The expression “Life is a Journey” is one of the most famous phrases you’ll hear during your life. This journey is filled with lessons, hardships, heartaches, joys, celebrations and special moments that will ultimately lead us to our destination, our purpose in life.
What Is Meant by Journey?
For the purpose of this article, we’ll consider journey to mean traveling a long distance from one place to another and often in dangerous or difficult circumstances.
This metaphor can also be interpreted to have either a negative meaning or a positive one. The negative meaning may be “there is no turning back” and the positive one may be “enjoy the life“.
“Not everyone will understand your journey. That’s fine. It’s not their journey to make sense of it’s yours.”
Ricardo Newbold
Nevertheless, a you navigate the raging seas in your life, you must not allow yourself to drift aimlessly without a purpose. That’s behaving recklessly, so you must take control of your life.
Finding your purpose is fundamental to plotting your life course because this will point you in the right direction.
I appreciate your hustle as you endeavor to build a business while growing your family. But our lives are clearly defined by the journeys we take, not the destinations we reach. The seas in your life will not always be calm.
Therefore, you must chart your course according to God’s plan and purpose for your life.
What’s Your Purpose?
There are several ways to find your purpose in life. Firstly, you must look within yourself and ascertain who you are right now, and who you’re destined to become. Doing this soul-searching exercise will help you discover the reason you’re here. This will eventually save you from following the wrong path and making decisions that will only lead to regret in the long run.
Your purpose should not be tainted by popular opinion or what your friends and family are saying and doing. You must find your path and talk to God about it. Allow Him to guide you through your newly found purpose and show you the pathway to a better and successful life.
How Do You Plot Your Life Course?
Surely you have read this quote before:
Two roads diverged in a wood and I – I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.
Robert Frost
To successfully plot your course in life, there are several things you must do. Let’s dive deep into praying, planning, taking massive action, consistency and focus:
- Praying: Firstly, you must talk to God about it. He is always ready to listen and provide the guidance and strength you’ll need to pull through.
- Planning: It is often said that failing to plan is a plan to fail. If you do not initiate a plan, you will quickly find yourself drifting off course. Important questions to ask: How do I plan to achieve this purpose? Will this approach be effective? Do I need to change some things about myself? Am I being negatively influenced by my environment? Therefore, I can’t overemphasize the significance of mapping out a path for your life.
- Take Massive Action: After talking to God and making a plan for yourself, the next step is to work towards achieving that plan. Taking massive action is paramount. Just consider ancient wisdom from the bible, which states in the book of Proverbs 16:27-29 “An idle mind is the devil’s workshop”.
- Consistency: Consistency is the state or condition of always happening or behaving in the same way, regularly for a long period. Consistency is very important in carrying out your plan and working towards it. The more consistent you are with your routine, the faster you can achieve your purpose.
- Focus: A key strategy in plotting your life’s course is avoiding distractions. Being in focus intentionally and purposefully in control of your awareness to the present moment is critical. Never has this been more important than today, when there is such an abundance of ready distractions competing for our attention.
7 Tips to Discover Your Purpose
Finding your purpose, calling, or mission requires some soul searching. It may be something that seemed unrealistic, silly, or childish at one time. But, allow yourself to consider all things, without judging them as good/bad or right/wrong. For example, a love for toy cars as a child may transfer to automobile servicing as a hobby.
Try these strategies to get you started.
1) Relax yourself.
- Rest your body, mind, and soul.
2) Immerse yourself in the present moment.
- Take in your environment and focus on your senses.
3) Become mindful of the things that make you smile.
- Movies and books that resonate with you deeply
- Inspirational people
- Matters, events and things that bring you joy
- What you loved doing as a child
- Things that make you forget – make time stand still
4) Don’t forget those things that make you angry.
- Injustices that push your buttons
- Policies that make you want to scream
- Social challenges that break your heart and make you furious
5) Allow yourself to explore your memories.
- What did you love to do before you got too busy/tired/old/broke to enjoy it?
- Recall the wrongs you wanted to right and the problems you wanted to solve.
6) Invest sufficient time.
- Prioritize and embrace things that make time stand still and/or energize you to take action.
7) Do something to move toward your purpose.
- Make a call or send that email.
- Attend a meeting.
- Do online research.
- Start an online group.
- Ignite the fire.
In Summary
Life is a journey, filled with purpose. So many drifted away from their life course because they have not found their purpose or they have lost sight of it.
This is why plotting your life course is important because, at the end of life’s journey, you will ask yourself “an important question.“
What did I do with my time here on earth?
Your answer will be determined by how you went about plotting your life’s course. Hopefully, you would be able to say “I lived successfully and achieved my purpose.” Life’s about the journey, not about the destination. The ultimate reward is the process. How would you describe your life’s journey? Share with us in the co
