The best way to get on track to fulfilling your life purpose is to know that there's no 'correct' version of what fulfilling your life's purpose looks like. Many people seem to believe that it looks like what a celebrity or icon does.
There's a key word in the phrase 'fulfilling your life's purpose'... fulfilling. Break that down further and you see the words full and fill. How full do you feel doing whatever it is you do? In whatever task lays before you, are you filling it with ALL of you, or only a small fragment?
You can continue to compare what you are doing to others and see it falling short. You can also continue to think you're doing it wrong, or not enough. And instead of being fully in each moment, your mind will wander onto what's next, what's missing.
You'll never feel full.
When you greet your loved ones, is part of you thinking about work? When you are working, is part of you feeling guilt for not doing something else? If this is happening, every single experience falls short of filling you up. You'll constantly feel like you're wanting more.
What if fulfilling your purpose is to fill each moment with your full attention, and to interact with what life presents to you in each of those moments? Maybe that could be something similar to what a celebrity or icon does.. but it might also look like something a stay-at-home parent does. Or a teacher, a lyft driver, or a grandparent. It's letting life live through you and experience the fresh and raw 'data' that exists in each moment, rather than the narratives and scripts you have running through your head.
Having a vision for your life - a North Star - is not about metrics or goals. It's about how you are experiencing each moment of your life. It's a vision of your most illuminated self... how you experience yourself when you're at your most confident, compassionate, inspired, engaged, brilliant and loving.
When we get too specific about our goals, we often miss the fact that all we actually want is to feel good inside. To feel like we are in flow and alive.. whether that means joyful and exhilarated, or calm and content. For example, you can get a job or relationship that checks all the boxes, but if you feel horrible, it won't actually be what you want.
When you create a vision of your most brilliant, joyful, engaged and content self, it allows you to notice the moments in your life right now when you are in those states. Because these are pleasurable states, you activate neuro-electro-chemistry that aligns with feeling good. As you do this, and notice it, your brain-body system is able to track this is as data for how to create more situations where you get to experience that state.
That data can then spark ideas for future trajectories. But those future ideas don't need to be something specific we cling to.. we can use them as ideas for preferences and inspiration, and also leave room for something even better than what we can currently imagine.
The paradigm shift is: instead of using your attention to envision only what is not happening, use your beam of awareness to shine fully into each moment right now to gather data about your own strengths and talents and preferences. What moments in your life now are you at your best, most brilliant and fulfilled?
This helps you say yes to things that align and no to things that take you off course or that don't honor your specific neurobiology and sensitivities. This is what I mean by having a north star... it's not a goal, and it's not something outside of you.. it's a symbol of the most 'lit up' version of you... an illumination of what it feels like when you can see your best self clearly and you know how to align with that vision.
What is in front of you now? What situation are you in right now and how can you be fully in it to discover what gifts it has for you? As you notice those gifts, a path begins to emerge.. it's a path that connects your past with your most brilliant present self - which creates a brighter trajectory for your future. But your present self needs to be at its most brilliant. And the best way it can do that is for you to be completely and fully here with what - and who - is in front of you right now.
How much of you can you give to the tasks or people who are in your current moment? That's the journey of fulfillment.
