Finding My Life's Purpose: A Meditation

A Facebook creator named Ifeanyi Christopher recently shared a set of tips to help people stop struggling in life. One of these tips says:

Define your purpose

Without purpose, you’ll drift aimlessly.

What kind of man do you want to be?

Write down your goals and chase them relentlessly.

Purpose gives your life meaning and direction.

Another of the tips said:

Prioritize your mental health

Your mind is your greatest weapon.

Meditate daily — even 5 minutes helps.

Talk to someone if you're overwhelmed.

A strong mind builds a strong life.

By implication, Ifeanyi Christopher means that the practice of meditating daily helps your mental health.

No wonder a thoughtful user named Davis Michael wanted to know how to meditate and also expressed the need to learn more about purpose and mindset. 

Seeing that this user was obviously serious about putting the nuggets to use, and knowing that there might be more people who have these needs, I took the challenge to address those topics he mentioned. So, I promised him that I would address those topics.

This is a fulfilment of that promise.

So, How Do You Meditate?

Meditation is far easier than many people make it look. Before answering the above question according to what I know, I had to seek the viewpoints of Google and Meta AI bots first.

The answers from both bots displayed what the world has been taught about "how to meditate" for centuries probably. These include tips like...

🤔 Set aside time

🤔 Choose a quiet place where you can relax.

🤔 Choose a meditation technique

🤔 Sit comfortably

🤔 Close your eyes.

🤔 Relax your body

🤔 Breathe deeply and focus on your breath

🤔 Release any physical tension, starting from your toes and moving up to your head.

More and more and more.

Seriously! Why making meditation so mechanical and laborious - even apportioning particular durations to each "step"? While there is a lot to learn from those AI tips, I disagree mainly with their mechanical approach to meditation which the bots certainly learned from the predominant viewpoints on the topic.

I Have A Significantly Different Approach

All my life, I have never had to learn meditation. Instead, it tends to come naturally to me. And, I have always thought that it comes naturally to everyone else out there.

Davis Michael's question showed I was wrong in that thinking. Then, the AI answers revealed to me why many people might find meditation difficult to pull off.

It doesn't have to be so. Meditation doesn't have to be difficult if you learn how I meditate in real-life situations without the need to observe static rules like "release any physical tension, starting from your toes and moving up to your head" or "find a comfortable place".

The way to practice meditation - for me - is not to "set aside time" or "find a comfortable place" before you start meditating. Instead, you meditate through the real-life issues that populate your everyday.

This is to say that I use real-life situations as the fuel for my meditation. To make this make much more sense to you, let's use the topic of finding our life's purpose for meditation.

MEDITATION PRACTICE: On Finding Our Life's Purpose

First, let's pause for a while to understand the word "meditation" so that we can know what we are practising before we do. So, what is meditation?

Among all the definitions I sampled for the purpose of this article, the one that satisfies my understanding of the word the most is from Cleveland Clinic. Here it is...

In line with this, you need to understand WHY. Why do you need to focus or clear your mind? It is to enable you find a solution to a problem or - to put it literarily - to find your way through life's many problems and difficult questions.

As a result, the right practice of meditation always focuses on a particular problem or question someone has to deal with at the moment.

In this practice, therefore, we suppose that the question of finding our life's purpose is one of the questions that perturb us as individuals. This addresses what I identify as the first step in a successful meditation session which is to "Start With A Topic That Perturbs You At The Moment: State It Clearly In Writing". Therefore, in our case, each participant writes "Finding My Life's Purpose". So, get a piece of paper and write it down NOW.

The next step after that is to "Just Let Your Mind Rest On The Topic Of The Moment". Even if you are working when the thought comes knocking, you don't have to "set aside time" or wait until you have a quiet place. Instead, you start off right away.

How do you do so? Just let your mind rest on the topic: Finding My Life's Purpose🤔 Take short silent pauses off any other thing you may be doing at the moment to allow your mind simply rest on the topic without being pushy.

This can even help to make you more thoughtful at work. And, it's even great for workplace politics, lol. Funny, but what do I mean by this? Someone who often stays silent - and gossips less - while at work is more valued by employers and more deeply respected (even if also seemingly snubbed) by colleagues.

Well, don't overdo this either. Instead, also have time and attention to respond to mature - and even mundane - workplace chattering from time to time. It's equally good for successful workplace politics since it manifests dynamism and social balance.

I only used an illustration with a situation where a thought begins to perturb you while at work. In such a situation, go at it immediately by letting your mind just brood lightly on the topic.

Don't struggle with the thought you're brooding on. Don't rush it either. Instead, just be receptive to the topic. In other words, let it speak to you rather than you being the one thinking (that is, silently speaking) through the topic.

Exercises: 

1. What are the first and second steps of meditation according to this guide? Share your answer at the comment section below 👇.
2. Practice the first two steps using our chosen topic or any other topic that may be perturbing you. Share any difficulty or unique experience you might have during your attempts to practice the tips. You can also share any question or observation you may have.
3. If you find this helpful and want to continue with this meditation, reshare this on Facebook or on X and get an invite with a link to join a platform where we will continue to get the updates in an inner-circle environment.

In our next session, we will talk about how to know if you practised the first two steps correctly. Then, we will use that to pursue the next steps.

Conclusion

The best way to learn anything is through practice. So, expect that, as we continue this practice-oriented discussion, you will not only learn a much better way to meditate, you are also likely to find your very own life's purpose and even get a huge dose of motivation to go about actualizing your purpose.

If you well meditate

It can only motivate

You to activate

Remember, as Ifeanyi Christopher put it, "without a purpose, you'll drift aimlessly" in life. So, this is an opportunity for many to find their individual standing in life. Therefore, please share to help such people.

As I had the opportunity to say on an occasion recently, 

How can you say you want to be great but you are afraid of people benefitting from you? Even to share great information you found on social media is difficult for you. You begin to think, "if I share this now, someone will learn it and know what I know" or "if I share it, I'm helping the content creator gain traction". Yet, it's someone else who shared the information with you. It's impossible to ever be great with such a petty selfish mindset because great people are great because people benefit something through them.

Thus, do all you can to overcome that selfishness and share this just to help many find their purpose in life and be more fulfilled.

Thanks.