Who am I? What is my purpose? Why don’t I feel satisfied? Is there more to life? Finding your place in the universe is a large task, but it is what we’re all after in one way or another. We’re either on the hunt, or wish we could be, or have been and have given up, or think maybe we have found something special, finally, but we’re unsure and afraid. Some of us, very few of us, walk confidently through each day with the assurance that they are being who they are meant to be, doing the best that they can do, and using the moments as wisely as possible.

How Do You Fit in Now?

You feel misunderstood, unappreciated, insecure, sometimes alienated from the people you are closest to. You are constantly seeking but never achieving the standard you have set for yourself, overwhelmed by the tragedy in the world, and disappointed by your own failures and the failure of others.

You feel restless, bored with life, never taken seriously. You see your good ideas go to waste and are frustrated by the unwillingness of others to take a chance and have some fun. You are handicapped by your own disorganization, full of great visions but too overwhelmed by the process to ever get to the end result.

You feel impatient, demanding, and hate the unproductivity in life that you can’t fix. You end up alone because you don’t know how to connect with others. You are aggravated by the weakness and stupidity all around you, and though you see clearly how to correct wrongs you are frustrated because you simply cannot fix them all.

You feel apathetic, worried, indifferent to what others enthuse over, and fearful because you’re so indifferent. You are unsure why other people can’t just relax and get along, but you are full of unexpressed frustrations and secretly wish you could be bolder and more confrontational. You hesitate, go blank in key moments, and then regret the missed opportunities.

The Common Thread of Dissatisfaction

Which paragraph describes you? Maybe one in particular, or all of them, or a combination jumped out and you nodded to yourself as you read. The common thread of all the descriptions is this: dissatisfaction with yourself and your own part of the universe. You don’t want to feel misunderstood, or bored, or unproductive, or fearful. You never intended to alienate yourself, or miss so many opportunities, or leave so many things undone, or let so many good ideas just die. But every day you see those negative moments repeated in your life and you haven’t found a way to change that.

“The first step is admitting you have a problem,” as we learn from Alcoholics Anonymous. Admitting dissatisfaction is the first step toward eliminating it. In yourself, the inner workings of who you are, and in your life, all those outward activities that compose your days, dissatisfaction is not really a negative thing at all; rather, it implies two very important concepts.

You and Your Life Are Worth Improving

Dissatisfaction with yourself and your life implies, first, that you and your life have a value beyond what is being given to them today from your current attitudes and habits. For example, you are dissatisfied with your relationship with your spouse. You feel like your spouse doesn’t really appreciate you, doesn’t take you seriously, and overlooks your needs. The value your spouse is demonstrating for you is not congruent with the value you place upon yourself.

Likewise, when you think and act in ways that demonstrate little or no value for who you are and what your life is, the dissatisfaction you feel comes from the inherent knowledge that you and your life are of much value. Dissatisfaction is that inner motivation to get those two sets of values back onto one accurate level.

Satisfaction Is Possible

Dissatisfaction implies the existence of its opposite: satisfaction. If you can be discontent, perhaps you can also be content. If you are fed up with the mediocre, the frustrating, the boring, the mundane, the half-hearted, the handicaps of your own choices, you can begin to seek the excellent, the fulfilling, the exciting, the rewarding, the passionate, the skills and strengths rather than wandering in the inabilities and weaknesses that have consistently plagued your life.

What You Can Control

An important distinction to make is the difference between what you can change and what you can’t. Success is sure to follow one who diligently puts effort into improving himself and his own life; the same cannot be said of one who diligently seeks to improve someone else and someone else’s life. You control who you are: your feelings, thoughts, habits, character traits, moods, words, responses. You control certain aspects of your life: your daily activities, work, your part in relationships, your downtime, money and time management, routines.

You do not control, cannot control, and should never attempt to control anyone else. You also cannot control anyone else’s life or effort in a relationship. You can manipulate, boss, command, withdraw, and charm all you want, but any measure of control you manage to exert is only temporary and will inevitably create resentment both in yourself and in the person you are trying to control.

Life improvement is about improving what you control in your own life. If you focus on doing just that, your good steps may inspire others to the same. But if you try to force your idea of life improvement onto someone else’s life, you will send him or her running far in the opposite direction.

How to Begin Changing

Ask yourself a few questions; maybe even write down the answers, or take enough time to really think on the answers so that they become part of your inner monologue.

1. Why do you seek to change? What is really bothering you most about yourself and your life? Is it something under your control or not? Is it yourself or someone else? Is it your work, your relationships, your fulfillment or lack thereof?

2. What is your ideal vision for your life? Are you anywhere close to what you imagined you would be? How far away are you? Does it seem impossible? Why? What is so hard about getting from where you are to where you want to be? Is it worth trying? Why or why not?

3. What’s holding you back, specifically? Do you have issues from the past? Regrets that are unexpressed? Bitterness toward parents, friends, family members? Are you fearful, insecure, doubtful? Are you bogged down with practical problems? If you could change, immediately, one thing about your life what would it be? If you could change one thing about your past, what would it be? If you could guarantee one thing about your future, what would it be?

