I’ve worked with clients from all walks of life. There are stay-at-home mums, CEOs, PAs, tradesmen, surgeons, lawyers, artists, entrepreneurs, actors, business owners, merchant bankers, massage therapists, IT managers, policemen, advertising execs, writers, students, songwriters, receptionists, retirees…and a whole host of other occupations in between.

Every one of these clients has a similar objective. They want to fill their days with meaningful activities and live a life with some sort of purpose.

There was a time when I found the whole ‘life purpose’ question unanswerable. I was looking for something original, creative, inspiring…and Big. And then I thought about what comes naturally, what matters most to me.

I discovered that my life purpose is completely unoriginal – I want to make a difference in other people’s lives. I’m interested to do that in my own way so for me it means making a difference in very small ways (cooking a favourite meal for one of my girls, organising beautiful venues for our meditation days, buying my favourite magazine each week) as well as slightly bigger ways (the work I do with clients, being environmentally conscious, creating a great place to work for our team, donating a percentage of our profits to charity). But I’ve come to realise that in my lifetime, I probably won’t make a difference in a Big way…and that’s ok.

Choosing a purpose in life can be hard. Whatever you choose, find something that comes naturally to you and something that you’re actually drawn to. Living your life purpose doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice pleasure! To the contrary, I think that living a purposeful life should also mean living joyfully.

Most importantly, make sure you choose your life purpose, not someone else’s!

Here are some examples of other people’s life purpose:

• To make others see the humour and lightness in life

• To help other people develop

• To be the best friend/partner/parent you can be

• To create

• To see beauty in everyone and everything

• To live a spiritual life

• To inspire others

• To find stillness

• To find financial freedom

• To change the world in some way

• To continue to develop and grow