A meaningful purpose in life is not just relevant to the geniuses of the world like Albert Einstein or Leonardo da Vinci. You as an individual living in this massive world have a purpose, a meaning to live for.  Question is, how do you find your purpose in life?

First of all, you must define your values and beliefs. These are the fundamental blocks of building a meaningful life for you. A belief is a feeling that comes from you and how you have been conditioned to believe as true. These could be in the positive such as a belief that you will succeed in whatever you do as long as you put in the effort or the negative like success only happens to the lucky people. Your beliefs can either propel you into success or limit you into believing that you simply cannot achieve something because you are you. To begin, search within you what you believe about yourself and the world around you. My belief for example is that I believe most of us have in us a need to be significant in something or to someone.

Values on the other hand are the importance and value you attach to an idea and we govern our behaviours according to these values. These can be you maintain transparency in your business dealings because you place importance on having a honest reputation. A value that I place importance on is discipline because it is the core foundation for achieving anything. What are your values?

Values and beliefs vary at different situations

Values and beliefs can range from person to person and vary when considered in different situations. Say for example you saw a person who seems like a homeless person, all dishevelled and unkempt, possibly holding up a sign or a cup to ask for donations from kind Samaritans and then you see next to him a person in a business suit, well-dressed with a seemingly expensive watch also holding a sign and a cup to ask for money. Which person would you give some spare change to? Now this goes back to your value in which you only help those cannot or are in a less privileged position than yourself and your belief that a person that dressed so well could not possibly be poor and ask for money and that an unkempt looking person must be homeless and poor and so deserve help from you. What if the homeless person is homeless by choice; uses your money to fund a gambling habit and the well-dressed person has been declared bankrupt and his nice suit and watch are the only possessions left from his good days gone by? Would that change your value and beliefs?

Think back to a time when you acted on a decision. Did you choose a salad for lunch because your BELIEVE that it is much healthier for you and better on your waistline? Did you lend some money to a friend in need because you felt you ought to help a friend out where you can? Simple decisions in life is made from your values and beliefs, this is your understanding of the world. Where do you stand?

“Open your arms to change but don’t let go of your values.” Dalai Lama

The Good, the Bad and how to challenge the Bad

Beliefs and values sometimes help you move forward and they sometimes limit you in your growth. The environment around us plays a huge part in determining what we believe in. These sort of beliefs requires you to challenge them.

To help you with understanding the difference between positive and negative beliefs and how you can challenge them, I have listed some examples here for you to ponder:

Belief

Slim people are always popular

Value

I will never be fat so that I can be popular too.

Challenge

Is this proven to be true? How about Dawn French the British comedian who is by no means a svelte size 10 and yet she has proven to be popular with the British public. How about Nigella Lawson, the sexy domestic goddess and Christina Hendricks who play Joan, the sexy office manager with the fiery attitude in Mad Men who are not twiglets but both have proven that curves is indeed still very much in judging the number of women who buy dresses worn and inspired by them both.

Belief

To be happy I must be rich and popular.

Value

Being rich and popular equals to happiness.

Challenge

Do you remember Amy Winehouse? She was wildly popular and rich from her singing and yet spiralled out of control with her drug habits, was she happy then? How about Heath Ledger? He was a good actor with great roles and the money that comes from acting and yet felt the need to kill himself, was he happy then do you think?

Belief

I can never amount to anything because I do not have the same resources as the lucky people do.

Value

To try and work hard to achieve something of myself is a waste of time so I am just going to keep to my comfort zone and work my ass off doing something I hate to make ends meet.

Challenge

What do you want to do to amount to something? Just because you were not born with a silver spoon does not mean that failure is fated. Just think about Sir Allen Sugar, was he born rich? Not in the least bit, he did not wake up one morning with wads of cash in his pocket, he worked hard and long for his success. How about Oprah Winfrey? She has a huge number of hurdles to cross such as race, not meeting Hollywood beauty standards and she too has worked her butt off to get to her success today.

As you can see beliefs and values that you may have ingrained within you can hold you back and you need to work past it to acquire a good set of beliefs and values that can guide you in the right way and not hold you back.

When you have finished this article go on to 2nd part: how do you see yourself. Meantime, share with me your values, beliefs and the challenges you have made on them.