Chris Mance II - Mental Skills Coach

Self-awareness is arguably the most important of the four domains of emotional intelligence. It dictates your ability to understand your behaviors and the behaviors you perceive in the world around you. Most importantly, you must have self-awareness if you want to live a purposeful life.

The only way you can identify what you love to do is by being self-aware of how you spend your time when you are most enthusiastic and fulfilled. This self-awareness is the first step to living life with purpose. Furthermore, figuring out how to live life with purpose is the #1 reason why self-awareness will ultimately make or break your success.

Building Self-Awareness So You Can Live a Life with Purpose

Purpose is the combination of passion and the desire to achieve a goal with an impact bigger than just you. You identify passions simply by being self-aware of the things you love to do. Specifically, you can find passions by answering the following 5 questions author Mary Reckmeyer, Ph.D. suggests:

1. What activities or environments are you repeatedly drawn to or eager to try?
2. What new skills or activities do you pick up quickly and easily?
3. When are you most enthusiastic and fulfilled?
4. Which activities are you excited about doing again and again?
5. When do you become so engrossed that you seem to lose track of time?

Step 1:

Once you can answer these questions you are very close to finding purpose. However, the mistake people make with passion is getting caught up in analysis paralysis. So don’t let yourself overthink this.

It’s likely you’re either passionate about more than one thing or not that passionate about any one thing. This is a common dilemma. You don’t have to have a single major passion to find your purpose, but you do have to have at least something that interest you before you get to step 2. Ideally however, you would proceed to step 2 with several passions (or at a minimum several things that at least interest you), not just one.

Step 2:

Since your purpose is the combination of passion and the desire to achieve a goal with an impact bigger than just you, the next step is about goals. Obviously just not any goals, but goals that allow you to express your passions in a way in which the impact goes beyond just you.

If you can’t think of a goal like this for a particular passion, then eliminate that passion as a pathway to your purpose. For all others, write down a list of these type of goals underneath each passion. These goals should inspire others, help others learn, drive change, or somehow leverage family or community for example. Try to write at least 2 goals for each passion.

Step 3:

With the remaining passions and corresponding goals, go through this scoring process below.

1. Category 1: Which goal excites you most when you imagine the process of pursuing it? Give the most exciting goals 5s and the others 4s, 3s, 2s, and 1s as the excitement decreases. (Multiple goals can have the same numbers)
   
2. Category 2: As you read each goal, do you find that they emotionally connect with something related to a family member, a friend, or your community? Does the goal relate to mentoring, coaching, or teaching? Will this goal help others overcome or triumph over something? Will achieving the goal inspire someone you know or those in a similar situation as you?
   
   The more emphatically you can say yes to any of these questions for a goal, the higher the number you should give it. (Again, assign each goal a number from 5 to 1, with multiple goals having the ability to have the same number if necessary.)
   
3. Category 3: How close is the goal related to one of your talents, areas of expertise or spheres of influence? Do you have mentors, peers, or friends who can help you pursue this goal? Do you have access to one or more organizations or communities related to this goal?
   
   The more emphatically you can say yes to any of these questions for a goal, the higher the number you should give it. (Again, assign each goal a number from 5 to 1, with multiple goals having the ability to have the same number if necessary.)

Step 4:

Now in this final step multiply the numbers given for each category above for each goal. This calculation will give each goal a final score. For example, “Goal A” may have the following category scores: 5, 3, 2. So the final score for “Goal A” is 30. Using this calculation, the goals with the highest scores are ideal candidates to build your purpose around.

If one goal has by far and away a higher score than others, then this is a clear indication of an area to direct your focus. On the other hand, if multiple goals have very similar scores, then lean in on the one you’re either instinctively drawn to or where you have the most expertise.

If this seems complex, I would love to help you with this process in a series of one-on-one virtual coaching sessions. Please contact me here.