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So many of us drift through life for years wondering in the back of our minds when we’ll “find purpose.” The challenge to this task is that everything in modern society is designed to distract us from our purpose. Every advancement in technology and shift in media formats is geared toward grabbing our attention. Given this environment, it’s no wonder we can’t focus long enough to figure out what’s meaningful to us personally.
So, how can we start to find purpose? One of the best frameworks I’ve found for shifting my perspective and focusing on what matters is intentional living. Essentially, intentional living means “living on purpose.” Knowing what matters to you – and what doesn’t. And making daily decisions based on that.
Sounds simple enough, right? But it can be quite challenging in practice.
Despite the challenges, the payoff of truly living intentionally is mind-blowing. It will completely change your life as well as how you feel about your life. Instead of feeling stressed, pressured, and pulled in a thousand directions, your mind is clear. You focus easily. And you feel passionate about everything you do – because you know the “why” behind it.
There are a number of posts on this blog that show you how to live life more intentionally. Here are some of the best:
What Does Essentialism Mean and How Does It Compare to Similar Movements?
“Essentialism” has been one of the most influential concepts for me as I restructured my life. (I even named this blog after it!)
If you haven’t read Greg McKeown’s book, you might wonder what “essentialism” means and how it compares to adjacent concepts like intentional living and minimalist living.
I often write about all those subjects, as they all reinforce each other. This post is the best place to start if they’re new concepts for you. It provides quick, simple definitions and comparisons that can help frame discussions about how to find purpose.
What Is Essentialism? This Simple Idea Can Level Up Your Life
If you check out the post above and are intrigued by the concept of essentialism, stop by this post all about essentialism next. It summarizes the key points of McKeown’s book and spells out all the ways this concept can improve your life. From better time management to to greater respect from others, there are myriad benefits to getting clear on your prioritie. And ignoring everything else.
And perhaps most importantly, the process of narrowing down your goals and eliminating what’s inessential will help you find purpose.
A goal to “find purpose” can be intimidating on its own. Where do you even start? But essentialism offers another path: digging up your purpose from where it already exists – buried under a mountain of distractions.
Loved Essentialism? Here are 5 Thought-Provoking Books to Read Next
What if you’ve already read and loved Essentialism, and the posts above are old news for you?
If you’re anything like me, you’re feeling inspired. And you want to keep digging into similar concepts and frameworks for reshaping your life.
In that case, check out this post about 5 self-development books to read after Essentialism.
There, I provide quick summaries of the most valuable insights from the 5 best self-help books I read following Essentialism. It will help you make an informed choice about which book to devour next in your journey to find purpose.
10 Eye-Opening Self-Reflection Journal Prompts for an Intentional Life
I recommend starting with the posts above, because it’s helfpul to understand the frameworks I write about often here – essentialism, minimalism, and intentional living.
But if you’re eager to jump into a project to design your life with intention, I recommend this post with 10 self-reflection journal writing prompts to get you started on your way to find purpose.
As we’ve discussed above, intentional living requires knowing what matters to you. Figuring that out is the primary task, and the rest of your life changes follow from there.
However, it can be hard to know what matters to you personally.. So many things can cloud our thinking on this topic: opinions of those close to you, values of the culture in which you live, self-judgment, self-doubt, and the sunk-cost fallacy urging you to stick with the status quo.
I find journaling to be a powerful practice to cut through all that BS. You can journal freeform, of course. But the prompts in this post can guide you straight to the heart of what matters most to you. And that’s a necessary step to find purpose.
One Simple Reason You Struggle with Time Management and Goals
Now that you’ve figured out what matters to you, you’re ready to start applying intentional living to your everyday life.
This post about why time management and goal setting is so hard for most of us is an excellent place to start to reframe how you approach personal improvement goals.
It summarizes concepts from Essentialism and Burkeman’s 4000 Weeks to explain in simple terms why you’re always struggling.
And beyond that, it provides a step-by-step guide for how to restart your life with a whole different approach.
You can stop talking about how you want to find purpose. And start actually figuring out what matters and making the changes required to focus your energy on those things.
How to Use Realistic Time Management: 5 Tips to Crush Anxiety
The post linked above explains the why behind your time management woes. (Hint – it’s not just ADHD or a lack of self-discipline!)
This post gets into the how of changing those patterns. It describes 5 quick steps you can take to change your approach to time. This new approach allows you to get more done while at the same time feeling less stressed.
I later followed up this post with 6 more tips for realistic time management. I recommend experimenting with one or two of the tips from these posts and seeing how it changes your life.
