Articulating Our Purpose in Life...by Jim Nolan

After much deep self-reflection, I came up with this simple structure for describing our purpose in this life. It ends up being a sort of Mission Statement and Strategic Plan for our life, all in one. Three Verbs, Three Nouns, Three Adjectives, Three Adverbs. Focus on these (Principle of Attraction) for best results…

Three Verbs: (What I am here to do…)

To Serve
To Love
To Creatively Express My Deepest Experience of Life

Three Nouns: (What I am here to create, experience and value)

Connection
Adventure
Novelty

Three Adjectives: (Key descriptors of…character?)

Curious
Real
Compassionate

Three Adverbs: (How I move, or strive to move, through the world, through life)

Energetically
Kindly
Fearlessly

A few of these surprised me. I often have found the whole “Life of Service” spiel to sound hokey, and unnecessarily self-sacrificing–yet, in this exercise, I realized that “Service’ is what my entire professional life, and much of my personal life, have been about. I kind of didn’t even WANT that to be one of my verbs, but I could not really escape it, and now seek to embrace it. Work in progress…

“Novelty” sounded shallow, at least at first. But what Abraham would call “Contrast” is something I have pursued all of my life–that which is different, or unknown, or unfamiliar. That is what “Art” is–it takes the experiences of life and brings them forth yet again, in ways that are novel. So I found myself sticking with that value, not sure if it is a high level one, or just one I happen to seek in my life.

I had to question “Connection”–like, is that REALLY important to me, or does it feel like something I should say? I am not 100% sure, but it felt like, given a lot of the words in this exercise, the point seems to be not just having experiences, but sharing them, and hearing about others’ experiences in the process. Thus my “English Major” journey, reading about the experiences of others across the planet, across time, across cultures. Though a deep introvert, the desire to Connect is real. Or that is how I see it tonight…

I hope you find this exercise in self-reflection helpful, and that you consider doing it for yourself. It does not really need to take much time, and I have to say, although only one of a million frameworks for viewing your purpose in this lifetime, I found it pretty enlightening, especially when I challenged myself on many of the words that came up for me…

Best of luck with this, and please share this article with your friends in social media, if you think they might find it interesting or helpful…

Warmly,

Dr. Jim Nolan

Drjamesmichaelnolan.com

Drjamesmichaelnolan@gmail.com