The Happiness Explorer

January is one of my favourite months of the year because I really geek out on the collective ‘new year, new you’ energy — mapping out my goals and desires for the year ahead. Instead of being excited about Christmas, I look forward to New Year's Day when I do my annual vision board and fill myself up with feelings of opportunity and possibility. But mapping out my future in this way is less about it working out exactly as I hope and more about making sure I’m living my life on purpose.

Have you ever had an empty feeling and not been able to figure out what is missing, or have you ever felt as though you have lost your direction in life, but not known what your next steps are? Each January I reflect back on how stuck and lost I was in my life and how I was desperately seeking the answer to ‘What will make me truly happy?’. If this question crosses your mind too, then exploring your purpose is a great place to start finding answers.

The great news is that you don’t need to have an Eat Pray Love moment to get more purpose, nor do you need to change your career to something that saves the world. In fact, I recommend to avoid thinking of a job title altogether.

For many of us, our work gives us huge amounts of meaning and it’s easy to believe that our job is what is giving us our purpose in life.

For sure, it can help us to feel purposeful, but what I have found is that if you believe your work is what gives you your purpose, you will quickly feel lost or empty when you no longer enjoy your work, or worse even, lose your job.

Imagine being able to find fulfilment in all that you do because your purpose is within you and not projected on something outside of yourself. This would mean that you would never lose your purpose because it’s with you at all times. Your purpose is a unique quality you have that brings meaning to your life and your work can be a vessel that brings your purpose to life.

For example, my purpose is helping people believe in themselves, which is why being a life coach is very fulfilling for me. But being a life coach is not my purpose, it just helps me feel more aligned to my purpose. Knowing that this is a quality I possess, helps me find purpose in many areas of my life.

To begin figuring out what your purpose is, ask three of your friends what they think your most unique and special quality is. You will probably find that they all say something quite similar. Don’t be afraid to explore this with them further, asking them why they admire it, how it impacts them positively and how they see you apply it.

Lydia Kimmerling is founder of The Happiness Explorer (thehappinessexplorer.com)