Knowing your purpose can fundamentally change the way you operate daily. It’s the difference between doing something to earn a living and doing something you love while making money. Helping people find their purpose is something that Liam James Collins, co-founder of The Coaching Masters, focuses on when working with entrepreneurs.
Know your values
Finding purpose can only happen when an entrepreneur truly knows their values.
We consider our values fundamental to us, such as love, freedom, money, kindness, adventure, joy, connection, and loyalty, just to name a few. “I firmly believe that helping entrepreneurs who don’t know their values is useless. If one is not aware of their values, then we spend our time walking around a constant void of confusion, not moving dynamically in any direction,” shares Laim.
According to Liam, we can only build a successful business, achieve fulfilment and be happy when we know what is most important to us in this world.
How to uncover your values
While it may be easy to encourage someone to know their values, it is crucial to help them identify them. We all know the things that affect us both negatively and positively. Liam encourages mindful identification of these triggers to uncover our values. He encourages the clients he works with to ask themselves: What makes me angry? What scares me? What would I die for?
What makes you angry?
For many of us, the things that often affect us and cause us to become angry are directly related to the beliefs or values we hold. While anger may seem like an unusual place to start from, it’s not. Liam believes that “when you discover what makes you angry, then you explore the exact reasons why that one person, place, event or viewpoint makes you angry. When you know why it makes you angry, then you have a clear idea of which one of your values is being neglected or disrespected.”
What scares you the most?
Exploring our fears is perhaps one of the best ways to find our purpose. After all, overcoming these fears is often what leads to a purpose-driven life as an entrepreneur. According to Liam, when we know what honestly scares us, we can then explore the reasons they do. “When you know the deep reason why something scares you, you will know which one of your core values is being threatened.” Understanding this fear will help us to make a conscious effort to work on these threats.
What would you die for?
Since death is final, none of us is willing to die for trivial causes. It must be something that we genuinely believe in. This is a powerful tool in identifying our values. According to Liam, “People die for their beliefs only because those beliefs support their deepest values. Have a very deep think about what you would die for, and within that answer, you will know what you highly value and why.”
This process helps people identify what they value, which helps them get closer to their purpose. Going through this process will allow you to gain more clarity around what is important to you. By doing so, you will know where you need to focus your time and attention.