These 12 steps have pushed me along.
I can’t drive across town without Siri by my side. The networks in my brain jam up, and smoke comes from my ears when I navigate to an unfamiliar address. Siri has saved me on many occasions. We all need a guide, someone to show us the way at times. The 12 steps below will give you a push in the right direction to living a purpose-driven life.
1 — Know your why
Before setting out on a journey to live a purpose driven life, you need to know your purpose, your “why.” Why did God create you? What were you born to do? Nietzsche said,
He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.
Start by asking God. I did, and He pointed me in the right direction. You can also take a spiritual gifts assessment and a career assessment. Knowing your why sets you on the right path.
2 — Create goals for a purpose-driven life
You discovered your why; you’re on the right path, so what do you want now? My why is writing. I feel the same way about writing as Eric Liddell did about running.
God made me fast. And when I run, I feel His pleasure.
— Eric Liddell (a gold and bronze medal winner in the 1924 Paris Olympics)
So, I set a goal — get paid to write. Money is the endgame only because I want to write all the time. And my family likes shelter and food.
3 — Make a plan
Your goal is to lose 35 pounds this year, write the next great novel, or run a marathon. These are awesome and ambitious dreams. How do you plan to get there? Plans are the specific actions and strategies you will use to achieve your goals. They are detailed and focused on the steps needed to get to your purpose-driven life.
I had to become a better writer to make a living at it. To this end, I planned to take online writing courses, read books and articles on writing, and practice my craft on Medium.
4 — Create objectives
Objectives are specific and measurable targets that are set to support the achievement of a goal. They are often used as benchmarks to assess progress and determine if adjustments need to be made to a plan. Objectives should be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART).
My objectives were to earn five writing certifications, read one book a month, post one article a week on Medium, reach 100 followers, enroll in Medium’s partner program, and publish my first eBook. In retrospect, one article a week was shooting too low, but I did attain seven certifications while holding down a full-time job and a side gig.
5 — Set your alarm
You got where you are doing the things you’re doing. Turning a ship around takes time and a massive amount of effort. Business as usual won’t lead you to a purpose-driven life. How badly does your discontented soul want it? Enough to get up early?
Once the world is awake, your beeps, bells, and rings start firing, and it’s tough to hold off the constant waves of distractions. Wake up early and work on your goals before the world rises. This time, before even the birds start chirping, it is beautiful, and you’ll grow to love it.
The extra time is easy to find. Americans spend 2.5 hours a day watching television.¹ This number doesn’t account for the time mindlessly scrolling and trolling on our phones. So, turn off the television early, put away your phone, and go to bed! You don’t have to sacrifice sleep to discover your purpose-driven life — just the Game of Thrones.
When only God and I were awake, I invested 200 hours in writing courses while reading through the Bible a couple of times.
6 — Block your time
You’re leveraging the first hour of your day. What about the next 15? The flow of everyone’s day is different, yet there are ways to recapture time that can be diverted to your goals. Try blocking your time. As Thomas Oppong said in his Medium post on time blocking,
Time blocking is a productivity method that divides your day into small blocks of time. Each block of time is reserved for accomplishing a specific task.
For instance, reserve 30 minutes in the mornings and evenings for reading and responding to personal emails. And when you’re on the company clock, do the same for your work correspondence (if possible). Blocking time for emails and eliminating constant interruptions will redeem a massive amount of time and keep you focused. An Adobe study found that people spend five hours daily on email — three hours on work and two hours on personal email.²
Apply time blocking to your social media usage, as well. Allow yourself 30 minutes in the mornings and evenings. Multitask and do it while watching an hour of television at night. You’ll save an hour a day.³
Time blocking is a life hack that helps you work smarter and accelerate your discovery of a purpose-driven life—unlike the Hugh Grant character in the movie About a Boy.
My life is made up of units of time. Buying CDs — two units. Eating lunch — three units. Exercising — two units. All in all, I had a very full life. It’s just that it didn’t mean anything.
7 — Put up fences
Here’s a brief survey:
Can you say no to people, or are you like a pinball bouncing from one request to another?
Do you answer every phone call?
Respond immediately to every text message?
Do you operate in a perpetual state of emergency?
Many people would answer yes to most of these questions because it’s easier to be distracted than it is to stay focused. It’s simpler to buzz around living other people’s plans than to pause and work towards their own purpose-driven lives. And if you give them a chance, others will just use you as a tool to achieve their own ends.
If you really, truly want to live a purpose-driven life, you need to build a fence around your time. I’m not suggesting selfishness, as you’ll see in the final point. But you’ll never be the best you and never discover your purpose driven life if you don’t protect the time needed to get there.
