Get the Blueprint: 7 Practical Steps to Finding Your Purpose

What's up, Believe Nation? It's Evan. My one word is believe, and I believe in you. I believe you have an amazing gift inside you that I want to see explode out onto the world. And so to help you on your journey today, we're going to look at the 7 ways to help you find your purpose and vision. So one of the most common questions that I get asked by entrepreneurs when they're commenting or leaving me emails or feedback is How do I find my purpose? How do I find what I'm supposed to be doing? How do I then turn a business around that I want to do something that I love? I hate my job and I want to find my purpose. How do I do that? And so you're in luck because in today's video I'm going to look at the 7 ways for you to do it. Way number 1 is figure out your one word. I wrote a book, it's called Your One Word. I highly recommend you check it out. It's about finding the most important core value to you. I think until you know what it is that you stand for, until you understand your most important core value, then you're always going to be living somebody else's version of your life where somebody is going to want you to do something and you don't know where to say no or where to say yes to because you don't come from a place of self-confidence. I think a lot of people are living their life walking through the mud. They're taking very, very slow steps forward and sometimes they're sinking down because they don't know what the direction is that they should be taking. When you understand what your single most important core value is, that helps clear the path, that helps give you the guidance and direction to help you move forward, that helps you say no to the things that don't serve you and allow you to have that straight path towards achieving your big goals that you have for yourself. Figure out what your one word is. I think it's one of the most important exercises that you can ever do in your life. Way number 2 is to explore, explore, explore. If you don't know what it is that you want to do, you're not going to figure it out by sitting on the couch. You're not going to figure out just by thinking about it. You're going to figure it out by going out and doing and saying yes and say yes and say yes and say yes and say yes until you find something, not that you just absolutely fall in love with, but that you want to come back and do again. So as an example, in my life, at one point I picked up salsa dancing, I picked up snowboarding, I picked up rock climbing. I hated the rock climbing. I'm afraid of heights. But I didn't say no to it. I'm willing to try it once just to see. I didn't like how the harness was bothering me, and that was a one-time thing, and I didn't go back. I picked up snowboarding, and I really liked it, and I went back and I did it again and again and again. And the next winter, I went every single day almost snowboarding. I'm answering emails on the ski lift going up, and I spent an hour to 2 hours every morning practicing my snowboarding skills. But then I stopped. I lost interest in it, and I haven't gone at all this winter yet. I picked up salsa dancing, and on paper, I shouldn't be into salsa dancing. I'm really tall, I don't speak Spanish, I take huge steps, I didn't grow up with the music. There's so many things that are against me, but when I went, I just liked it. I just really enjoyed dancing. I just really enjoyed connecting with people. And so I thought, I'm gonna go back and do it again. And that's the key. You explore and explore and explore and say yes and say yes and say yes until you find the thing that you want to do again. Just like when you go on a date, It's not, "Do I want to marry this person?" It's, "Do I want to go on a second date?" That's what you need to do until you find the thing that you want to go back to again and again and again. Way number 3 is understand where time flies for you. If you want to have massive success, you want to be an entrepreneur, you want to build your business, you want a happy life, it's important to find the things that time flies for with you. It's the thing that you wake up and you start doing and then you look down and it's already 6 at night. And where did the time go? Things where you forget to go to the bathroom, you forget to eat. For me, it's helping entrepreneurs. This has been an insane busy day for me. I've been filming videos all day long. This is one of my last ones to record. We've had a lot of fans from the channel stop by and say hi and shake hands and take selfies and tweet out pictures. It's been really amazing. And it fuels me. You know, and I forget to eat. I haven't had my lunch. You know, I've only had coffee in a bar so far. You know, I forget to go to the bathroom, and I'm probably gonna go home and crash and go crazy. But the point is, I love doing this kind of work. And so if you can understand where you get lost in, if you understand where you can wake up and start working on something and all of a sudden hours have passed by and you don't know where the time went, that's a good indication that you really like this thing and maybe there's a way to turn that into a bigger passion purpose for you.

