One of the most powerful ways to find long-term motivation, energy, passion, and fulfillment is through discovering a deep and meaningful purpose to commit your life to. By having this bigger picture and larger meaning for your life, getting up in the morning and chasing after your dreams feels easy.
Imagine You Are Dead
Seriously, close your eyes, imagine that you died, that your life had just ended, and think about that. Imagine all the ways people’s lives would be affected, think of the legacy that your life would leave behind, all the things you wish you had done or said to those you love the most, and the fact that you can never go back or change anything, because you are dead.
Now bring it back to the present moment. Realize you have an opportunity, in each day and in every single moment, to be precisely the person that you want to be. Think about the things you want to experience and accomplish before you die. Imagine the ways you want to act, treat others, and who the person is that you want to be. Don’t take the next moment for granted, use it to make your dreams and desires a reality.
Meditation, Values, and Purpose
Meditation is the act of being present to the moment. It is the process of becoming as fully aware and conscious of your full experience in each moment. You will get lost in thought and you will get distracted, and the process of realizing you’re lost in thought and the bringing yourself back to presence is the most important part of meditation. Meditation is incredibly powerful. With consistent practice it will transform you into a person who is more grounded, centered, confident, optimistic, energetic, and appreciative. It is also very good for the health of your brain.
Combining this meditative practice with introspection into who you want to be and what values and purpose you want to have can be incredibly powerful. Asking yourself questions about how you want your day or week to go, the types of mindsets and attitude you want to approach life with, how you want people to perceive you and how you should treat them, what sort of characteristics and personality traits you want to embody, what goals you should strive after, and what you want the meaning and purpose of your life to be can all give you deep and crystal clear clarity into what exactly it is that you want out of life.
The most important part of this is habitual practice. Doing this once won’t change you. Doing it consistently and frequently is what will change you. Every morning or a few times per week will transform your thinking patterns, your attitudes, your habits and motivation, and you will feel as if you are crushing it at life and going down the path that was meant for you.
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” – Will Durant