How to find a Life's Purpose that's so Exciting You Can't Fail!

My wife and I were once Scholars in Residence at a Teenage Leadership Retreat in Buffalo, New York.  

I gave a class on how to find out why G-d created us, and how to find our individual life purpose. 

One of the examples I gave is that when we learn how to tune into hearing our souls, we are given a sign as to what our unique gift to humanity is.  

I shared that many people feel a tingle inside when they see great works of nature like the Grand Canyon or the Niagara Falls.  

I also shared that when I teach this and other similar topics, I also feel a tingle. As if my soul is telling me, “This is what you were created to do”.

The next day, we went on a group trip to the Niagara Falls and went on the famous boat ride at the bottom of the falls—The Maid of the Mist.  

As all of the teens went to the top of the boat in order to get as wet as possible and experience the falls on top of them, my wife and I went around the side for a private break from the chaos about to ensue. 

 A few minutes later, we heard 200 teenage voices in unison screaming, “Rabbi Dave, we feel the tingle.”

I just wondered if there were enough bathrooms for all of them at once!

That is why I am starting this mini-series full of tips to manage your time better with identifying your life purpose and in the transcription of this podcast you’ll see the link to my website where you can find more resources.

The meaning of life is to find your gift

When you take a look at how doing different activities make you feel, you will identify certain ones that give you that tingle inside.  

This is your soul telling you, “You are meant to do more of this”.

When a goal is so powerful that accomplishing it excites you so much, you will overcome every obstacle to achieve it.

In a company this is often referred to as a BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal, pronounced BEE-hag). Like putting a computer on every desk in every home (Microsoft), which at first glance, no one in the company knows how on earth you will achieve.  

Jim Collins first coined the term in the book  ”Built to Last” and it has inspired thousands.

For you and me we need to break the process down into two stages.  

First, why do we want to accomplish anything great in life, which we will discuss below.  Second, we need to identify the unique gifts we were given to accomplish our “why”, which we will explore in the next podcast.

Finding your purpose in life

First, we need to discover our WHY.  

Why will we get up every day and instead of being comfortable, put in the very hard effort it will take “to do things today others won’t do, in order to have the things tomorrow others won’t have.” ~ Les Brown

To identify your “why”, ask yourself what the one thing is that if you could accomplish it would make the biggest impact at work, physically, mentally, spiritually and at home.  

Then one at a time ask the question “So That.”

For example, at work with my non-for-profit organizations there was a time where I needed to raise a lot of money.  

So that my organization could not spend all its time worrying about making payroll, so that it could focus on its awesome programs.

So that it could reach its full potential in helping the teenagers that needed us so much!

BHAG examples

Now that I had my “why”, there were a lot of ways to raise money. I became adept at many, but without question, the biggest single impact I could have on this goal was to call and have a    conversation with a major potential partner each day. 

 I found doing this very frightening and abhorred it!  

So, every day, before I did anything else, I called one of the names from my list.  

At first, it was enough to paralyze me, but as I did this activity day after day, I learned to actually enjoy the deep meaningful conversations I’ve had with some of the most interesting people in the world.  

Now, I can’t imagine what a less fulfilling life I would have had without those special relationships.

I suggest that in each major area of your life (at work, physically, mentally, spiritually and at home) you pick one “why” and ask “So that” until you have it clear and you can’t live without it. Then pick the one action that will make the biggest single impact to become an expert in that action.

In the next podcast episode, we will learn to identify the unique gifts we were given to accomplish these actions in the best way for us as  unique individuals created with infinite potential.

For more guidance and tips on how to live your dream life, go to my website, therabbiwhogotrichonsunday.com to access content-rich articles and more.

You can also access a link to that web page through the show notes, if you are listening to this podcast on any of the popular podcast platform