In Habitually Living on Purpose, I mentioned how I am focusing on habits this year in an attempt to live according to my Life on Purpose statement: My Life on Purpose is a joyful life of freedom, continuous learning, encouraged and supported creativity, insatiable curiosity, and prolific creation, driven by passion and a desire for excellence, powered by a healthy body and soul.
Previous articles in this series include: “powered by a healthy body”, “continuous learning”, and “insatiable curiosity.” Today’s focus will be on the “joyful life of freedom” aspect of the statement.
Freedom can mean a lot of things. I personally take it to mean that I’m independent. That is, I’m free to pursue my interests and to make my own decisions about life. A life of freedom means a life of choices.
Interestingly, choices and decisions mean that you not only say yes to some things, but you also have to say no to other options. Otherwise, you haven’t really made a decision.
I think a big key to a life of freedom is being conscious about what you desire. You get to make the decisions, so you shouldn’t let those decisions be informed with poor data or social conditioning about what’s desirable or right. For a lot of people, that means realizing that just because everyone else seems to get married, buy a house, and have kids, it doesn’t mean that will make them happy, too. Or maybe running their own business isn’t really what they wanted after all. Maybe spending all of your free time watching TV and playing video games isn’t as fulfilling as you’d like.
Now, there are circumstances that impact your ability to make those decisions. For instance, if you don’t have much money, you can’t decide to do expensive things, at least not sustainably. A lack of money is a limitation. Other limitations might be a lack of friends, a lack of convenient transportation, and a lack of information.
So by pursuing a life of freedom, I’m also interested in reducing those limitations. There’s only so much creative encouragement and support I can provide if I can’t afford to eat, after all.
The joyful part of that statement? It’s a reminder that what I do shouldn’t make me miserable. I could make all the money in the world, but if I am miserable and can’t enjoy it, what’s the point? It means that I should make sure that no matter what I do or how I do it, I want to make sure that I’m fully present and enjoying myself.
It doesn’t mean that I expect everything in life should be full of rainbows and unicorns and sprinkled with happiness. It just means that I know that I have a choice in terms of what I pursue, where I work, how I play, and how I allow all of it to shape my attitude.
Independence requires a lot of personal development. As you can see, there’s a lot loaded into that aspect of my life on purpose statement.