Life Purpose – 10-step Framework to Discover Your True Purpose
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Want to have more meaning in everyday life? Want to find your life
Finding your true life
Your life
It can be to live with more joy, to have a dream job, to work as a life coach helping others pursue their goals, to live in harmony and have inner peace, to feel fulfilled while making a positive impact on the world, have a loving family you love spending time with, to be a role model – to name a few ideas.
And it’s not something you discover one day, and then you’re done. Your
In this article, you can find 10 simple tips that will help you find your life
But first, let’s look a bit deeper into what your

How do you know what your purpose in life is?
It’s challenging to know what life
Those are just some general categories of life purposes but don’t let those shy you away from discovery!
Ask yourself:
- How out-of-the-ordinary is your life?
- What have you said yes to that no one else in your life can say yes to?
- Did that thing excite you?
- Did it make you happy?
The world needs people like you who realize that there is only this moment and these tasks, so make the most of every opportunity that comes your way. You never know where life might take you if you are willing to be open and try something new.
Live life by your own standards, not by others. Cherish meaningful relationships. Do things that make you happy, even when it makes no sense to others.
You don’t have to explain yourself or justify your life
RELATED POST: 21 Signs You’re Already Living a Purposeful Life
Why is life purpose important?
What are the benefits of knowing your
It might help to answer this question instead, “Why live without one?”
Living without true
Your true
There are two main ways life
- life
purpose can help give life meaning; motivation to move forward, and - life
purpose can bring joy and fulfillment.
And now that we got those things covered let’s move on to the 10-step framework that can help you find your life’s

10 step framework to find your purpose in life
You can use this 10-step framework to find your
Step 1) Know your joys.
Ask yourself what life activities you enjoy the most.
What are those life activities that make you feel truly joyful? Not just excited, not just interested, but genuinely joyful, calm, and connected. Centered. What makes you feel alive and energized?
The first step to finding your life
So write down a list of things:
- you love
- you like
- you enjoy
- you get excited about
- that make you laugh
- that move you
Your life
Example: I love playing bridge. Yep! Once a week for some years now, I turn into a 75-year-old lady pretending to be in an Agatha Christie novel, hahaha!
Is my life
But I do feel like part of my
- Compliment their skills.
- Ask how their week has been.
- Hopefully, bring a bit of laughter and joy to their days.
And playing bridge helps me decompress and get into a flow state, and it brings me so much joy and energy. All those things you’ll need so that you can live your life
Step 2) Know your skills.
What are you good at? What other’s think you are good at? What would you like to be better at and are working towards?
Write a list of life skills you have.
These can be anything – not just what you do at work, but also anything and everything you do in your free time, even though you wouldn’t practice them anymore on a regular basis.
And don’t just write the things you already know how to do; also add something you’re working to develop – things you could be good at someday.
Your life
Example: I played violin for about 20 years. Am I good at it? Well, not particularly. Is my
Did I then waste 20 years practicing it? No, I didn’t. Because I learned grit and persistence, I learned to push through pain, I learned routines, I learned beauty, I learned to channel my emotions and make people cry from movement, and I learned not to quit.
And to serve my
Step 3) Know your core values .
What do you value? What is important to you? How do you demonstrate that in your life?
It’s not just about skills you have and the things you love that can help you find your life
So the next step is to write a list of your core values (what’s important to you?)
Maybe you value honesty, commitment, creativity, precision, honor, and integrity.
Maybe you value green living, recycling, animal rights, nature, and the environment.
Maybe you value kindness, caring for others, and acceptance.
Maybe you value working with your hands, creating things, and building stuff.
Write a list of personal life values that are important to you.
You can find a list of 192 personal core
You want your life to reflect those
Example: I loved working in the corporate world as a purchaser and process developer. I was also pretty darn good at that. I also wanted to bring added value to the company I was working for and did my job as well as possible. And I earned well enough to live comfortably. But something was missing.
Even though the company I was working for was doing important work to make the world a better place, it wasn’t perfectly aligned with my
And it wasn’t easy to let go and leave because many of the components to live my life’s

RELATED POST: Core values – a list of over 150 personal values + core values list PDF
Step 4) Align your joys, skills, and values with your life goals.
The idea behind goals is that they give you direction and help you stay focused when you want to achieve something that matters to you. But they’re not the only thing we should live for.
The next step is to align your joys, skills, and values with your life goals. But before you can do that, you need to have some goals in mind.
So what are some of your goals? An easy way to figure out your next goal is to write down things you want to change. Look around you and look within you. Is there something that would make your or someone else’s life better or easier if something would change?
Write a list of goals that come to your mind. And create new ones.
And make sure that they’re aligned with your joys, skills, and
Don’t know if your goals are achievable? No worries! Check out this post: 10-step method to set attainable goals.
And remember, you can always adjust your goals.
An achievable goal shouldn’t anyways be something that takes too long; three months is a good timeline. If it’s longer than that, you might want to adjust it. If it’s a year, 3-year, or 5-year goal, I would call that a dream or a vision that you can divide into multiple milestones, aka goals that will make that dream or vision true one day.
Example: You might have a goal in mind, but it might lack one of those components.
Let’s say you want to write a cookbook.
It would be good if you enjoy writing and cooking (joys). And it would be good if you would know how to write and cook (skills) or at least you’d need to know how to find a good ghostwriter and people who have good recipes so you could curate the cookbook by finding and sorting them into an exciting book. And if you value, for example, healthy living or fair trade ingredients, you would have those aspects part of your project.
RELATED POST: How to set your mini-goals each month + cute (& free) Monthly Goals Printable
Step 5) Write your life purpose statement
Now that you know your joys, skills, and
A life
Here are some examples of life
- I am here to spread joy, love, and life.
- I am here to connect people from all over the world and with different backgrounds.
- I am here to help others find their life
purpose . - I am here to contribute more than I take from the world around me.
- My life
purpose is to create beautiful things from recycled materials. - My life
purpose is to help people and companies communicate their message clearly to inspire, engage and sell more of what they offer. - My life
purpose is to help stray cats to find their forever homes.
They are not perfect life
Your life
It’s just there to help you.
So if you would write your life
Step 6) Find your ikigai
The next step is to find your ikigai. What is that? What is ikigai?
Ikigai is a Japanese concept – a philosophy – about “the reason you wake up in the morning” or loosely described as “your

The westernized version of it holds four elements in it:
- What you love
- What you’re good at
- What the world needs
- What you could get paid for
And when all those 4 elements intersect, you’ve found your ikigai.