Instead of flittering from crisis to crisis (other people’s), create boxes of time to help others. And remember, someone else’s emergency isn’t your priority. Has anyone left you a frantic voice message needing help, but you were in the middle of solving another person’s crisis and couldn’t immediately return the call? When you called back a few hours later, they flippantly said they figured it out or got someone else’s help.
Heed that lesson.
8 — Unleash your superpower
You have a villain to vanquish. But you don’t have to be a hero and hurl exploding bombs into the ocean. And you don’t need to don your cape and fly off to find this enemy.
Look in the mirror.
My nastiest villain was a lack of self-discipline. I couldn’t string three consecutive days together to achieve a worthy goal that solely benefitted me. I’d do anything for anyone at any time, but good habits interfered with my relentless pursuit of meandering.
Then I got sick of the man in the mirror.
In June 2020, in the throes of the pandemic, I enrolled in a 6-week real estate pre-licensing course live via Zoom. About four minutes in, my villain smirked and laughed about the $400 I wasted on the course. He knew I wouldn’t endure the 90 class hours and the required 3–4 hours of daily study. And then, if I were one of the 60% of students who passed the exam, I would have to take another 90 hours of post-licensing courses.
Somehow, I summoned the superpower that lives in all of us.
Consistency.
I rose early, went to bed late every night, and studied 500–600 hours. And I passed the exam on the first try!
Wow! This superpower of consistency hooked me. A person can achieve whatever they want by working towards their goals little by little each day. Things move slowly initially, but momentum and confidence kick in, and you become powerful and unstoppable like a freight train.
I applied consistency to losing weight, reading the Bible, and taking writing courses. Consistency still fights my battles, defeating my lack of self-discipline every day.
Charles Stanley said,
Discipline determines your destiny.
The discipline of consistency will reshape your destiny, too. Unleash it.
9 — Tell someone else
Tell some ONE else, not every breathing human you pass pushing a shopping cart. Choose someone who will encourage you, remind you of the endgame, and kick your butt (softly) when you need it. Be selective. You’re inviting this person behind the curtain into the deepest sanctuary of your life. I shared my journey towards a purpose-driven life with two people — my wife and best friend. I’d trust both with the keys to my liquor cabinet.
10 — Measure your progress
If you’re not tracking, you’re lacking. I love spreadsheets and have several, tracking many things.
- Every writing course I’ve taken with the number of hours of each class and a list of certifications.
- The fiction and non-fiction books I’ve read.
- Time spent reading through the entire Bible the first four times.
- My weight and waistline since 12/23/2021 (down 28 pounds to date).
- Daily push-ups since 12/28/2022 (6702).
Why do I track and measure everything? Measuring lets me know if my chosen objectives are moving me closer to my goals and how fast (or slow). The numbers reveal the truth. My heart, mind, and mouth may want to believe and tell a different story, but the facts don’t lie.
This weight loss chart illustrates that between December 2021 and March 12, 2022, my efforts to lose weight were misaligned with my desire. And then, later, the chart revealed plateaus informing me that I needed to pivot and try new things.
Tracking and measuring highlights essential information needed to make decisions; however, the magic is the motivation and momentum it sparks. I started performing daily push-ups and could only do 34, but I caught fire as I did them, tracked them, and felt the results. Just 100 days later, I did 65.
11 — Celebrate your wins
Your journey to a purpose-driven life should be fun. Pump the brakes and celebrate the victories along the way. Don’t think of it like a kid seeing how long she can hold her breath underwater. Come up for air on a Friday night and gorge on Nutter Butters after losing ten pounds — but only for the night. You won’t regain the weight in one sitting and will be back on track to lose the next ten starting on Saturday.
12 — Remember that your purpose-driven life isn’t all about you
The goal of living a purpose-driven life is to enrich the lives of your friends, family, and community. Being the best version of you accomplishes this task better than the lazy, binge-watching, Nutter Butter-eating sofa dweller.
You’ll share in the spoils, but your highest reward will be watching your loved ones enjoy the life you helped make for them.
Pursue your purpose-driven life
Pursue is a serious word, meaning “to follow in order to overtake, capture, kill, chase.” Do you want it with this intensity? If so, don’t shirk, side-step, or surrender any of the 12 steps above. Be patient. You’re on a long but sure journey if you stay the course.
One day at a time.
Here’s a bonus step to discovering your purpose-driven life. Read my new book, Stronger Down the Stretch.
Footnotes:
Onword and Upwords by Dennis Brady 
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