It doesn’t have to be a huge monumental purpose like ending world world hunger or or becoming a world famous artiste. No. In reality, your life’s purpose could be something as simple as nurturing you and your family or or contributing to your community. And you know what? In many ways, that sort of life purpose is far more valuable, far more important, and far more impactful than many of the grandiose ones that we think we have to have as our purpose. Sometimes we think it’s a fixed destination. It’s not. It’s all part of your journey, and your life’s purpose may evolve as you grow and experience life. So don’t don’t think this is something you have to fix, a a one and done.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:03:48]:
It can evolve with you. It can grow with you. In fact, it probably will because the more the more you grow, the more you go through life, the more you experience, the more you’ll be able to to adjust and and tune your life’s purpose accordingly. Also, another misconception is that one size fits all. It’s not true. Every person’s life purpose is unique, and it’s a deeply personal thing. It’s deeply personal to you. Comparing your life’s purpose to others serves no positive, purpose.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:04:27]:
In fact, it can often lead to unnecessary frustration, lead to confusion. So, no, your life’s purpose is yours and yours alone. And it’s it’s It’s absolutely fine. But don’t worry if you don’t feel that. You can create your purpose in life. It’s absolutely fine to create your own purpose in life. So bear that in mind as we go through this. It’s not necessarily about uncovering the purpose you’ve been given.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:05:04]:
It’s about taking everything and using that to create and build a purpose. So how can we discover or create, our our purpose? So it’s built up of several things. So let’s go through a few steps. Excuse me. You might wanna get a pen and paper for this and and make some notes as we go through. The first thing is to get clear on your personal values, your core values. Now, we have looked at values in some previous episodes. I’ll go over what values are again.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:05:45]:
Your values, these are things which which resonate with you. They’re things that are important to you. They’re kinda like the nonnegotiables. They’re things that are really important to you. So and they’re normally like a 1 or 2 words, 1 or 2 words for each value. For example, honesty, loyalty, money, friendship, relations, family, adventure, discovery, fun. What are the things which are important to you in life? So the first thing to do and you might wanna pause this as you as you go through this. First thing to do is think about all the things which are important to you, honesty, compassion, freedom, family, creativity, exploration, logic, intuition, whatever it is, all the things which are important to you, the the values which resonate with you.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:06:43]:
Get a pen and paper and write all of them down as they come to you. Don’t judge them. Just keep writing. Keep writing. Keep writing them. If you’re getting stuck on what values you might have, think about times in your life when you felt the most fulfilled, you felt the most happy. What values were present in those moments? So take take as much time as you need to write down all of your values. Again, you can pause this and resume once once you’ve done the list if if you if you so choose.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:07:18]:
Then once you’ve got your list of values, rank them in order of importance, which ones are most important to you. Because this helps you to understand the values which are central to your life, and those are the ones which are gonna be more powerful in guiding your actions and and and what you do. So rank them in order of importance. And once you’ve got that, have a look to see if there are any, any of those which conflict with each other. Are there any values you’ve got there which conflict with each other? If so, perhaps that’s something you might need to work on. But if not, brilliant if they’re all working together, in in harmony. So get clear on your values, sort of all of your values, all the things that are important to you in life. The next step is to think about your passions and your interests.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:08:19]:
Now the these are the activities which, these fill you fill you with enthusiasm, fill you with energy and joy. They provide motivation. They help you to get going. What are the things you are truly passionate about? Your passions, your interests, your hobbies. So make a list of all the activities, hobbies, and subjects you love and that you enjoy. So that’s a great way to know if you enjoy it is if you would spend the whole of the rest of your life on this thing, it probably wouldn’t be enough time, right, because you’d still wanna do more. That’s definitely a a hobby, an activity, or a passion, or interest for you. What are the things that just make time fly by? You go, you know what? I’m just gonna sit down for 5 minutes and do this.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:09:09]:
Next thing you know, an hour has passed. Oh, wow. Where did that go? Dose things. What excites you? What what are the things where if you get onto the topic of it when you’re having a discussion, woah. You come alive. Woah. You really light up. What are those things? What are the activities that you loved doing as a child? That’s always a really good way to find, our our passions because the things we really enjoyed doing as a child, the in our interest in childhood, these are pure expressions of our passion before they got dulled down by external influences steering us in other directions? What do you love doing before society told you what you should be doing? Yeah.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:09:59]:
So, again, maybe pause pause this, take a few moments to jot down all the things that that excite you, the things that interest you, all your passions, your interests, your hobbies, the things that really, really get you going. Make a note of them all. Once you’ve got them, kind of have a look over your your list of all your passion your passion inventory, for want of a better word. Look for some look for common themes. What areas or types of activities or types of things or interest keep coming up throughout that list? That really helps you to get a a good idea of of what really ignites you, what really gets you going. So that’s the second thing for you to have a look at. Once you’ve done that, so you’ve got your values, you’ve got your interests and passions, Next thing you need to look at are your strengths and your talents. Because by using your natural strengths, using your your innate talents, using doing the things you’re good at really will really help you, when you’re crafting your purpose in life.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:11:19]:
