Finding your purpose in life is one of the most important task or discovery that you can un-cover and the beautiful thing is – it doesn’t take that long. Matter of fact, in this post – you will learn how to find your passion and purpose in life in just 5 minutes. You will learn how to find and do work that you love and you will be able to answer the question “What do I do with my life?” Most people find jobs and seek career satisfaction from the status of the job they have, the amount of money they make or how people look at them in their role/position but career satisfaction doesn’t come from what you do but who get to be when you are doing that job i.e who your job allows you to be while you are doing that job.
These videos and advise might take you some time to watch, read and understand but the time it will take is not up to the amount of hours most people spend on social media on a daily basis. So, enjoy as you are about to learn something most people never spend time discovering.
These are 5 handpicked TED talks that will help You find your passion and purpose in life today
1. How to know your life purpose in 5 minutes | Adam Leipzig
In a college re-union, while Adam was speaking to his friends, he discovered that 80% of them were not happy in their lives regardless of the fact that they had steady jobs and are well paid. On the other hand, the 20% who were happy had studied courses for the joy of learning and not for the purpose of doing getting a stable well paid job.
The 20% who were happy and knew their life purpose had 5 things they knew:
- Who they were
- What they did
- Who they did it for
- What those people wanted or needed
- What they got out of it; how they changed as a result.
So, in order to find your purpose. You need to answer these 5 questions:
- Who you are
- What you do (what do you love to do?)
- Who You do it for
- What those people want and need
- How do they change as a result of what you give them. If you notice the 5 questions above, only 2 of them are about You.
Three are about other people and that explains why the most successful people in different fields always focus on the people that they serve more than themselves. Adam Leipzig has overseen more than 25 movies as a producer, executive and distributor. and has produced more than 300 stage plays and live events, and he was one of the founders of the Los Angeles Theater Center.
2. To Find Work You Love, Don’t Follow Your Passion | Benjamin Todd
How can I choose a fulfilling career? Mainstream career advice tells us to “follow our passion”, but this advice is dead wrong. Research shows that people who take this approach are ultimately no more likely to enjoy or excel at their jobs.
Instead, if you’re looking for a fulfilling career, the new slogan to live by is “Do what’s valuable.”
What “Follow Your Passion” tells you to do is three (3) things: (1) Identify your greatest interest (2) Find career that matches those interest (3) Pursue those interest whatever it takes. Interests are not a solid basis for career decisions.
Instead, if you’re looking for a fulfilling career, the new slogan to live by is “Do what’s valuable.” Focus on doing something that genuinely helps others and makes the world a better place – that’s the secret to a fulfilling career. Benjamin Todd is the co-founder and Executive Director of 80,000 Hours, an Oxford-based charity dedicated to helping people find fulfilling careers that make a real difference. In three years, 80,000 Hours has grown from a student society to a thriving charity featured on the BBC, the Washington Post, NPR and more, and whose online careers guide has been viewed by hundreds of thousands of people.
3. How to Find Your Passion and Make it Your Job | Emma Rosen
In this talk, Emma talked about having a good corporate job, earning a good salary, having job security, a clear path of progression, her parents were proud of her and she was using the skills she had learnt in the University but She dreaded going to work everyday. One Sunday night, she couldn’t sleep because of the thought of going back to work the next day. She then asked the question “What is for me?” This question made her write a list of everything she had ever wanted to be.
This list had 25 jobs; she spent some time day-dreaming of herself in those jobs and roles.
She then decided to try every job on that list for one year straight before she turned 25. She quit her job and started to try all these jobs.
3 Most important things she learnt:
- Start your career search not by thinking about jobs but who you are as a person. Think about skills you want to use and enjoy using.
- What do you want to get out of the workplace?
- Working Environment. e.g outdoors, company size, office-based, location based etc.
She also talked about the importance of trying different fields and jobs to then see what best suits you. Careers should be like dating. Many few of us end up marrying the people we first kiss or dated. But we do this for our careers and job. Emma advices that using this method allows you to choose your career based on knowledge and experience instead of assumption. The importance of trying things cannot be over-stressed, she gave an example where she wanted to try farming because she loved it but when she really got into it, she discovered that it wasn’t really something she wanted. You won’t know until you actually do it.
4. What should I do with my life? | Charlie Parker
What do you want to be? This was the question Charlie started the talk with. This is also a question everyone has one time in their life been asked. To better understand this topic, he decided to ask his sister who is a teacher to ask her students. Most of them came up with answers such as “I want to be a Tooth Fairy”, “I want to be on the X-Factor” and more like that. Almost all these kids used the term “I’m going to be”…
Then he asked the same questions to adults. The adults answers had a pattern which was something like “I want to be, but I can’t”. Charlie gave an exercise of visual imagination of thinking you have 2 weeks left on earth. Ignore your inner doubt and follow you inner voice. “The number one reason most people don’t get what they want is that they don’t know what they want” – T.Harv Eker.
So, the sooner you can communicate with your inner voice and make it your outer voice while ignoring your inner doubt, the sooner you will be able to answer the question “what do you want to be?”
5. How to Find and Do Work You Love | Scott Dinsmore
Scott got an advice from his friend to “get jobs that helps him build up his resume”.
This advise is the same given to almost everyone, you are advised to get jobs and work placement for the sol purpose of “building your CV/Resume”. On the other hand, an advise from Warrent Buffet is “Getting a job for the purpose of building your resume is like saving sex for old age”
Scott distilled the results down to his Passionate Work Framework – three surprisingly simple practices for finding and doing work you love, that all happen to be completely within our control.
- Becoming a self-expert (understanding yourself because if you don’t know what you are looking for, you are never going to find it) Find your Unique strength. (things that we wake up and want to do, whether paid or not) Find out what your values are. Find out your Experiences.
- Do The Impossible. (Prove yourself wrong by doing little steps that proves your dis-beliefs).
- Surround yourself with passionate people. When you surround yourself with people who are doing what you want to do or doing things that inspires possibility in you, this helps you realise that your goals are possible.
Ask yourself – “What is the work you can’t NOT do”?
Conclusion.
I hope you’ve found this post helpful and have been able to gain some type of value and light on how you can find your passion. I hope by now, you know know what your passion and purpose is in life and will start to do things that puts you in that direction. Which of the videos did you find more valuable? Drop a comment below lets talk 🙂
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