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Career Planning - Step 2: Life Purpose

As a result of participating in Step I, Part A and B of this online Career Development Program, you have now have gained valuable insight about who you are, what your personality preferences are, how such preferences align with career opportunities, what career paths you find appealing and what to do to about it.

This is not in any way a final or complete perspective of who you are. It is simply a process of self-insight that presents a broad range of information, ideas, recommendations and additional resources for you to choose to pursue further if and when it makes sense.

Armed with a deeper understanding of who you are in terms of your personality and career preferences by participating in Step I, Step 2 will assist you in identifying the heart of what is most important to you in virtually all aspects of your life.

Every life has a purpose. How you fulfill that purpose has a lot to do with what you choose for a career. Therefore, knowing what your life purpose is can profoundly assist with most all decisions you make relating to personal relationships, career, hobbies, volunteer activities and other ways that you choose to spend your time throughout your life ahead.

To identify the heart of what your life purpose is, review the list of random words below that describe a broad range of activities. With pen and paper in hand, read each word thoughtfully. Each time a particular word appeals to you, write it down on your piece of paper. Do not think about the word too long. Either it triggers something in you or not. If so, write it down.

Act
Adventure
Advise
Animate
Assemble
Be
Build
Calculate
Celebrate
Climb
Collaborate
Communicate
Concoct
Conserve
Construct
Converse
Coordinate
Counsel
Count
Create
Dance
Debate
Decorate
Design
Develop
Direct
Do
Document
Drive
Embrace
Empower
Enable
Energize
Enhance
Enlighten
Exercise
Express
Facilitate
Faith
Fell
Fun
Groom
Imagine
Implement
Inspire
Invent
Laugh
Lead
Live
Manage
Mentor
Mix
Notify
Nurture
Organize
Paint
Party
Plan
Play
Please
Pray
Present
Preserve
Process
Read
Recharge
Report
Risk
Run
Sculpt
Share
Sing
Solitude
Speak
Spend
Spirituality
Sports
Stretch
Swim
Systematic
Teach
Teamwork
Texture
Transform
Translate
Travel
Trust
Visit
Weave
Write


Once you have written down all of the words that appeal to you, look over the new list that you created. If you have captured more than ten words, look for the words that have similar meaning and rewrite them again as a group of words. Next, review each group and choose which word or words best describe the group of words. The objective of this word association exercise is to reduce the total list to four words that you feel most strongly about identifying with. Think about these words carefully. Imagine the many ways that they might apply to various aspects in your life today.

For example, if the chose the word "communicate" as one of your final four words, think of the different ways that you communicate in your life now. What are the circumstances? Do you enjoy writing, speaking or expressing yourself in creative ways through art, dance, theater or music? Is this at home, at work, in school or socially? There are many different forms of communication. Take some time to think about why this particular word appeals to you. Write down some of your ideas next to the word. This process will help you to integrate what that word means to you in other areas of your life as you move forward.

If the word appeals to you and you discover that there are not many examples where you currently apply it in your school, work, personal or social life, then you want to be thinking about ways in the near future where you will be able to integrate it more into your life because it has meaning for you. Take each of the four words that you have chosen and think about each of them in this way.

After you have settled on the four most important words and made notes about each one of them, capture your ideas using the following form. When finished, enter your email address in the field provided to receive a copy. If you are working with a mentor or other trusted advisor, enter their email address along with your name so that they will also receive a copy of this information.

1. What four words did you choose and why?

2. How do these words correlate to what you do now?

3. How can you expand upon integrating what these words mean into your life?

4. What else did you learn from this exercise?

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Thank you. Your form has been submitted. To continue, click on the link below to move to the next exercise.

Move on to Step 3: Living Blueprint


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