Way number 4, find out what energizes you. Going on a mission of finding your life's purpose and vision is a powerful one, but it needs to come from a place of energy and excitement. So before you even worry about finding your life's purpose and vision, make a list of things that excites you and energizes you and don't judge at all. You know, it could be something as like, I love listening to children's laughter, to going on a long walk on a beach, to fighting social injustice, whatever it is, make a list of that. And the second thing you want to do is engage in it. So for me, I wasn't born knowing what my life's purpose and vision is. It took a lot of me trying things that energized me to get there. Two things that brings me a lot of excitement and energy is one, being a dance teacher. When I used to teach dance classes, I would get lost in that world and seeing my students laugh, seeing them connect with each other, seeing them go from a beginner dancer to an advanced dancer and seeing that transformation just amazes me. Amazed me. And on the other side, I loved having one-on-one conversations with people. I get completely lost in their world, look them straight in the eyes, and just really connect with them and be present for them. And both those things, I would walk away feeling so energized and excited. And no matter how long I did those two things, I never felt tired. But I still didn't really realize what it is that my life what my life's purpose was at that moment. It wasn't until I kept on engaging in those two things I started finding clarity. And the clarity was this: I loved seeing people transform in front of my eyes. I love seeing people when they embrace who they are and they go after the things that they really want. And me being part of that journey is so exhilarating for me. And eventually I turned my life's purpose into a business. Today, I'm a life coach. That's what I get to do every single day, try to figure out ways to help people get what they want. And that's a thing for you. Instead of thinking about this big massive thing about your life purpose, really just make a list of things that energize you, engage in it over and over and over again, and really see what the connective tissue is. And that will lead to clarity and finding out what your life purpose is.

Way number 5 is find out what you hate. So just like way number 3, looking at where you can get lost in with your time, way number 5 is what do you hate doing? What feels like time stretches out forever? Like doing this is just insanity and you hate it and you never want to do it again and you can't believe you're being forced to do it and it just drives you nuts. You know, we all have those things in our life and so making a list of all of those things that you hate doing Then think about it. What's the opposite? What is the opposite of that? Because if you hate doing these things, then you love doing these things potentially. And that can help you build a list of new activities and things to try out that might allow you to discover your purpose. Way number 6 is ask the million-dollar question. Ask yourself, if you had a million dollars, if you just won the lottery, what would you do with your life? What's the first thing that comes to mind? And often the first thing is going to be travel, vacation, pay off my loans, pay off some debt, buy my mom a house, whatever that stuff is. Great. Okay, assume you have enough money to then pay for all of that too. Now what do you do? You've traveled all you want, you've seen the entire world, you've met all the people you want to meet, you've tried all these great foods. Now what is it that you want to do? Most people can't look past the immediate gratification, that instant hit that they would get if they got some money, because they hate their life so much that they just want to escape. But after you've escaped, you're still looking for purpose. After you've escaped your crappy life and you're temporarily solving it, you still want some purpose. If you've been deprived of sugar, then all you want to do is eat sugar, but you're not going to be fulfilled and happy just eating sugar all day long. You're going to want to have some real food. What's the real food for you? The vacations, the travel, all that kind of stuff for most people is just sugar. It's just something you're craving because you don't have any of it in your diet right now. Right, you have such a crappy life for a lot of people that you just want to go off and do these things as an escape. Great, that's solved. Now what do you do? And so if you ask yourself that question, now start writing down the things that come to mind. That's a great indication of where you should be going. And way number 7 is ask yourself the 7 days left to live question. So this is a great question that I saw on one of Tony Robbins' events where if you had a week left to live, what would you do with it? How would you spend your time? It's a question that we ask here at Turn Up Dance Salsa sometimes to the students at the front of the class, if you only had 7 days left to live, how would you spend that time? What would you do? Who would you see? What activities would you engage in? Because when that fear of death is actually coming, you can shake off the fears that other people will put on you, the judgments, the expectations, and actually do the thing that you really, really, really, really, really, really wanna do. And so I'd encourage you, spend some time, take out a piece of paper, right at the top, If I only had 7 days left to live, I would do, and then try to come up with a list of 10 different things that you would do for yourself. And then look at, hmm, how can I get started on this? Stop waiting for that to be next year and next year and next year, and that never actually happens, and find a way to, within the next 7 days, actually check some of those things off your list. Thank you guys so much for watching. I would love to know which of the 7 ways resonated the most with you, which exercise you're gonna try immediately. Leave it down in the comments below. Is there an 8, 9, 10 that I missed that you want to share? I would love to hear from you. Thank you guys so much for watching. I believe in you. I hope you continue to believe in yourself and whatever your one word is. Much love. I'll see you soon. So let me give you the one, one secret to happiness. One word. This is all you need to be happy. The most important word ever.

If you had to think of one word that's most important to you or that sums you up or that would be kind of like a little beacon.

Hey, Believe Nation! If you want to know what the most important one word is for Tony Robbins, Gary Vaynerchuk, Oprah Winfrey, will.i.am, and Howard Schultz, I have a very special secret video for you. Check the description for details.