If you’ve tried to find your purpose and gotten nowhere, there are two big reasons for it. First, it’s probably because the person you went to for advice had no idea how to help you, even if they knew their own purpose. They usually start in the wrong place.
And second, you have no idea who you really are.
In this post you’ll learn where to start if you want to find your purpose and discover the first step in learning who you really are.
The Problem
Have you ever read a blog, a book, or any information for that matter, that had to do with purpose? Have you ever watched a video, sat through a sermon, or listened to a self-help guru talk about the subject? Did it help you find your purpose? Or did you walk away just as confused as ever?
I thought so. The same thing happened to me.
It seems that many people can tell you what purpose is, a few have even found theirs, but no one can actually help you find your purpose. Even if they know their own purpose, the pastors, self-help gurus and mentors out there can’t help you find your purpose, can they?
Why is that? Because there is a missing link that ties everything together, but they can’t put their finger on it. So they never start the process of finding your purpose in the right place.
The Missing Link
At a training event a while ago, a group of people got together to discuss my book The Purpose Master Key, The 7 Steps to Making a Difference by Finding Your Purpose.They belong to an active professional development program that’s designed to help their businesses grow. A moderator asked the group various questions about things like Purpose, Desire and their GIFT. The conversation was lively and quite revealing. Some of the group had taken the recommended personality assessment and thought that their GIFT was synonymous with their personality. Others thought they intuitively knew their Purpose because they were successful in their chosen professions. Still others had studied the concept of Purpose, but freely admitted they didn’t know theirs.
It became obvious to me that these people were honestly seeking their Purpose, had studied other books and sources about Purpose, and understood how important finding one’s Purpose is in achieving success. But it also became apparent that they were confused about how to actually discover their Purpose. When asked specific questions about how my bookhelped them to find their Purpose most of them were vague.
However, one lady was very specific. She had actually taken both the Personality assessment and the Clifton Strengths assessment as suggested in the book. Her comment was that after she understood what her GIFT was “suddenly everything made sense”. Finding her GIFT was the “missing piece” to finding her Purpose and making a difference.
After listening to this amazing conversation about critically important topics I realized I needed to do a better job of explaining the concept of your GIFT. I know that discovering my GIFT radically changed my life, and in the words of this wonderful woman, it is the missing piece to discovering your Purpose.
So, if you’re looking for your purpose, you have to start by finding your GIFT.
You are a Three-Part person
The concept of you having a Special GIFT can be confusing. First off, no one talks about it, so you may never have considered that you even have a GIFT. But the biggest cause of confusion about having a GIFT comes from being confused about who you really are.
Did you know there are actually three aspects of who you are?
The YMCA is an organization that actually got this right. I’m not plugging the Y, but here is what they say their mission is:
The YMCA is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to put Christian principles into practice through programs that build healthy spirit, mind and body for all.
So, here’s the truth about who you really are—you are a spirit, that has a soul, which resides in a body. Any discussion about GIFT without defining which part of the real you we are talking about can get real confusing, real fast.
Now if you are like me, I totally understood the part of me that was the body, but I thought the soul and the spirit were the same thing. And I had no idea that each part of me had gifts. Let me explain.
Your body is the physical thing that other people see. They recognize you because of your face, your hair, your eyes…you get the point. It is precisely because your body is how other people recognize you that many people only consider this aspect of who they really are. They’re more concerned with their weight, their physique, their hair, and their age than the more important aspects of who they really are.
When I speak of your GIFT, I am not referring to any physical attribute. In other words, I am not referring to how beautiful you are, how fast you can run, or how well you work with your hands. When you think of someone being gifted, it’s very likely that you think of someone who is a gifted athlete, or a beautiful model, or a talented musician and then you compare yourself to them. You might think that next to that person you don’t stand a chance, so this whole idea of a GIFT is a waste of time in your case. You might think that since you had no control over the genes you received at birth, developing a physical gift that isn’t there, won’t help you. But that’s not what I am saying. If you are physically advantaged, that may be a part of your GIFT, but it would be a mistake to call any physical attribute your Special GIFT as I am describing it. So, if you have great genes, good for you, but that’s not what I’m talking about.
On the other extreme is the part of you that is spirit. Many people have no concept of the fact that they are spirit beings, and it is not my intention to convince anyone of that fact. I only bring it up because those of you who do recognize that part of you is spirit, may interpret your GIFT as a purely spiritual thing. I believe that supernatural gifts do exist, and that they do relate to the way I describe GIFT, but they are not what I refer to when I describe your Special GIFT. In fact, if the only time you have heard that you have a gift has been in a church setting, this could really confuse the issue I am trying to convey.
When I speak about you having a Special GIFT I am speaking about a part of you that resides in your soul and not in your body or spirit. Since all physical attributes go downhill with age this should be good news to some of you. And
since a lot of you have no idea what I’m talking about when it comes to spiritual gifts, this should be a relief to you.
So, let’s talk about your soul for a minute. Your soul is distinct from your body and your spirit. First, your soul is made up of your mind, your will, and your emotions. Your soul plays a part in who you are as a person with a body and as a spirit. Your soul is completely unique to you and you have complete control over it. Your way of thinking is part of your soul, and ever has or ever will think like you do.
So, when I refer to your Special GIFT I am referring to a part of your soul. Your Special GIFT is your unique way of thinking and not to be confused with a supernatural/spiritual gift or being gifted physically. It is the way you were created to succeed in this life. Figuring out what is so special about your particular way of thinking is a very big deal, and it’s the missing piece of the puzzle to finding your purpose. When you begin to realize that NO ONE thinks like you, you’ll begin to understand just how special you really are.
Process of finding your purpose
To find your purpose, you must start by finding your special GIFT. But before you can find your special GIFT you will need to know who you really are. But, as you will learn if you choose to go through the process of Transformation, you get your identity from you Father, which can be a problem. The problem with getting your identity from your father is that most people have a Father Fracture. This is where everyone needs to start their Transformation process, and it is the subject of the next episode of the Transformers podcast.
