How to Set an Intention to Find Your Passions and Purpose
Everything in our lives starts with an intention.
The careers we choose, the places we live, the people we surround ourselves with.
Even the food we put into our bodies starts with an intention.
If that’s true, is it possible to use an intention to find our life purpose?
An intention is a guiding principle for how you want to be, live, and show up in the world. It’s not the same as a goal, which typically has an endpoint or an expectation of success.
An intention is a path you aim to align to. It guides our thoughts, actions, and attitudes.
If you consider that your life purpose is who you are at your core, then an intention can help you discover who you’re meant to be, and how you’re meant to show up in the world.
Intentions are heart-centered, emotionally-charged beliefs that guide our actions. Setting intentions helps to bring our beliefs, emotions, and actions into alignment.
Setting an intention is the first step in embodying who you want to be. As Dr. Wayne Dyer says, “You don’t attract what you want. You attract what you are.”
If you’re ready to discover your life purpose, embrace who you are, and align your career with your life path, start by setting an intention.
Here’s how to set an intention to find your passions and purpose:
Start with Gratitude
When you’re ready to change something in your life, it doesn’t help to constantly think about what you don’t have yet or what you want to have. This thought process keeps you in a scarcity mindset. And because your thoughts create your reality, you’ll stay stuck in this state of wanting and lacking until you decide to break the cycle.
You can do that with gratitude. Gratitude is an essential part of the intention-setting process, because it allows you to shift your focus to the good things you already have in your life. Gratitude helps you to appreciate your life as it is, without trying to change it.
The word appreciation means to increase in value. So, when you concentrate on the good feelings you get from practicing gratitude, those positive feelings will increase. And so will the good things in your life, because, as Jen Sincero says, “what you focus on, you create more of.”
To start your intention-setting exercise, begin by writing down at least 12 things you’re grateful for. Be specific: instead of writing, “I’m grateful for my job,” write something that’s specific and meaningful to you, like, “I’m grateful for a job that allows me to use my strengths every day and get paid well to do it.”
As you write, notice how you feel. Feel into those emotions and start to focus on what you want more of in your life. Is it more happiness, joy, fulfillment, energy, or excitement? Continue focusing on that feeling or emotion as you continue your intention-setting practice.
Identify Your Core Values
Your core values are an essential part of setting an intention to find your life purpose. Values guide your behaviors, decisions, and actions. When you know what’s important to you, you can live in alignment with those values. This leads to greater fulfillment, clarity and self-awareness. Like Roy E. Disney said, “when your values are clear to you, making decisions becomes easier.”
If you’re having trouble coming up with values, think about times or situations in your life that create conflict. If you’re working more than 50 hours each week and you feel frustrated or wish you could spend more time with your family, maybe your values are family or work-life balance. If your boss is a micromanager who constantly looks over your shoulder and pushes you on deadlines, and you feel trapped or discouraged, maybe one of your values is autonomy or independence.
As you move through life, your values might change. For example, early in your career, you might have valued learning, achievement, or flexibility. As you advance, you might start to value teaching, collaboration, or stability.
To identify your core values, start by thinking about the times you were the most happy, proud, or fulfilled: what were you doing? What contributed to these feelings?
Based on those experiences, consider what made those experiences so memorable, and start to make a list of your top values. Click here for a list of common values if you need help getting started!
Once you have a good list, see if you can combine any of the values on your list to start narrowing down to your top 5. For example, if you value philanthropy, generosity, kindness, and community service, you could combine those into a single “giving back” or “serving others” value.
Why 5 core values? Well, because if everything is a priority, nothing is a priority. Your core values guide your decision-making, which means you’ll need to use your values to weigh different options. If you have too many values that are important to you, it will be more difficult to make decisions. Plus, a list of 5 core values is easy to remember, so you’ll be prepared when faced with a challenge.
Decide What You Stand For
Similar to identifying your core values, deciding what you stand for helps to focus your attention and set your intention for discovering your life purpose.
What do you get fired up about? What can you talk about for hours on end? What about the way things are do you want to change?
Deciding what you stand for helps you set an intention to find your purpose, because it helps you answer the call to what the world needs from you.
