How Knowing Your Purpose Simplifies Your Life

Amidst the clutter and the crazy schedule in your life, have you ever felt inside that there is more to life than just going through the day-to-day motions of life?

Despite everything you do to simplify your life – decluttering and organizing your home, prioritizing your tasks, planning your meals, do you feel this little tug in your heart that says you’re still missing something?

You try to shrug it off and put it into silence, but it keeps on coming back.

If you have felt it, you are not alone. I’ve felt that too – many, many times.

Like you I tried to ignore it too, yet it kept on coming back.

And then one day I called it quits and stopped ignoring that little tug and acknowledged it instead.

That’s when I remembered that the reason I’ve been simplifying my life is to have some peace of mind and feel happier and fulfilled at the end of the day.

I don’t want to live my life on autopilot.

While simplifying is indeed the key, I have started it on the wrong side of the equation.

I was so eager to organize our home and my schedule and that has been my focus entirely that I have forgotten to pause and ask first, what is really my life’s purpose?

How can I fulfill it every single day? Are my day-to-day tasks in line with it?

Amidst everything I was doing to simplify my life, I was really not fulfilling my life’s true purpose.

At the end of the day I thought I was simplifying my life, but I wasn’t really.

It is only when you have known your life’s purpose that you can truly begin to simplify your life.

And here’s how it does the job.

Knowing your purpose gives your life meaning.

Why are we here is probably the biggest question we can ever have in our lives.

Even more specifically… why are we here, as women?

Are we a result of some kind of cosmic accidents and chemical reactions?

In Christianity, we learn that a Supreme Being, whom we call God, designed us as we are and put us here. So we are not a result of some freak accident, like some science wants us to believe.

God created us and so we are here for a reason.

Just by knowing that we exist for a reason can already give us a sense of meaning, even if we do not know exactly what that reason is yet.

In the simplest of things we can find meaning when we know the purpose of our lives.

Take laundry for example. It becomes not just about washing the dirt off our clothing, but a service to our family, an opportunity to express our love and care for them.

Even when life’s difficulties hit us, the burden becomes more bearable when we try to see it in light of its purpose into our lives.

Like when a friend betrayed us. We feel hurt, angry and disappointed, even frustrated. But it is also a time to learn to be forgiving, an opportunity that we might not have had we not experienced any betrayal.

Knowing your purpose gives you a sense of direction.

Where will you be and how will life look like for you, ten years from now?

Whatever picture you have in your mind, that’s what purpose looks like for you.

For example, what matters most to you is your family and you want to be a great Mom.

Now what does being a great Mom mean to you? Perhaps it’s taking care of your kids, being able to stay home for them.

Ten years from now, you’d like to see yourself making money from home, attending to the needs of your children, who would be at their teens this time.

That’s your direction; that’s where you want to go.

Without a purpose in life, you won’t know where you should go. It’s like you hit the road with no clear destination in mind. You can take as many turns as you want, but you end up nowhere.

You will tend to make decisions based on your feelings, or peer pressure or the latest trends. Since you don’t know where you’re going, your life will be left at the mercy of someone who has a clear direction in life.

Knowing your purpose shows you what to focus on.

Your purpose becomes your standard in determining whether your activities are important or not.

When deciding whether you should commit to an activity or not, you simply ask, will this help me in fulfilling my purpose?

Take your schedule for example.

How does your schedule for the week look like? Do you have too many appointments and tasks in your to-do list that you barely have time to breathe?

Look at each of them. Does everything help you fulfill your purpose?

Without knowing your purpose, you will not see clearly which is important and which is not.

This often leads to a crazy schedule because everything seems to be just as urgent and important as the other.

And you know where this leads – a busy day that leaves you feeling drained, stressed out and unfulfilled.

On the other hand, knowing your purpose helps you prioritize. It helps you decide on which is the most important task for the day and cannot be left undone, and which is of least importance and may be done later, or can be just crossed off from your task list without you feeling guilty about it.

This leads to a simplified and saner schedule, where you can breathe and sleep peacefully at night.

Knowing your purpose shows you the clutter in your life.

Have you gone through some decluttering lately?

If you have gone decluttering your stuff, you can say from experience that among the basic questions we ask ourselves to decide whether a thing should be thrown or not are – Do I need this? or Do I use it on a regular basis?

We tend to evaluate things based on their usefulness in our day-to-day life. Everything we own have its purpose. Whether it’s still doing its purpose or not anymore – that’s our usual standard when we declutter.

When a thing is not doing its purpose anymore – like an old toothbrush – we get rid of it.

Now dig deeper and you’ll see that clutter is really not only about things.

Things are what is obvious because you can see and touch these around your house. But clutter comes down deeper – into your thoughts, values, and choices – whether that be about your career or lifestyle.

What thought or value do you have that doesn’t contribute to your purpose? Which choices do you often make, but are really contradicting your purpose in life?

Without knowing your purpose, you really won’t know.

But when your purpose is clear with you, you can easily spot the wrong thoughts, values and choices in your life.

How to Determine Your Purpose in Life

Now that you know how important it is to know your purpose, how then do you determine yours?

These days, information is very easy to get. If you need to know how to do something, all you have to do is search for it in Google.

So I typed the words how to know your life’s purpose in Google and these are some of what I found.

You can learn about your life’s purpose by identifying your passions. Like what do you love to do or what comes easily for you. By doing what is most natural for you, you will find your life’s purpose.

Another method is by asking yourself some strange questions. One of which is If you knew you were going to die one year from today, what would you do and how do you want to be remembered when you die?

If those don’t work, try connecting with others. Listen to what others appreciate about you. You can also find and build a community.

Those are just three of what I found on Google Search. If I continue exploring the results page, I knew I would still find more ways on how to find your purpose.

Is a Self-Discovery Quest the Key to Finding Your Life’s Purpose?

It seems that when you are looking for your purpose, you’ve got to do some kind of personal exploration, like a self discovery quest.

The question now is… will this self-discovery quest really lead you to your life’s purpose?

For example, you love traveling when you were still single. Does that mean that your purpose has to do with traveling?

What if you have a toddler and an infant, and you can’t travel because you need to take care of your kids, does that mean that you are not fulfilling your life’s purpose?

While self-discovery is a great method in getting to know yourself and what makes you unique – your preferences, the things you love to do, your dreams and aspirations, is it enough for you to end up really knowing your purpose?

Moreover… is it the right way to discover your purpose?

We’d like to believe that it is.

Because if it’s not, then how can we really define our life’s purpose?

Who can really define your life’s purpose?

Can you really tell why you are here, yourself?

Or do you need someone else’s help? Perhaps from someone who had been at the beginning of it all.

Think about it.

As Christians, if you believe that God designed us and put us here, can He also have the answer on why we are here?

More specifically… on why we are here.. as women.

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