How To Identify Your Core Purpose
Richard Bandler, one of the co-founders of NeuroLinguistic Programming, (NLP) once wrote about how, when taking a domestic flight, a fellow passenger asked for some help. ‘What do you want?’ asked Bandler. The man did not know. He only knew he was burdened with too many problems. When you know how to identify your core purpose your self-awareness helps you simplify your life.
When you know how to identify your core purpose you can be self-aware, co-operate with unconscious processes, and evolve as you gather experience.
Core Purpose, NLP and Spice Girls
Years later when Victoria Beckham was simply known as ‘Posh’ her band, ‘The Spice Girls’’, where teenage icons. Just as Bandler developed the secret weapon of NLP The Spice Girls were fuelled by ‘Girl Power’.
Girl Power, in case you are too young to remember, is a feisty blend of fashionable good lucks, feminism, and an aggressive determination to get what you want.
This is no better expressed than in their hit song ‘Do you wanna be my lover?’ In it the chorus demands: ‘Tell me what you want – what you really, really, want’. For too many of us those words ask a deep existential question because we have no idea.
Core Purpose Can Change Over Time
John Grinder, the other co-founder of NLP doesn’t believe in people seeking out their life purpose. Instead he holds that life has many purposes, and what may be your purpose today may equally be different tomorrow. The warrior’s way is to embrace what comes and choose your actions and purpose wisely.
But this doesn’t mean that we should be aimless or live without purposes or deliberation at all. It simply means that we can be self-aware, co-operate with unconscious processes, and evolve as we gather experience.
Method Of Identifying Your Core Purpose
So, with the proviso that your core purpose may change, let’s take a look at a simple method to determine what it is you really really want.
- Think of something you want. This can be a material object, such as a car, or the desire for your partner to be different in some way. It doesn’t matter where you start.
- Ask yourself the question: ‘If I had ‘x’, (the thing you desire), what then would I be able to do that I cannot do now?’
- Ask yourself ‘If I were able to do ‘y’, (the action you would be able to do as a result of having ‘x’) what would I want next?’
- Go back to step 2 and repeat the process as you climb the ladder of wants and actions.
- At some point you will reach a breakthrough moment of clarity when your core purpose will become apparent.
For many this process works without complications, but an equal number get stuck somewhere up the ladder of wants and actions. Should this occur for you go back and examine your previous choices at stages 2 and 3. Do you really want the items and outcomes you chose?
It’s your life . . . you can choose again!
Variations of this process, and additional material may be found in the books: Core Transformation, Connirae Andreas with Tamara Andreas,and: Focusing, Eugene Gendelin
Let me know the benefits you experience from identifying your core process either in the comments below, or on my Facebook page.