And if you find this topic fascinating, both posts include a recommended reading list for learning more about realistic time management.
A Better Way to Escape Toxic Diet Culture
The topic of escaping toxic diet culture may seem unrelated to other topics mentioned in this post – intentional living, realistic time management, how to find purpose.
However, I find it very relevant to the discussion of knowing what is meaningful to you and focusing on that.
As a millennial woman, I can tell you one of the biggest wasters of time, attention, and energy is the pursuit of physical perfection. And specifically weight loss.
This isn’t a failing on our part. Because there’s so much money to be made from diet programs and exercise equipment/regimens, massive efforts have gone into media messages that insist that this pursuit should be our highest priority.
And given the constant flood of these messages, it’s almost impossible to completely escape toxic diet culture.
While the Health at Every Size, Fat Acceptance, and Intuitive Eating movements have made immense progress in this realm, I personally found that intentional living is what saved me from diet culture.
This post about a better way to escape toxic diet culture explains how knowing what matters most to you – as well as what simply isn’t that important – is vital to ignoring advertisements and media messages that try to pull you in a direction that will ultimately waste your time and leave you unfulfilled.
Your Skincare Routine is Wasting Your Time
Similar to the post linked above about wasting time, energy, and money on diets, this post explains how skincare “routines” waste your time.
In general, the pursuit of beauty leads many of us to dedicate too much thought – and cash – to “problems” that don’t need to be solved.
Even worse, skincare products often cause the very problems we’re trying to solve. In the post, you can read my story of exactly how this happened to me.
This post makes an argument for letting your 10-step routine go and replacing it with a dermatologist-recommended simple skincare routine. You’ll make space in your bathroom and in your life.
A Step-by-Step Guide to Setting New Year’s Goals You’ll Actually Achieve
Most of us who are interested in concepts like intentional living are the types that like to study self-improvement tips and set goals. And January 1st is, of course, the most popular time for Westerners to write a New Year’s resolution list for how to “glow up” or get their life together in the coming year.
And yet in recent years, I’ve seen a lot of think pieces about the futility of this New Year’s exercise. Many people are moving away from the “new year new me” mentality and advocating for giving up the practice entirely.
You’re welcome to do that, of course. Personally, I love setting goals and I find the new year a powerful and motiving time to do it. But I ran into the same struggles others have in keeping my resolutions.
This step-by-step guide to setting goals you’ll actually achieve spells out why resolutions haven’t worked for you in the past. And it explains – step by step – exactly how to approach it differently.
Follow this guide in January – or any time of year – to plan goals that actually have meaning for you. Which means you’ll actually make them happen.
How to Design a Mindful Morning Routine Checklist for an Intentional Day
Those of us interested in self-development topics are also often interested in designing our life routines and daily habits to maximize our productivity, health, and other goals.
And yet, even if you’re a morning person, these morning habits can become exhausting over time.
This post about how to design a more intentional morning routine checklist explains why that is and how to fix it.
Some are more obvious (think: don’t waste time doomscrolling in the morning). But some may be unexpected (e.g., eliminate some healthy habits from your routine).
The post explains how to design a morning routine that promotes mental and physical health while at the same time stays true to your intentions – your primary goals in life.
It includes dozens of suggestions for activities you can include in your healthy routine to set yourself up for an intentional day.
And most importantly of all, it explains how to design your mornings so they’re genuinely enjoyable. I promise it’s possible!
How to Break the Phone Addiction: Easy Steps for Massive Impact
Ah, screentime. That timewaster that makes us all miserable, and yet we can’t seem to break away from it.
If you’re interested in intentional living, I’m guessing you try to reduce the time you spend on your phone. After all, its main function is to distract you and pull you away from what’s most important in your life.
There’s so much advice out there about how to break a phone addiction. Most I read was quite drastic. And frankly, too intimidating for me to attempt cold turkey.
After reading a couple of books and a lot of online advice on the topic, I distilled this list of 5 easy baby steps to take to gradually decrease your reliance on your phone.
I found these completely manageable. And I was shocked that I didn’t feel bored or antsy like I thought I would without my phone. I felt like I was finally free.
Other factors aside, I can promise you’re not going to find purpose with your nose buried in social media apps. If you’re not ready for a full phone breakup, dopamine reset, or analog life, try out these tips to start on your journey to freedom from the tyranny of the screen.
What Do You Think?
What do you think about the concept of intentional living? Have you made changes that have helped you to live your life more mindfully? I’d love to hear from you in the comments!
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