
Our purpose includes our goals and commitments. However, it depends on our motivation and resolves. You can live a life of purpose with single-mindedness and determination. It’s not accidental, but on purpose, intentional. The purpose of life is the reason we exist.
It all boils down to one thing. We want our lives to mean something. After living sixty or seventy or eighty years, we want to believe that all the effort we exerted throughout our lives was meaningful. We want to know that the world is better because we were in it. So our purpose is the rationale for all we’ve done in pursuit of meaning.
When you think about your life, designing it, and living it to the fullest, you will need to be single-minded in your goal to live a life with no regret, intentional about taking the actions necessary to bring your dreams to reality, and resolved to push past the obstacles of life that will inevitably arise. If your purpose is compelling enough, you will stay the course and ensure you don’t end your life with the agony of an untold story still inside you.
You will encounter difficulties as you pursue the life you want. A remarkable life is impossible without purpose. If we want our lives to matter, it requires intentionality, despite the resistance. That’s where purpose enters the equation. For example, French philosopher Michel de Montaigne wrote, “The soul which has no fixed purpose in life is lost; to be everywhere is to be nowhere.” Purpose moves us from lost to found, from directionless to destination.
Determining your purpose is deciding where you want to be. It brings clarity on how you should spend your time. It helps you stay focused on what is essential and helpful in allowing you to live the life you want to live. Purpose provides direction so you avoid confusion on which way you should go. It’s the engine that drives you to take the actions that will help you reach your goals. The stronger your purpose, the more success you will have.
Defining your perfect life tells you what you want from life, but understanding your purpose tells you why. Purpose provides the pressure test of our plans. It requires us to question our actions if they don’t align with our goals. If your purpose is lacking, your plans will crumble, and if your plans crumble, you won’t live the life you want to live. Lives without purpose end with regret. To move from designing life to living it, we need to understand better the many ways purpose will play its part.
Loving yourself so much that you will go out of your way to care for yourself must be at the core of your pursuit of fulfillment in life. Please note that self-care is not selfish. Lack of self-care is selfishness because if lack of self-care persists, you will eventually be unable to do your life’s work, and you will deprive the world of why you are here. Self-care plays an active role in one’s wellness – the health of your mind, the fitness of your body, and the vitality of your spirit or soul. As you can see, your satisfaction may come from the state of your mind and the actual state of your life.
When you think of health, what comes to your mind? What are some signs that a person has bad health? What are some signs that a person has excellent health? How do we know if our health is improving or getting worse?
These are all excellent questions. Below are some of the common beliefs that people have regarding excellent health.
• Excellent health is about being thin.
• It means exercising a lot.
• It means avoiding foods that are bad for you.
• It means being able to conquer many tasks at once.
• It means having lots of friends and being happy all the time.
• It means being able to run a race fast.
• It is about not being sick.
The above thoughts come from various sources, such as the media, common belief, and just an overall poor understanding of what health or, better yet, what wellness is. While nothing on that list is necessarily a bad thing, they are certainly not necessary for excellent health. There is no single thing or set of things that define excellent health.
The old-school belief was that health is about not being sick. While not being sick is excellent, today, we have realized there is a lot more that goes into fitness. Excellent health is attained through a concept called wellness. But, as I like to say, everything is all about wellness!
Wellness is the balance between your physical, social, and mental health. The health triangle is made up of these three things—your physical, social, and mental health—kept in balance.
Essentially, to achieve a high level of wellness, you need to be strong in each area and balanced.
It is essential to know that a large part of loving yourself lies in creating and living a balanced life. Personal fulfillment is challenging without having the right balance between your public life and private life. It would help if you had time with others and time alone. Without balance, there is no harmony, and there is no fulfillment without harmony. Living a balanced life will eliminate unnecessary emotional burnout and propel you toward emotional fulfillment in life.
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