You don’t know who you are

Hi folks, today I want to talk about “you don’t know who you are” and what that means. I want to share what it looks like to back-into your life’s purpose rather than finding it. I hope that today’s message is inspiring and that it gives you something valuable for your week ahead. Stick with me through to the end and share this with someone who should hear this message too.

First I want to say that there’s a reason why you should care about finding your purpose. The best analogy is the idea of a lottery ticket. The amount of total numbers that make up a winning lottery ticket is only 6. You could write those 6 numbers on your thumbnail; that’s how small they are. Let’s call those 6 numbers “wisdom” because they represent exactness and right timing. This is what I’m saying: You’re only 6 pieces of wisdom away from being a multi millionaire. You, right now, are enough wisdom away from being a millionaire as the amount of information that could fit on your thumbnail. With that tiny amount of information you unlock a completely different life.

With wisdom you’re able to make the right decision at the right time. And on the surface anybody would want an upgrade of that. The problem is that the trudge to wisdom is not as pretty as it should be. College graduates walk out of their last day with a lot of confidence. They’ve worked hard and they have a studied hiking-map to success. But wisdom is having walked the trails of that map. Wisdom has put in the effort of every step with the weight of a heavy backpack.

If you unfold that map of success the trails look nice. We stand there with our hiking boots on, point at a destination and think that following the shortest-distance trail will get us there.

But wisdom has walked down every trail. Wisdom has found the dead ends that didn’t match the map. Wisdom knows the safest routes and safest seasons because wisdom has context of the whole journey, every route. Wisdom knows where the right trail is because it knows where the wrong trail is first.

And that’s what I want to share today: You don’t know who you are until you know who you’re not, first. Finding our purpose in life isn’t so much about knowing who to become, it’s about knowing who we aren’t meant to be first. It’s about knowing what we can’t sustain and what life efforts are just a dead end. Wisdom is the context of knowing what lottery numbers to not choose, and finding our life’s purpose is about knowing who to not become.

And in that journey of life, we start to narrow in on the right way through. And once we know the right way through and the wrong trails to travel down we gain an earned confidence of the effort of our steps.

One step at a time you’re on the right path now.

If you’ve ever put a lot of effort into the journey of life, I want to be encouraging to say this: every effort you’ve made in the wrong direction becomes you’re wisdom for the future. Keep trying and keep persevering; your efforts are never a waste. Don’t ever stop trying, because its your efforts that grow your wisdom, and its your wisdom who knows the 6 numbers to your success.

I hope you have a great week ahead,

-M