It’s much easier to do things that you enjoy, that are important to you, and that you’re good at. So let’s identify your strengths and your talents. And, again, you might wanna get that pen and paper. You might wanna pause this episode in a moment once I’ve, told you what you need to do. A moment of pause and spend some time working on on, going through these. So, things you can do to identify your strengths and your talents Think about your past successes. What what are things you felt particularly you’re proud of achieving? What skills did you use in, creating that outcome? What what things you really enjoy doing? What strengths and talents are involved in the things that you enjoy doing, the things that you’re good at? What do people compliment you for? What are the things you do where someone goes, wow. You did a really good job of that.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:12:26]:
Nice. I could never do that. But you, wow. You did really well there. And one of the things that you just find easy, things that other people maybe struggle with, you just find a breeze. The things where if a friend said, I’m struggling with x, y, zed, and you’ll be able to go, you know what? I can do that. No problem. Bring it here.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:12:51]:
Done. What are those things? What are your strengths? What are your talents? What are you good at? What do you excel at? What do you find easy? What are the things people come to you for help with? What are the things which contribute to your successes, your greater greatest achievements? What are the things people compliment you on? So take a few moments to to consider all of those and then come up with your list of strengths, your list of talents. Once you’ve, once you’ve got all of those so you’ve got your strengths, you’ve got your talents, you’ve got your interests, you’ve got your passions, you’ve got your value your core values personal core values, it’s now time to gather all of this together. Gather it all together and start to craft your personal vision. Create your your personal vision which will guide your purpose in life because having a clear vision gives us direction. It gives us motivation. Makes it easier to stay focused on what matters most. If you know where you’re going, it’s a lot easier to get there.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:14:06]:
If you don’t know where you’re going, if you haven’t got a vision for what you want, how are you gonna know when you when you’ve made it? Builders, when they build a house, they have a vision. It’s the plan. It’s the the architect’s drawing. It’s the plan. They know what it’s gonna look like. If you don’t know what the house is gonna look like, how do you know when you’ve built built it high enough? How do you know where to put the windows in? How do you know what kind of roof to have on it? That’s why having a clear vision is is important. And your vision is is gonna be built up of, several components. It’s gonna be built up from your core values because there’s no point in doing something if it’s against your values.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:14:45]:
If you’ve got when you know your core values, use those to guide what you’re doing. They guide what you want to create. Because if you’re trying to do something that’s against your core values, you are not gonna achieve. You will be fighting against your own mind. It’s not gonna work. Work with your core values. Your passions and interests, the things you’re passionate about, the things you have any a deep interest in, these will these are things that energise you, excite you. You absolute absolutely want to be incorporating these into your personal vision.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:15:20]:
And your strengths, your natural talents, your abilities, the things you’re good at, whether you’re whether you’re naturally good at them or whether you have worked really hard to to cultivate that skill, all of these things are, are gonna form part of your personal vision. And your goals, the things you wanna achieve in your life, all roll up to to be part of your personal vision, which, ultimately reveals your your your purpose, your life’s purpose. It’s fulfilling that vision. So reflect on your values, your passions, your strengths. Consider what what is most important for you. What do you love doing? Where do your talents lie? How can you most make use of those? Step out to 5, 10, 20 years into your future. What would your ideal life look like? What are you doing? Where are you doing it? Who are you doing it with? Who are you doing it for? What are the things that really fire you up? What are the things where in 20 years’ time, you look back and go, you know what? I’ve spent 20 years doing this, and it feels just like 5 minutes. I loved it.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:16:38]:
I’m so proud of what I’ve achieved. I didn’t even feel like work because, you know, I just love every minute of it because I’m good at doing that. It’s important to me. Reflect upon all of these and use this to create an inspiring statement, to create your vision of of your future, your your purpose. What what are you here to do, or what are you deciding that you are here to do? So it may take you some time to to really bring all of this stuff, and that’s absolutely fine. There is no rush. It’s taking you your entire life to get to this stage where you are now. It’s alright if it takes you a little while to to figure out the next part, but get really creative.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:17:26]:
If you could do anything that met your your your values, that used your skills, your passions, your strengths, what would it be? What would really fire you up? What would really get you going, yes. I got I I you know, I have to do this, and I absolutely love doing this. Combine all of this into a clear and inspiring statement. Keep it concise because if it’s a long rambling one, you’re gonna forget what it is, but keep it concise. That becomes your core guiding vision. That becomes your purpose in life is fulfilling that. You might need to review it, to draft it, redraft it, refine it many times until it until it feels right. Make sure it resonates with you deeply and authentically.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:18:17]:
Make sure it is for you. It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks. Who cares? Does it resonate for you? Does it light you up? Does just the thought of this make you go, wow. Yes. I wanna do this. So once once you’re once you’ve you’ve you’ve come up with your your your vision, you’ve gathered together all of these things, you kinda create your vision. This really is, it’s it’s a major step towards living your life’s purpose. Your life’s purpose is fulfilling that vision.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:18:54]:
You wouldn’t have that vision if your purpose wasn’t to fulfil it. That’s your life’s purpose, and it’s okay if this changes and evolves over time. That’s absolutely fine. But now you’ve got this. How on earth do you start fulfilling it? Well, the first thing is to create meaningful goals. So once you know what it is where you’re going, what you’re doing, you might not know how you’re gonna get there, but you know where you want to be. Start setting goals which resonate with your life’s purpose. The more you do this, the more it’s gonna bring you there step by step by step.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:19:30]:
They help to break down your vision into manageable chunks, manageable tasks, help you stay motivated and stay on track. Because when your goals are aligned with your core values and with with your passions and your talents and your interests, they not only drive your success, but they contribute to a fulfilling and purposeful life. So create some goals, and you don’t have to map the whole lot out because, chances are, you probably don’t know how to get the whole way yet. That’s all right. A journey of a 1000 miles begins with the first step, so map that first step out. Oh, but what if it starts taking me in the wrong direction? So what? Once you know you’re going in the wrong direction, that means you know where the right direction would be, and you can correct your course accordingly. It’s much easier to correct your course when you’re moving than to correct your course when you’re stationary. But I have no idea what my first step would be.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:20:29]:
Do anything then. Because if you don’t know what your first step should be, that’s alright. Just do anything, And you’ll then get a feeling for whether that’s taking you towards or away from the vision, and you can calibrate and adjust accordingly. The important thing is take that first step. Even if that first step turns out to be completely wrong and takes you further away, that’s still good to know because at least you know, okay. Well, this isn’t the direction. Gives you more of a a clearer idea of what the direction might be. And it’s part of the fun is just exploring and figuring how did you go along.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:21:11]:
Whatever you do, make sure your goals align with your purpose because there’s no point in creating goals that take you away from your purpose. Yes. Creating goals will sometimes accidentally take you away from your purpose, and that’s alright. You then notice it and adjust and change course accordingly. That’s alright. But don’t deliberately set out to create ones that do take you away from your purpose because they’re not gonna work ultimately. But so create your goals, make them concise, make them measurable, make them achievable, make sure they are realistic and attainable. Have you got the resources and time to achieve it? If you don’t, then perhaps the goal before that is to gather resources.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:21:58]:
So have fun creating goals which align with your purpose. Now inevitably, life is gonna throw in obstacles along the way, and there will be times where it becomes difficult to to follow your path. That’s okay. He what we’re gonna finish up with are, a few typical obstacles and how you might go about overcoming them. So common obstacles to living a a purposeful life, self doubt. This is a massive one. Doubting your abilities or or the significance of your purpose, massive, that can be a massive one. So challenge those negative thoughts.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:22:44]:
For example, if you’re thinking: I can’t do this how about something like: okay, I can’t do this yet, but you know what? I’m capable of figuring out how to do this. Change the narrative that you’re telling yourself. Oh, this might not be, this, this might not be important. So what? It’s important to you, and that’s what matters. If it wasn’t important to you, you wouldn’t be worried about not achieving it. Right? Fear of failure is a is a can be a massive obstacle as well. Fear is simply a sign that there’s something you might have missed. If you’re scared of taking a step, okay, what is it about this step that scares me? What specifically is it, and what can I do to, to overcome that particular fear? And we we took a look at this in in a previous episode.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:23:44]:
I took a good, look at at how fear is not something to be afraid of. Fear is actually something that’s just helping us along the way. Burnout can also be a big problem. So just avoid overcommitting to things. Don’t make your goals so big that you cannot achieve them. And, also, take time out for self care. Look after yourself physically, mentally, because you’re no use to anybody if you’re burned out. Right? Mindfulness can be a great way to help with with many of these things, and we’ve we’ve looked at mindfulness before.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:24:21]:
Take take a look at some of the the previous episodes. Maybe check out, 5 Minute Meditations with Keith Blakemore Noble’s podcast. 5 Minute Meditations. Easy way just to set your morning off. And be flexible. Your plans, your strategies, your goals will need to change as you discover more about life. As you set down the path, you might find this isn’t actually the the way to achieve it after all. Be flexible.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:24:48]:
If a plan isn’t working, just reassess it. Modify your approach. You don’t have to abandon the goal. You just have to reassess it, tweak it, fine tune it so that it becomes a plan that can work. And finally, support networks. Surround yourself with people who encourage you and believe in you and your purpose. Join community of like minded people, for example. Don’t hang out with those who ridicule you for what you’re doing.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:25:18]:
Hang out find and hang out with those who will support you. And if that means being alone for a short while until you find that group, that’s far better than being in a group who doesn’t support you. Accountability is also a great way to keep you committed and and on track. Accountability from others or even just accountability with yourself can all help. So that’s a very, very brief overview of, your life’s purpose, figuring it out, and how you can then start to to, fulfil it and stay on track. I’d love to know what you thought. Let me know what you think. Pop comments wherever you’ve seen this or get in touch with me.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:26:08]:
Let me know what you think. Give us a like, a comment, a review, a share, and subscribe. Share this with others, and above all, really get curious about your own personal life’s purpose. Go through the exercises that we’ve we’ve we’ve covered, see what comes up, and then start getting curious and excited about what it’s gonna be like living your life’s purpose.