Over the last few days I've been reading different perspectives about the "following your bliss or passion to discover your purpose" advice that young and seasoned folks receive all of the time. On the surface, it seems like great advice. As with anything, the wisdom tends to fall somewhere in the middle.
This advice assumes that you have a deep passion. The problem is that we generally have very limited exposure, experience, and knowledge about areas outside of sports, arts, entertainment, education, social sciences, medical and legal fields. Even within these fields rarely do we understand the industry specifics around the field.
I don't know about you, but I have followed my bliss on a few occasions. The result was that my bliss turned to broke pretty fast. I didn't have the stamina to endure until I broke through. There were many factors at work, but what I have discovered is that you should enjoy what you do. You may not be walking around on cloud nine all of the time, but I firmly believe that you can create your bliss by crafting your purpose.
Here is a statement describing purpose from Dr. Steve Rose that I resonate with:
A sense of purpose means dedicating yourself to a cause beyond yourself. It’s a goal that fuels your motivation in life, giving your life meaning and direction, inspiring you to make a significant contribution to the world.
Your purpose however consists of your values and motivations. What is truly important to you? What drives you? In the words of Simon Sinek, what is your WHY? Why are doing what you do in your life? Or why do you want to do what you have yet to do in your life? When you can answer these questions, you will better understand your true values and motivations at this point in time. I say at this point in time because our values and motivations evolve overtime.
So, instead of searching for our purpose which often leads to excessive job hopping and incessant quest for the perfect fit, we can bring our values and motivations with us where ever we are, thus bringing deep purpose to what we do NOW. When we work from this standpoint, we tend to go beyond the minimum. We give more of ourselves to what we are doing because purpose is what we BRING and is not dependent on the CONTENT of what we DO.
However, anytime that you can bring Purpose to the Content of your desires and develop the skills to do it well, you will be better positioned to live a purposed driven life.
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Cheering you on,
Asia
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