Module 1
Determine Your Purpose

WHAT IS PURPOSE?

As a coach, I often get requests to help someone find their purpose in life.

A student will be desperate to discover the one thing that will light them up and motivate them to work hard and spread their passion to millions.
They spend time looking for it in books, in church, in course after course, and in meditation.

But their purpose seems to be elusive.

It’s almost like they’re playing a treasure hunt game and think that when they find the treasure, everything will make sense. I know this because I spent years chasing it too.

Purpose is defined as the reason why something exists. Your purpose is the reason why you exist. Your brain immediately tells you that you don’t know why and that you’d better figure it out or it will all be wasted. Your brain tells you that it had better be good. It had better help the planet or those who are less fortunate. It had better matter so you can justify your existence.

So, we look to others for inspiration. We look at Mother Teresa, who obviously had a purpose. Her life obviously mattered. Or Jeff Bezos who created Amazon and changed the commerce world as we know it – he knew his purpose. And then we start spiraling into guilt because we’re pretty sure neither of these people who ‘knew’ their purpose didn’t over-drink or spend any time watching Netflix or YouTube videos.

We’re pretty sure we are failing at living a purposeful life.

We have no idea what the point of our existence is, but we’re pretty sure we’re doing it wrong. We like the idea of saving the world, but we’re exhausted from our day job or in transition from one career to another, so we’d better just keep looking for that perfect flavor of purpose that will make it all effortless.

And so, we keep searching and never finding the answer.

WHAT IS YOUR PURPOSE?

So what is your capital P Purpose?

I’m going to tell you.

Are you ready?

Your reason for existing is to exist. That is your purpose.

You don’t have to do anything to fulfill your purpose in life. Your life is your purpose. You are a result. A product. You are an evolved human being, and being alive is enough.

Did you hear me? Being alive is enough.

You are already enough and completely complete.

You don’t have to be better, give more, or save the planet. Your purpose is humanness. No one is taking notes to see if you do it right. No one is judging you to see if you are good enough. No one is about to give you a grade on how you are doing. That’s your job. You are the only one whose opinion matters.

Whatever relationship you have with the spirit within you, and no matter what you call it, that’s the only purpose that is. And that purpose, I’m here to tell you, has already been fulfilled.

●● You are done.
●● You are complete.
●● You are already purposeful.

And you are already magnificent. Not because of anything you did or didn’t do. But just because you were born and are here. You are 100% lovable. You have already arrived. So stop trying to arrive at the place where you will prove that you are good enough.

Relax.

You are already completely good enough. There’s nothing you can be, do, or have to be more purposeful or complete. Your life will never be more valuable than someone else’s. Mother Teresa’s life was not more important than yours. Jeff Bezos’s life is not more important than yours.

Human life is a complete experience. This is the finish line of perfection, not the beginning.

So, now what?

DETERMINE YOUR PURPOSE
THE PURPOSE YOU CHOOSE

Now you know the secret to life. Your purpose is to live on the planet. You’ve been doing it for years. Well done, my friend. You don’t have to do it better or smarter or more lovingly. Unless you want to.

But the reason to want to is not what you think.

It won’t make you better in the eyes of some external Watcher, family member, or respected authority. You are already as better as you can be. It won’t earn you a treasure or prize that will make everything make sense.

But what it will do is make your experience on the planet way more fun.

See, you can spend your life sitting on the couch watching Netflix, or you can build a school in Africa. You are still a perfect human.

But your experience of the world will be different while you’re here.

Many of us are trying to find a way to matter, not realizing that we can’t matter more than we already do. So, we chase purpose like an elusive lover. We act creepy and weird as we desperately try to find the success that other people already seem to have.

We look at Tom Brady, and we’re sure he has lived a better life than we have. He has done it right. He’s one of those purposeful ones. The truth is that Tom Brady has the exact same value as you do, and he has chosen to fulfill a purpose that has made his life way more fun and meaningful to him.

It’s changed his experience.

Okay, let’s get started.

1. You don’t have to do anything to be more worthy. You get to choose what you want to do with your life simply because you want to.

2. You get to pick your reason.

It might seem that once we understand that we don’t have to do anything to make our life matter, we wouldn’t do anything.

But the opposite is true.