Taking the Next Step

Reading about others who change and improve their lives is motivating. Search out internet sites or books that share such stories. Review your answers to the questions above and decide which areas need change the most. Pick only one or two to begin working on. And subscribe to the RSS Feed here so you can work through topics like what is requirements for life improvement, self-discipline, personality types, and how to create habits and routines.

Not to get you down, but…
We need to admit that we are lazy and we are fearful. Most of what we want to accomplish in life is possible for us. Money is there to be made. Time is ours to use as we will. Relationships become what we put into them. People treat us as we allow them to. The responsibility rests on us. My life is my own and if I let you control is, it is my fault. Shame on you, certainly, for seeking to control, but a greater shame on me for victimizing myself.

Your Purpose Becomes Your Responsibility
Responsibility is part of purpose. Finding out your purpose creates an obligation upon you to fulfill that purpose. If you have value beyond today, if significance and satisfaction are possible, if you have a purpose beyond existing, then you alone are responsible for living up to that value, living in such a way as to be significant and create satisfaction by achieving your purpose. None of these things are impossible, but they require thought, commitment, effort, and diligence.

Striving for Your Purpose
If I fail to achieve my purpose, it is either because I was too afraid to find out what it was or because, upon finding out, I was too lazy to strive for it. To strive means to “endeavor with earnestness, to labor hard” and “to contend, to struggle in opposition to another.” Achieving your purpose means that you must not only work for something noble and big and beyond today, but you must work against your fears, your laziness, your old habits of mediocrity, and all the voices in your society and your past that point you in an easier direction.

Refuse to Waste Your Life
It may sound like I’m taking this all a little too seriously, but wasting a life is a serious thing. That life came from somewhere and is meant to do something. I believe God gave it to you. Whether you believe the White Dolphin of the Lost Sea gave it to you or your parents were just a little thoughtless with contraceptives, you still wake up every morning with a day to fill. You can settle for meaningless mediocrity, but you don’t really want to. If you do, it is only because laziness and fear have taken over and you have settled into victimization again.

Do better than be a victim for the rest of your life. Start taking control of your mind and emotions and body, one step at a time. Ignore that voice that says, “Forget this, it’s a waste of time.” Ignore that small, offended feeling at being called lazy and fearful. Ignore that urge to go get something to eat and settle in front of the tv. You were meant to be alive, not be a victim. Start finding your purpose.

How to Find Your Purpose

Finding your purpose is a personal exercise, and no chart or graph or checklist will really do it for you. Writing helps me, but that’s because I’m a writer. I get a piece of paper and start writing down the things that matter to me. From those, there are a few that really stand out, or that are repeated (different terms or phrases, same idea). Read How to Discover Your Life Purpose in About 20 Minutes by Steve Pavlina. Ask your friends and family what they think you are good at. This doesn’t mean that is your purpose, but it gives you a starting point if you find yourself totally stuck. What do you love? What gets you enthusiastic? What could you do and never get tired of doing? What is your idea of the perfect job? How do you wish you could change the world? What would you attempt if you had unlimited resources? What would you try if you knew you could not fail?

Answer those questions honestly, and try to find the common theme. Boil it down to something clear and quick and to the core. Then hold on to it and start thinking about how that purpose translates into the life you are living now.

Getting Beyond Basic

First, purpose isn’t so basic. Existence is basic; survival is basic. We survive – so that we can continue to exist – largely through instinct, which is also pretty basic. On those three points, we are no different than any other species on earth, which also live by their instincts in order to survive that they (and their kind) might continue existing. Of all the species, however, we are the only one writing poetry, building skyscrapers, reading books, and engaging in all sorts of other activities that are extraneous to mere existence. Existence requires no cappuccinos, no cigarettes, no movies or tattoos or sports or orchestras. The homo sapiens prefer to do more than exist.

Seeking a Greater Purpose
Humans, in general, seek purpose beyond survival. We want to know that we mean something, that we are significant, that we have value, that we contribute something to the universe. The fact that we seek a greater purpose indicates to me that we do have one. The animal and plant worlds exist happily without questioning their purpose; dolphins chatter, birds sing, monkeys play, lions stretch and roar, cats pounce, dogs wag their tails in perfect contentment to simply be. Humans with no purpose grumble, whine, get lazy, get depressed, get into drugs and bad relationships and destructive behavior, give up, kill themselves.

Identifying Purpose Brings Satisfaction

Dissatisfaction with life as it is indicates both the value of life and the possibility for satisfaction with it. Identifying your particular purpose for life is necessary to reaching satisfaction. You cannot meaningfully improve something if you do not know why you are seeking to improve it. Neither will you reach any goals if you set them arbitrarily. You can only muster up so much motivation to push yourself toward something that isn’t really significant for you. The process of improving your life can continue steadily only when you can set goals as they relate to your purpose. Goal-setting for the sake of goal-setting is a weary way to go.

Finding Your Particular Purpose
Finding your purpose is where most of us get stuck. We nod and agree that purpose is important. We recognize the desire we have for purpose. Then we pull out a piece of paper to define “my purpose in life” and either write down a trite phrase that really doesn’t mean anything or stare helplessly, feeling as blank as the paper.

Perhaps you already have a clear idea of your purpose. If so, you’re set to continue. If not, just make it simple: adopt as your purpose the goal of finding your purpose. A bit circular, yes, but it will be enough to keep you going for the next few steps.