When creating a personal brand, it is common to want to jump straight into “doing-mode”. Though there is value in having a go-get-it attitude, with the years I have also found for myself the importance of defining my purpose.
The word ‘purpose’ can have multiple interpretations. It can be the motivation behind what we do or create, the reason why something exists, or a goal we might have.
I find it useful to define a purpose when creating a project simply because it helps me give direction to my actions and make sure they are aligned with what I’m trying to achieve.
As I mentioned in the previous article of this series, knowing our Core Values is one piece of the puzzle. Another one would be our Life Purpose.
Similar to what happens with our Core Values when we are not well aware of them, it is easy to inherit purposes that don’t necessarily reflect who we are as a person.
These inherited purposes shape our life in multiple ways, and can sometimes be so strong that we might be unable to imagine life being any different.
On the contrary, by having a well defined purpose, we are taking a step forward into creating a reality we want to live in.
The major difference between these two concepts can be summarized in this way:
To make things easier for you, I created a free Notion template that you can use to follow these steps and generate your own personalized list of Core Values.
Download template
So far, my favorite exercise for identifying one’s own purpose comes “Wealth without a job”, a book co-written by Phil Laut and Andy Fuehl.
Though they use the term “Life Purpose” in the book, in practice I find that thinking of these statements as “current goals” or similarly, can be much more helpful and manageable if thinking of a purpose seems too much of a reach.
The exercise goes as follow. Take as much time as you need for finishing it, there is no rush:
Example:
The purpose of my life is to use the way I’m able to stay grounded even during challenging situations, my understanding of technology and how to leverage it, my ability to capture and express beauty by developing products, doing photography, writing essays and poetry, so that I can live abundantly, balanced between work and family, capable of reaching my full creative potential, with a community of like minded individuals making a better world.
This is a tool for you to use however it helps you best. Some quick ideas are:
One important aspect about your Life Purpose is that it’s not written in stone. Similar to your Core Values, it needs to be reviewed regularly to ensure it still reflects your reality and whether you need to make adjustments, either by updating your purpose or your actions.
Personally, I like to keep my Life Purpose in a place where I can have easy access to it, like on my Notion dashboard, so that I can constantly remind myself of where I am at.
This is the second in a series of articles exploring the process of creating a personal brand as a journey of self-discovery. If you’d like to be updated whenever the next articles come up, subscribe to my newsletter.
More in this series: Core Values
