Rediscovering Your Life’s Purpose Through Your Childhood Memories

“I have absolutely no idea what my purpose in life is.” or “I doubt I have a purpose in life.” Do you ever catch yourself saying any of these statements? And when you are prompted to keep searching, you might respond with something similar to this, “Trust me, I have done ABC but I still come back empty. Nothing seems to fulfill me.” At this stage, you are certain that, you are one of the unlucky ones who were not blessed with a purpose. I pray and hope you get to rethink this after reading this post.

Jeremiah 29:11 (New International Version)
For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Purpose discovery

There are moments when I wonder how I developed the passion for writing that inspires and has an impact. Ordinarily, accountants deal mostly with accounting software, spreadsheets and numbers. Where did this desire to write come from? The genesis of my blog, OMT’s Digest, will let you know that I turned to writing after experiencing loss. However, I recently came to a new discovery that this explanation was partly true. I had surprisingly rediscovered that, it was much earlier than this. The passion existed years ago and I possibly did not pay much notice to it or my sense of self-awareness and esteem was not developed enough to sense it.

It could also be that it had always been there and in navigating my loss, I was unconsciously steered back to my original passion. It felt like a new discovery that was fueled with clarity and intent. Retrieving these memories from my younger days has made it much clearer. The passion already existed but it lacked proper direction and intent. It was shelfed and stored away to gather dust until my “stability” was shaken.

The rediscovery process

The time travel expedition started when I had the urge to write another book for kids, this time utilising my learnings and knowledge from my first publication. Even though I had a list of themes for future projects, I found myself thinking of new concepts for this book. I do not recall exactly what happened in between but I suddenly recollected that I wrote two stories after SHS.

One was titled, “The Young Orphan.” I told my family, how I sat behind my brother’s desktop; with the protruding behind and rectangular system unit and typed away. Back then, I would take my USB device to a cafe before I could get anything printed out. On the day of submission, I took a troski and typical of ghanaians I found myself walking about in circles because everyone seemed to keep giving me wrong directions to the Macmillan Office. Google maps did not exist back then. I submitted it, but it did not have the happy ending I had imagined at the time.

I’ve sadly forgotten the title of the other story. It was a thriller and I spent days at the library of ATTC writing out this story. It was filled with twists and turns as directed by Detective Opie. I know it would have been a good read, unfortunately I do not remember the specific details. I remember experiencing a sense of pride after completing the story.

The search

So with these throwbacks, I went to pick up my laptop to start a search into my Yahoo archives. I had this hope of finding bits and pieces of these stories that I could upgrade with my experience and have it published. Fortunately or unfortunately, I did not find any of it but I landed on another discovery which I had completely forgotten about. I had written a short piece to Teen Mirror for a feature I think on 24 January 2005. Eeeeeish Opie was already spreading the message of hope 18 years ago and here I was thinking I discovered this “new” old love some 9 years ago. I was even rhyming to my astonishment!

The realisation

It had been there all along! What if what you are not finding has been completely forgotten and neglected in the land of your childhood memories? This means there is hope and all it takes is an adventure of curiosity into your childhood or youthful days. Please consult with a therapist or psychologist if your childhood was traumatic before undertaking a journey of this kind. If I hadn’t made the decision years ago to live my life more deliberately, I might not have noticed it. My love for art also began in primary school, which may be why I enjoy crafting with my children.

I am now aware of this but like every other human, I wonder whether an awareness back then would have informed some of my choices in life, like the course to study in school etc. It’s never too late though. I am happily pursuing this now with awareness and intention and it has not been an easy journey doing this as a parent. The blessing in all this is that I am super intentional with raising my kids.

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How to discover your purpose

If you related to the person who had given up on finding his or her purpose at the beginning of this post, then these few tips should hopefully guide you. In case after trying this out, you still arrive at the same conclusion, feel free to book a session with me to guide you through it.

7 Steps to discovering/rediscovering your purpose

1. Put together a list of activities that you love or would love to do.
2. Unless you are sure that you do not have a purpose, then move directly to step 6.
3. Review your list and highlight the top 7 at most. Identify activities that bring you joy and even without being paid, you will be self-motivated to get it done.
4. Position the activities in order of preference, from the most to the least.
5. Observe and indulge in the preferred list of activities generated under Step 3. The aim is to identify 1-3 activities that you can focus on to develop, as a hobby for your mental wellbeing or as an additional income source.
6. Search through your database of childhood and youthful memories. You can rely on your memory, photos, keepsakes or simply asking your parents, older siblings, friends or close relatives of their memories of you. If you already know your purpose, this step will validate what you already know or lead to new discoveries.
7. Evaluate your discoveries from step 6 and start paying attention to the impact of these activities on you and others. Objective feedback from yourself and others is critical in this step. The aim is to find out what serves you and can be used to serve others too.

I am very sure that with patience, intention and consistency you will come to a beautiful discovery. Let me know when you discover it, so we can celebrate together!

Lots of love,