I truly believe that women will change the world – we already are! Deciding what you stand for is the first step in being the change you want to see in the world. Whether that’s ending childhood obesity, preventing wars, or ensuring every person has access to clean drinking water, an education, and equal opportunity.
You can also think of this as your BHAG (Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal). What do you want to change about the world that’s almost too scary to admit?
My BHAG is to close the gender pay gap. Not just here in the US, but for women around the world. Because I believe that if every woman lived her purpose (and got paid what she is worth to do so), every need in the world would be met.
Declare Your Intention
Now that you focused on the feelings you got from your gratitude practice, made a list of your top 5 core values, and determined what you stand for, it’s time to declare your intention.
As you read over your notes, you may start to see themes popping up from the pages. These are clues to your passions and purpose.
If it helps, take 5-10 minutes to sit quietly and think about (or meditate on) these themes. How could they come together to help you live an intentional life? How could your gratitude list, core values, and the causes most important to you help you discover your life purpose?
When you’re ready, go back to your journal and finish the following sentence: “My intention is to…”
Here are a few examples:
“My intention is to live a life of service to others.”
“My intention is to create radical change in the world.”
“My intention is to raise children that make the world a better place.”
“My intention is to learn all I can so I can teach others.”
“My intention is to remove injustice from the world.”
“My intention is to end global poverty.”
Your intention may seem vague, and you may have no idea how you will serve others or create radical change or end global poverty. If so, you’re on the right track.
Our brains are designed to solve problems. When we give our brains a problem like, “I want to remove injustice from the world, but I don’t know how I will do that,” our brains get to work, making connections, and letting the Universe know our plans.
This is the foundation of manifestation. When our brains need to solve a big problem, we can turn to the Universe (God/Spirit/Tao) for guidance and direction. You’ll start to pay attention to patterns in your life, signs that you’re on the right path, or that things are falling into place.
Create a Personal Development Plan
Conspiring with the Universe, your brain will alert you to insights or resources to help you continue to forge your path toward finding your life purpose. To fully tap into those insights, the next step is to create a personal development plan.
To create your personal development plan, think about what you might need to figure out your life purpose. Consider the following questions:
What resources will you need (books, courses, tools, etc.)?
Who can help you (friends, mentors, teachers, etc.)?
What do you still need to learn?
What strengths do you need to hone?
What limiting beliefs do you need to overcome?
From there, you can put together a plan for committing to your personal growth. This could be starting a morning or evening routine where you meditate for 10 minutes or say positive affirmations for 5 minutes. You could schedule 1 hour every day for learning, taking a course, or practicing a new skill.
No matter how you fit it into your day, it’s important to create a habit around your personal growth. Schedule it in your planner or calendar if you have to! Commit to spending time each day focusing on YOU.
Discovering your life purpose may not come to you overnight. It takes patience, practice, and personal development (and a little trial and error!) to figure it out. In fact, clarity on your life purpose will only come from taking action. And consistent action each day will help you gain clarity quicker.
To help you stay accountable to your personal development, share your daily habit or goals with a friend. Better yet, encourage a friend to join you in discovering their life purpose! When you’re both committed to a similar goal, you can encourage one another and report back on your progress.
You can also work with me to build momentum in your life purpose journey. Together, we’ll use my 4 P’s Process to align your passions and purpose with a position that helps you make an impact.
The Takeaway
Setting an intention helps you to focus your daily actions so you can start to discover your passions and purpose. By taking the time to declare what you want from this one and only life, you’re letting the Universe know how to support you. Remember: “You don’t attract what you want. You attract what you are.”
Take action now: Grab your journal. Following the steps above, start by writing a list of at least 12 things you’re grateful for. Next, write down your top 5 core values. Continue this practice by considering why these are your values and how they show up in your life. Next, write about what you want to stand for; causes you care about, how you want to serve the world, what fires you up.
Once you completed those journal prompts, go back and read what you wrote. See if you can identify any themes, or if words or phrases suddenly come to form in your mind. This is your intention. Write it down, then say it out loud. You can also write it on a post-it note or index card and place it somewhere you’ll see it every day.
When you declare your intention, creating a personal development plan will help you move forward with positive action each day. In your journal, planner, or calendar, commit to your intention. Decide what action you will take to use your intention to discover your life purpose.
What action will you commit to? Let me know in the comments!
