Finding Your Life Purpose

“I am the round table at which the community gathers to nourish itself.”

Everybody has a natural impact they create in the world. Do you know yours? Everybody has a life purpose that gives him or her the ability to make decisions based on what they want to do, rather than reacting to the conditions in their lives. Do you know your life purpose? Knowing my natural impact and having a written life purpose statement has allowed me to live a more fulfilled life.

I retired in 1992, and was searching for what to do next. I had a sense that something was calling me, but didn’t understand what. In 1998, I started The Coaching Training Institute’s courses. At that time I had no interest in being a life Coach, I just liked taking classes and I wanted to be a better communicator and leader.

During the Fulfillment class, we explored the impact we naturally create in the world. I knew I enjoyed helping people, but I wasn’t doing very much of that. Through a series of guided visualizations, however I started getting a clearer picture of what that could look like. In the class, we coached each other to get a phrase about our natural impact. Mine was something like, “to help others who want to help themselves.”

The second part of the process was to identify what you would have to be to have this impact. The goal was to come up with a metaphor or symbol. Following some more coaching I realized that I only wanted to help people who wanted to be helped, and that I was not interested in working with people who were resistant. I then got this image of people coming to a table. I thought of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. The round table was important because everyone is seated equally, and the circle is a symbol of wholeness.

I saw individuals coming to my table, sitting down, and eating. I only provided the table, and the space. Finally, I saw myself as the table, and with a bit of word-smithing, I arrived at my life purpose statement.

During the next few years, I did some informal coaching, and saw how that was aligned with my life purpose. When an opportunity arose to do it full-time, I took it. In 2000, I became the Staff Life Coach at The Omega Institute for Holistic Studies.

My life was changed forever when I learned my natural impact, and wrote down my life purpose. I consciously and unconsciously started moving towards that simple 13-word sentence phrase, my true north. I made decisions that were in accordance with the natural impact I create. I began to live a more fulfilled life. Over the years, I have coached 100’s of people on their life purpose, and they have all enjoyed the same experience as me. You can do it I can help.

Win Harper has a private practice, presents Life Coaching workshops, and heads the Leadership Training program for the management team at Omega. He co-leads the InSight and InTuition: Living a Purposeful Life workshop in Costa Rica for Omega with his wife Elizabeth and is the Sealed With Love Life Coaching consultant.

Contact Win at www.winharper.com.