This is one of the crucial questions that never goes away.

It has simmered in the minds of great artists, scientists, teachers, philosophers, and just regular ole’ folks.

And that question is this:

Who Am I? Why am I here? What’s the purpose of life? What’s MY individual purpose?

Like the face of Helen of Troy, this question has launched more than 1,000 ships of inquiry, of creation, of seeking.

I recently read an article by Shelley Prevost titled “5 Reasons Why Most People Never Discover Their Purpose.” She suggests that most people never discover their purpose because:

  • You live from the outside in, not the inside out.
  • You look for a career before you listen for a calling.
  • You hate silence.
  • You don’t like the dark side of yourself.
  • You devalue the unconscious mind.

I love this simple yet powerful layout because I find it to be profoundly true. And I find that embracing Numerology as a tool to help bridge this gap can be oh-so useful for beginning to answer – or at least for beginning to engage with – these five reasons why people get to the end end of their lives empty-handed in the Purpose Department.

THREE THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW BEFORE YOU CAN BE HAPPY

YOUR PURPOSE. Yeah. Sure. Right. (scoff, scoff) Sure, this can be a moving target in some ways. Yet in many ways, no it’s not. When you’re aware of the basics that one number (your Life Path number) in your Numerology chart can provide for you, you can propel yourself way ahead of the game. Mix in with that any other tools that you love – Astrology, Enneagram, psychotherapy, StrengthsFinder, whatever floats your boat. When you feel that “zing” – that feeling of connection – that’s when you know you’ve struck Life Purpose gold! And of course, that’s just the beginning. Then you get to cultivate and act upon your Life’s Purpose. It won’t just do it for you. You must be your own Agent of Action.

YOUR CORE VALUES. This is something we often overlook and yet I’ll promise you that you’ll be talking about this one way or another in the couples counselor’s office when your relationship is on the rocks. If you don’t know what you truly value, you will bumble along and wonder why-oh-why you don’t feel happy, why you don’t make good relationship choices, why your job is killing you.

YOUR SENSE OF SELF LOVE. OK. Stop the eye-rolling and listen up. As hokey as this may sound, it’s vital to true happiness. There’s no one better than Louise Hay to illuminate this concept. She maintains that her life didn’t even begin until her late 40s and into her 50s, primarily because she operated out of a sense of fear and self-deprecation in her early years. And happiness eluded her then. I think we can say the same for all of us. If we live with a constant barrage of negatives in our heads – about the world, about others, and mostly about ourselves – we will never be happy. We can hang onto fleeting external moments of happiness, yet the internal foundation for deep and authentic happiness is missing if we don’t treat and speak to ourselves as we would to anyone else we love. Let’s face it.

There are lots of people out there who really aren’t seeking any real answers for themselves. The fact that you’re even asking these questions of yourself automatically puts you in a somewhat exclusive club. I find, personally, that the real trick is to go with the flow and enjoy the the process – even when we experience levels of intensity, big disappointments and challenges, and feeling as though we’re grasping at proverbial straws.

I’ll leave you with a video I think speaks to some of the cultural obstacles we have in our path as we attempt to listen more closely to our internal intuitive network. This speaks to most of Shelley Prevost’s reasons why people never discover their purpose – as only comedian Louis C.K. can explain.

WATCH LOUIS C.K. HERE