Life Purpose : Finding meaning to your life.

Have you ever wondered as to the meaning of life? Have you ever asked yourself why you are here? Do you ever feel your life lacks a purpose? If so, then you are not alone. Yet have you ever found an answer to these issues?

Questions such as these have been taxing even the brightest of minds for centuries and yet we still seem no nearer an answer that satisfies everyone. Philosophers, religious leaders, lifestyle gurus and politicians have each at various times pondered upon these issues and come up with an apparent answer. Their answers, though, have rarely been totally satisfactory and have often been more a way of bringing people round to their way of thinking rather than solving the deeper mystery of the meaning of life.

Nowadays, while politicians and religious leaders may still debate or preach upon the meaning of life, individual people are finding new ways of searching for a meaning to their life. Indeed, there would appear to be a shift away from looking for the one deep answer to the meaning of everyone’s life; people are now increasingly searching for a purpose simply for their own life.

The ‘one size fits all’ theories are being eschewed in favour of a more individual approach to finding life’s purpose. People seek not so much the purpose of life in general but rather the purpose of their own life.

In searching for a purpose to your life, there would appear to be two broad approaches that you can adopt. One approach is an ‘external’ approach and the other is an ‘internal’ one.

The external approach would involve outside agencies, such as religious, charitable or political groups and adopting their beliefs and attitudes. You can choose to join and support such groups and allow their philosophies and practices to become your own. Your life purpose then becomes one of advocating, promoting or supporting the cause of your chosen group. Quite often this approach is seen as very popular, the group provides a ready made answer for your questions and often a sense of camaraderie and support from fellow members. Often, though, there is also a sense of compromise, for it is rare that any one group or organisation will match entirely with your own beliefs and viewpoint. So you may find yourself having to forego or bury some of your own beliefs in order to fully promote those of the group.

The internal approach is to examine your own life, your own beliefs and your own values and to see what these tell you about your approach to life. Sometimes, though, we are uncertain about our own beliefs and our own values and we may feel the need for help in discovering and clarifying them. This is one of the things for which people increasing call upon Life Coaches to help with. Discovering your own beliefs and your own values, including your limiting beliefs (that is to say, those beliefs that hold you back), are all part of the core work of a life coach. Indeed several life coaches now openly advertise there services in helping people to discover their life purpose.

Yet, are there advantages in this ‘internal approach’? The internal approach does not provide quite the same ‘ready made’ answers as the external approach but there does mean that there is less likelihood of you having to make compromises. The internal approach also has the advantage of helping you to understand yourself better. The appeal, for many people, though is that the internal approach allows you to find the purpose to your own life rather than giving you one that has been predefined by someone else.

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