Example: When I started this SaturdayGift blog, my idea was to share my knowledge about balanced shopping habits. The sweet spot between minimalism and clutter, between overspending/overshopping and thrifting.
I had (what I thought was) a great concept and a lot of ideas I wanted to share and write about.
But after the first 9 months, I realized that maybe this is not something that the world needs. Or at least not at this moment. And therefore, I couldn’t get paid for doing that.
And I needed to eat. I needed to pay the bills. So I needed to adjust my “mission.” And it turned out that changing my “mission,” I found something that I love, I’m good at, the world needs it, and I can even get paid for doing it. And (at this moment) is my Ikigai.
But ikigai is much much more than just this one diagram – one tool.
Read more about ikigai here: Find your ikigai – the ultimate guide to find meaning in everyday life
Find your ikigai worksheets: COMING SOON
Step 7) Daydream
One of my favorite quotes is from Walt Disney, and it goes: “If you can dream it you can do it.” Daydreaming is one of the most enjoyable ways to try to discover your life
If you would close your eyes and go to this magical place in the future where you would live the absolute perfect life,
- What would you see?
- What would it feel like?
- What would you or others be saying?
Forget about your skills and goals for a moment and just pretend that you would hold every bit of knowledge you’d need to live your perfect life. What would be different?
And then write it down. You might find an indication of what your life
Example: I did this kind of exercise about 10 years ago, and none of the things that came up was something I was actually doing in my life.
I wasn’t even speaking my native language, Finnish, but I was there in this dream doing my work in English.
I was finishing my master’s while working full time climbing up the corporate ladder, and I was thinking that the dream I had, had nothing to do with what I was putting all my efforts into.
Yet, it was my dream. And it stuck with me.
And here I am years later, sharing this story with you – hopefully helping you live your dream one day.
Step 8) Create routines and new habits.
If you’re not living your life
And the best way to do that is to create new habits and routines. Something that would either help you figure out your life
Think about the dream you visioned in step 7.
- What would need to change that would take you one step closer to getting there?
- What are the things you would need to do on a daily or weekly basis?
- What would you need to focus on more, and how could you develop a new habit so it would come more naturally to you?
Write down your “normal” day.
- What do you do in your everyday life?
- What time do you wake up?
- What do you do next?
- How do you spend most of your day?
And then write down how you think your future self would spend the day.
Are there some similarities already? Is there something that needs to be adjusted or changed entirely?
Example: When I knew it was time for me to change my life completely and follow the dream that just didn’t leave me alone, the most challenging part was figuring out what I actually needed to do daily. I had no clue what I had gotten myself into. There I was working in my corporate job when suddenly I wasn’t anymore because the dream to find and then follow my life
You know, it’s not like there’s a job description for your life’s
So you’ll need to figure those things out. And creating routines and starting new habits that serve you better can give the perfect push in the right direction.

Want to track your new habits? Grab printable habit tracker from this post: 43 Cute & Free Habit Tracker Printables (instant downloads, printable gifts)
Step 9) Develop yourself
When you’re searching for your life’s
The same way you’ve acquired the skills you hold today. In the same way, you’ll need to develop new ones if your
And it’s not always the most enjoyable time when you need to learn something new. It’s hard work. It needs commitment. It might mean letting go of something else you like and enjoy.
But the good news is that usually the things we are good at we also enjoy.
Example: Children don’t know their
So if you want to get some motivation to develop yourself, look at babies. Look how persistent they are when they decide it’s time to walk instead of crawl. Look at children how they follow their routines, go to school, learn new things, have dreams and hopes, and are creative.
They are pure with their life’s
But of course, they couldn’t do it alone. That’s why kids have parents, teachers, and other important adults there to guide them.
Step 10) Get a mentor or a coach
The last step on your journey to find your life’s
Whether it’s a one-or-one life coach you see or a group coaching session you attend regularly, it’s going to help you sort out your thoughts and ideas.
You can also join a mastermind group or start your process by signing up for an e-course and then see where that takes you.
Or talk to a friend that seems to have found their
And maybe one day you can pass that knowledge to someone else and help them find their
—
So now we’ve covered all 10 steps that can help you with your journey on finding your life’s
I hope these tips and steps have helped you get started on your life
Your purpose in life might change over time.
You must have noticed that life is full of surprises and it doesn’t always go according to plans. Some of those surprises are pleasant and life-changing, others are not so nice, and we wish they had never happened.
Maybe some of those events are there so that they’ll guide you to your next step, and those changes can affect your life
Your life
And it’s good to keep in mind that your life’s
In conclusion
It can be difficult to figure out what exactly it is that will give you a sense of fulfillment and happiness, but you can congratulate yourself for taking a huge jump towards it by going through these ideas and analyzing and reflecting on your life.
Let me know how it goes for you in the comments; I’d love to hear from you!
RELATED POST: 15 simple things you can start doing today to live a purposeful life