From an early age, the world teaches us a mainstream formula for success that includes going to school, earning good grades, graduating from college, landing a high-paying job, and earning lots of money—or at least enough money to provide for your family. The ultimate goal of this formula for success is survival—making enough money to get by.
Earning enough to get by is necessary and very important. But with that being said, nowhere in that mainstream formula does the world encourage us to go out and find a meaningful career—a purpose—that serves humanity. Nowhere in that formula does the world teach us about the importance of finding meaning and purpose.
That mainstream formula for success is flawed. Because living your purpose will offer you the opportunity to make a meaningful impact on the lives of others, feel fulfillment on an everyday-basis, accomplish unstoppable success, create a legacy the world will remember you for, and feel you with peace as you lay on your deathbed. Living your purpose will change your life.
The following are five reasons why leaving the mainstream track for success behind to pursue a career that uses your abilities to serve other people could be the best and most important decision you ever make.
5 Ways That Living Your Purpose Will Change Your Life
#1: You Will Make A Meaningful Impact On Others
“If you are not making someone else’s life better, then you’re wasting your time. Your life will become better, by making other lives better.” – Will Smith
Living Your Purpose is about using your passions, your talents, and your abilities to serve other people in a meaningful way—it’s about using what you’ve got to make someone else’ life better. It’s about using your abilities to put a smile on someone else’s face, lift someone else’s spirits, motivate someone to succeed, help someone’s business grow, and add value to someone’s life in a meaningful way.
Connecting with your purpose is an opportunity to make A Meaningful Impact On Others. When you shift your attention from working to help yourself to working to help others, your life is going to change. You’ll feel happier. You’ll succeed more than you ever thought you could. You’ll grow into a leadership role in your community. And ironically, shifting your ambition away from earning money to helping others will open your life to receiving new wealth and opportunities that could never have happened otherwise.
#2: You Will Find Fulfillment In Your Daily Work
Happiness is the end-goal of all human behavior. Happiness is the underlying motivator behind every behavior we take part in—whether it’s landing a job, earning a big salary, finding a husband or wife, binge-eating food, drinking alcohol, consuming drugs, having sex, or traveling.
People are willing go to seminars, spend thousands of dollars, hire therapists, switch careers, and flip their entire lives upside down to connect with true happiness. As all-important as it is, connecting with real fulfillment is elusive. It’s a struggle for many of us.
And the biggest reason why so many of us struggle to find happiness is because too many people are locked into careers that don’t fulfill them. Too many people are locked into nine-to-five jobs that don’t give them that sense of fulfillment and completion that we’re all looking for. Too many people aren’t living their Purpose.
Pursuing a purpose-motivated career—a career that seeks to contribute rather than to earn—is one of the most powerful ways to feel true fulfillment on an everyday basis.
If you’re willing to work hard for it and sacrifice for it, connecting with true happiness can be simple. Find a career that you love— a career that contributes to others in a positive way (a proven way to feel real happiness). And go do it.
Find a career that uses your passions, your talents, and your abilities to inspire people, help others succeed, encourage people to feel happier, and lift people up. And commit yourself to embracing that career—your purpose—for the rest of your life.
Not only will you be changing lives, but you will also be working a daily grind that offers you that feeling of happiness, fulfillment, and completion that we’re all looking for.
#3: Your Purpose Will Motivate You To Accomplish Unstoppable Success
Contrary to popular belief, the most motivated people are not driven purely by money, power, or fame. The most motivated and successful people in the world are driven by purpose.
Purpose is a far more potent motivator than wealth, status, or fame.
Don’t believe me?
Try to think of it this way. Reflect on the following goals and try to pick which of these ambitions would push you harder to succeed than the other: The desire to earn six figures or the pursuit of making sure that no child goes hungry? The ambition to be the most powerful man in the world or the drive to save the world from corruption and poverty? The desire to become a millionaire or the desire to save a million lives?
In all likelihood your probably agreed that the more purpose-motivated goals—like saving a million lives—would push you harder to succeed compared to the more money-motivated goals. Because human beings are naturally more determined in situations that involved helping or saving others. The individuals who aim to do whatever it takes to help other people out—whether it’s their families or their communities—always work harder and win more often than people that are only in it for themselves.
The entrepreneur who wants to put a laptop in the hands of every under-privileged youth in the world will always succeed farther than the entrepreneur who aims to earn a billion in profits. And the soul singer who wants to inspire people across the world to be themselves will always sell more records than the singer who only wants to win awards.
And the great thing about using purpose to motivate yourself rather than self-serving goals like earning lots of money is: the more ambitious your purpose is, the more successful you’ll be in the long-run. Aiming to save one person’s life is great. But your success will be much greater if you shift from the smaller goals to aiming to save hundreds, thousands, or even millions of lives. The more ambitious your purpose is, the more motivated you will be, and the more success you’ll accomplish.
#4: You Will Create A Legacy The World Will Never Forget
All of the world’s greatest legacies, accomplishments, achievements, innovations, contributions, artwork, and breakthroughs were born from purpose—invented by innovators that wanted to leave the world better off than how they found it.
Steve Jobs was seeking purpose when he made it his mission to create technology—personal computers, portable music players, and touchscreen smartphones—that would transform all of our lives. Martin Luther King Jr. was seeking purpose when he shared his vision of a world where people are judged for the content of their character rather than the color of their skin. Usain Bolt was seeking purpose when he established himself as the fastest man ever. Michael Jordan was seeking purpose as he stole possession from the Utah Jazz, dribbled down the court, and drained a buzzer-beater to carry his Chicago Bulls to a sixth championship. And Nelson Mandela was seeking purpose as he endured twenty-seven years in South African prison to become the nation’s first black president after his release.
The history books never remember people for their wealth, fame, power, or material possessions. When you pass away, all of the material stuff passes with you.
The history books always remember people for the contributions they added to mankind. Legacy is always generated through pushing yourself to making a positive change in the lives of others as opposed to working purely to help yourself get ahead.
Creating a legacy—a contribution that your family, your community, your nation, or your planet will remember you for—can only be done through Living Your Purpose. So if being remembered in a positive way is one of your goals, the best way to do it is by shifting your ambition from earning to survive, earning to get rich, or earning to help yourself to adding value to the lives of others, adding to your community, and adding to the world in a way that won’t be forgotten.
#5: Living Your Purpose Will Give You Peace And Serenity In The Face Of Death
One of the greatest and most powerful benefits of Living Your Purpose will be the sense of accomplishment, success, peace, happiness, and serenity that you feel when your time on this earth comes close to an end.
Some of the most common emotions that come over people as they move deeper into their old age are regrets—regrets about the dreams they could of accomplished, the places they could of gone, the lives they could of changed, the fulfillment they could of enjoyed, and the contributions they could added to the world but didn’t. Many people often lay on their deathbeds filled up with regrets about failing to fully live their potential, failing to contribute to the world in a way that was more meaningful, and failing to live their purpose.
So one of the greatest joys of Living Your Purpose is that you will never grow into one of those people. Once you fully use your passions, talents, and abilities to serve the world—once you fully use what you’ve got to help other people—the only emotions you’ll feel on your deathbed will be positive: happiness, joy, serenity, peace, and gratitude.
Once you truly Live Your Purpose, you’ll be able to look straight into the face of death with absolutely no regrets about how you lived and what you accomplished. That alone is motivation enough to go out, find what you were born to do, and do it.