Once you realize there’s nothing you have to do, and your entire life can be about what you want to do, you choose a purpose that matters to you. And only to you. We think that if we do what we want, we’ll only eat pizza and watch reruns of Cheers and drink beer on the deck. But that’s not what happens. In fact, we only buffer and seek false pleasure when we think we aren’t good enough as we are.

Here’s how I created my purpose:

1. I accepted that I’m already complete as a human, and that I don’t need to fix myself or make myself more worthy.
2. I decided that I wanted to have a super fun life (with nothing on the line) by being an example of what is possible.
3. I wanted to push the limits of possibility with my mind, my emotions, and my actions because it makes my life more interesting and helps us evolve as a species. I wanted to enjoy getting better at things for the sake of enjoying it. Period.

And that was it.

Once I realized that getting better is fun, and that growing and evolving are interesting, I felt even more alive. I wasn’t more alive—I was
always as alive as I was ever going to be—but it was an experience I enjoyed so much more.

AND…

It all came from a place of knowing that it was just a bonus. I was already good enough. My accomplishment was about showing who I already was, not about being a better human.

If your purpose is winning a golf championship, playing professional football, or making millions of dollars, the reason for doing it will determine how you experience it in your life.

C: Purpose
T: I have to become more worthy by winning a championship
F: Inadequate
A: Work at mattering
R: Always needing to be more worthy

C: Purpose
T: I am complete and want to win a championship
F: Complete and excited
A: Work hard from abundance
R: Win or lose, I am complete already

(See Module 2 – The Universal Truth For How Life Works for more information on the above Model’s.)

You can’t win enough, earn enough, or give enough to complete yourself. That’s really important to know.

As you do the first module’s exercise, you will go through the process of accepting your good-enoughness and then decide what you want to do with your life and how you want to spend your time on earth.

Your purpose for existing is existing. How you want to spend your time existing is your choice.

You simply decide.

DEFINE YOUR PURPOSE
(Not Optional But Can Change)

I just gave some of you the worst news ever.

You have to decide. You have to make a decision. You can’t be confused or overwhelmed. You’re worried about making the right decision.

Stop it.

Just pick.

There is no consequence that you don’t create with your mind. You can spend your time doing anything you want, and the only thing it will really affect is how you experience your time. You have nothing to lose.

Let me tell you how this works for me.

I’m going to ask you to create one sentence to define your purpose.

Mine is: I want to be a cognitive mastery teacher and a results-based coach.

It lets me focus on managing my brain better, creating better feelings, and creating better results. It lets me set goals, be afraid, fail often, share my results, teach, and expand my world with more students, money, knowledge, and experience. It asks me to think bigger. It doesn’t prevent me from feeling terrible half the time, but nothing can. I just decided I would rather feel terrible about failing at my big goal than feel terrible about eating too much ice cream. One isn’t more valuable than the other—it’s just my own choice.

So now, as I ask you to come up with your sentence, you may think it’s such an important sentence that you can’t possibly decide. And if you do this, you’ll indulge in confusion, overwhelm, and inaction.

And that’s okay.

There’s no reason to beat yourself up over this. You are still 100% awesome as you are. But trust me and pick a sentence. Give yourself one hour, max. You can copy mine or you can copy someone else’s, but pick one.

Here are some:
I want to love.
I want to create art.
I want to win.
I want to make lots of money.
I want to build a school.
I want to be famous.
I want to be a rock star poet.
I want to be president.
I want to be a loving mom.
I want to help end child abuse.

Now, notice if you think that some are better or more worthy than others. Please trust that how you live your life is totally up to you, and only your opinion matters. If you’re trying to prove something or get something, you’ll miss the ultimate joy that comes from living your life the way you want to simply for your own sake.

This is not self indulgent.

Some people will tell you that you should live your life for others or that you should be focused on others at your own expense. This is always a lie. What’s true is that your life is totally your choice. If you live a life focused on others, it had better bring you a ton of joy. Otherwise, you’re bringing more resentment and frustration to the world, and that’s the last thing we need.

As humans, I believe our highest form of expression and evolution comes from following what we want—our true desires and not our false pleasures.

Creation. Contribution. Evolution.

These are byproducts of doing what we want, not the requirement. Michael Jordan didn’t set out to be an inspiration to millions. He simply wanted to play basketball. And he did.

So, what is your sentence?

What would you want it to be if no one was looking?

If it didn’t have to be worthy or altruistic?

Make sure you do your Module #1 exercise.

Just decide.

WORKSHEETS

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