First off, thank you Nick Polizzi for the opportunity to share my story with The Sacred Science Community.
Four years ago, I was at a crossroads. Despite reaching a place of material “success” or “happiness,” I felt completely empty inside. My body was dangerously unhealthy and my mind was distracted. I had hit a roadblock and my life was falling apart. It wasn’t until later, after 6 months of intensive discovery work with a seasoned master, that I realized my life’s purpose – and that’s when my whole life transformed, for the better.
My recovery wasn’t linked to some abstract woo woo concept that only a mystic might be able to explain. As it turns out, there’s a trove of research that supports the phenomenon of “why am I here?”.
It all comes down to one simple question:
If you could do one thing that could radically improve every area of your life and make the world a better place, would you?
Finding your purpose ultimately illuminates your path by guiding you in times of uncertainty. When combined with ancient wisdom and plant medicine, purpose discovery work creates the long-term transformation needed to live fully, deeply and abundantly. It empowers us to manifest spirit in all we do, in our careers, relationships, self-care, communities and connections with Mother Earth. Living our purpose enables us to be completely at home in every context – on point, present, and capable of giving our gifts to the world.
This ancient call to find purpose can be found in our earliest writing, the Epic of Gilgamesh “He who saw the deep” (2700 BCE) and continues to this day throughout literature and film. Over the last 4,000 years, it has taken on new forms, with practices to live truthfully and ethically (philosophy), and in concert with the laws of Nature (ecology), the Cosmos (cosmology), spirituality (theology) and our psyche (psychology). Despite this evolution, there is a still a great debate about what purpose actually is.
What is Purpose?
Ask a hundred people what purpose is and you’ll get a hundred different answers. However, when we aggregate its definitions across disciplines (above), and across wisdom traditions (Christianity, Earth traditions, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc.), four key components emerge:
Being – The first of these is a sense of immutable essence, wherein a human expresses a set of qualities that are always true, e.g. Alejandro is considerate, Jennifer is inspiring, Xiaogang is compassionate, Maya is intelligent or Hassan is creative. These qualities describe us at our core, and exist whether or not we do anything.
Talents – The second involves us performing activities naturally. These are activities we feel aligned with, by contributing positively to ourselves, e.g. playing the guitar, and possibly to others, e.g. playing the guitar for someone. They might not be easy, e.g. playing the guitar takes practice and discipline, but they are joyful and,create an escalating scale of rewards.
Mission – Third is our capacity to focus our talents towards a goal. Goals are a function of vision, of seeing possibilities and opportunities to create a larger, safer and/or more beautiful, peaceful, efficient expression of something that already exists.
Context – The most controversial revealed quality is context. Our missions depend on our vision, and our vision depends on the personal psychological filters we have for understanding reality based on the quantity and quality of data and science we possess about the world.
When we combine these into a cohesive purpose statement, e.g. “As a caring (being) woman, I heal (talents) those in need, in service of a compassionate world (mission and context).” we can now make major decisions and align every area of our lives with our purpose, creating the best possible version of ourselves.
The New Science of Purpose
Recent research out of Harvard, Stanford and UCLA, supports this ancient wisdom, linking finding your life’s purpose with:
- Living up to 7 years longer
- Reduced likelihood of dementia, stroke and Alzheimer’s
- A stronger heart
- More fulfilling relationships
- More successful careers
- A more tolerant and sustainable world
Never before in the history of our species has it become so clear that purpose is the key to living the life of our dreams – aligned, healthy, connected, sustainable and spiritually-fulfilled.
However, most people haven’t developed an explicit relationship with their life’s purpose. When 87% of the labor force is disengaged at work (Gallup, 2014) and 80% of business leaders (Harvard Business Review, 2014) do not know their purpose, despite identifying it as a top priority and key indicator of success (IBM, 2012), it’s no surprise that the organizations managed by these aimless leaders have moved humanity to the brink of collapse. Business and government leaders have failed to find, lead with and act upon their purpose, choosing instead to maximize corporate earnings over all else, resulting in both the UN/IPCC and NASA reports declaring that industrialized human civilization will collapse in roughly15 years.
A Global Purpose Revolution
If we continue down this path of purposeless consumerism, we can only expect more mass extinctions, rising seas, extreme weather, deforestation, economic inequality, political instability, pollution, and epidemics. Never before has the fate of the human species hung on every human finding and living their purpose. But how do we rise to meet this challenge?
Leveraging both ancient wisdom and the new science of purpose, every human on the planet can now create a connected, abundant, loving and vigorous life of purpose, for FREE! This August, to celebrate Global Purpose Month, my team and I at PlanetPurpose.org are launching the FREE 21-Day Purpose Challenge. Participants in the Challenge can complete one short exercise a day for 3 weeks, deepening their connection to their purpose and creating a life that supports it.
Please join us in creating the life of your dreams and a new planet we can proudly leave to our children.
Yours on purpose,
Brandon Peele
4 Responses
Wonderfully written article! Much deep information of what it truly takes to be “whole and complete”.
Thanks for this great piece.
Thank you for this wonderful article.
A true method of revaluation and teachings with the purpose of planet and species wellness. Openness to this journey is most present at the end of what is not working and in beginning of an energy shift or “stage of life”. I am open to allowing this wisdom to shape this life and the lives of others as we are all one.
Hello, I would like to read more, but the link to the 21 Day Purpose Challenge did not work for me.