Jack Canfield walks through a three-part exercise to find your purpose: write down two qualities you enjoy expressing, two ways you express them with others, and your image of a perfect world. Then rate how actively you live that purpose on a scale of 1 to 10, and pick concrete steps to reach 10. He also suggests a 30-minute joy review to spot patterns in what brings you deep satisfaction.
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Hi there. I'm Jack Canfield. You know, we all aspire to be, do, and have great things. And today I want to touch on how to create a clear vision for your life and identify your true purpose so you can begin to work towards fulfilling it. If you want to be happy, content, and experience inner peace and ultimate fulfillment, it's important to discover your life purpose. You see, without a clear understanding and vision of your life purpose as the ultimate compass to guide you, you might achieve the goals you set, but they may not ultimately fulfill you. Now, after working with more than a million people all over the world, I've come to believe that each of us is born with a unique life purpose. And identifying, acknowledging and honoring this purpose is one of the most important actions truly successful people take. They take the time to understand what they're here to do, and then they pursue that with both passion and enthusiasm. Now, for some of us, our purpose is obvious and clear. We're born with a set of talents, and through persistent practice, we develop our talents into skills. Now, my children are perfect examples of this. It was clear from the moment they were old enough to talk what they were interested in. One son wanted to draw all the time, and he's now working in the art world. Another, another son was always tapping out rhythms on paint cans and dishes. Now he's a drummer in the music world along with another one of his brothers. Now, my stepdaughter is also in the arts. She began singing and drawing when she was 2. And my stepson is in the business world. He was making business plans and selling things to his friends. By the time he was in middle school, they all had natural talents that were clear indicators for what they ended up ultimately being passionate about. But for some people, though, it's not always as easy to identify their life purpose or their passions. Alternatively, you may enjoy what you do for a living, but upon deeper exploration, discover that you're passionate about something altogether different than what you're doing to earn your living. So I'd like to share with you a simple process that can help you identify your life purpose in as little as five to 10 minutes. Now, the process involves answering three questions, and it's important to write down your answers. So for now, just write down the questions. Now, these also appear in the Success Principles book as Success principle number two. Be clear why you're here. So I'll repeat the questions twice. You write them down, and then you can answer them. First, ask yourself, what are two qualities that I most enjoy expressing in life? Again, what are Two qualities that I most enjoy expressing in life. Now, for me, it would be love and joy. For my wife, it's authenticity and spontaneity. For one of the clients I just worked with, it's discipline and order. And for another one, it's fun and play. Now, the second step is to ask yourself, what are two ways I most love, love or enjoy expressing those qualities when interacting with others? Again, that's what are two ways I most love or enjoy expressing those qualities when interacting with others? Now, for me, it's inspiring people with stories like those in the Chicken Soup for the Soul books and empowering people by teaching them practical tools for creating greater success in their life through my live trainings, online trainings and coaching books, DVDs, tele seminars and video blogs like the one I'm doing right now with you. And finally, ask yourself, what would the world look like if it were perfect right now? According to me, what would people be doing? How would people be interacting? What would be happening? So again, that's what would the world look like if it were perfect right now? According to me, that's you, of course. Now, for me, it would be that everyone was living their highest vision of their most fulfilling life. You see, I believe that every single person is like a cell in a human body. And it takes all kinds of cells, every cell doing what it's meant to do. For the whole body to work correctly, we need eyeball cells and stomach cells and knee joint cells and foot cells and bone cells and brain cells. All of those have to be working. And similarly, I believe that it takes every human being doing what they were meant to do for all of humanity to work. You see, once you have answers to these three questions, you can combine them into a single statement. Now, when I put all three of mine together, my life purpose ends up being to inspire and empower people to live their highest vision in a context of love and joy, in harmony with the highest good of all concerned. Now, when you put yours together, you're going to get a life purpose statement for you. Now, once you have that, I want you to ask yourself the next question. On a scale of 1 to 10, how actively am I living my life purpose? Again, on a scale of 1 to 10, how actively am I currently living my life purpose? And if your answer is anything less than a 10, then I want you to ask yourself, what would have to happen to make it a 10? What would I have to do or change to make it a 10? Now, the answers that you come up with are the action steps you need to take so that you can begin living your purpose on a day to day level. Another technique you can use to help you identify your purpose is to conduct what I call a joy review. Simply set aside about 30 minutes and take the time to go back over your life and make a list of all the times you felt the greatest joy in your life. Now when I did this, I wrote down when I was a patrol leader in the Boy Scouts, when I was an officer in my military high school, when I was a summer camp counselor at a camp in Maine, my years as a leader in my college fraternity, my years as a high school teacher, and when I was conducting workshops and training as a teacher trainer, when I was telling jokes and telling stories, when I was traveling. And then look for a pattern among all these times you've written down. In my case, it was when I was teaching and when I was inspiring and empowering people to go for their dreams and to have more love, joy and abundance in their lives. And since we know that joy is part of your internal guidance system that tells you when you're on course to the fulfillment of your innate purpose, you can begin to determine a lot about your life purpose from completing this joy review. So now I want to leave you with a little bit of homework. Once you've gained more clarity about your purpose, you don't need to completely overhaul your life all at once. Instead, just lean into it bit by bit. You know, start living your purpose a little more fully each and every day and pay attention to the feedback you're receiving from others and in terms of the results you're producing when you're doing that, and also how you're feeling. Thank you for watching. And remember, nothing in life will change for the better until you do. Now, if you found this video helpful, please make sure you like it, share it with a friend who might need it, and subscribe to my channel for more videos like this one, and for some additional resources on how to create a clear purpose and vision for your life, make sure to visit my website@jackcampfield.com.
