Finding my core value to creatively express

[Ramsus]

I've been trying to figure out what my core value is, so that I can get on the right track to creatively express it. I tried the "How to Discover Your Life Purpose in About 20 Minutes" exercise, I spent about two hours on it, here's what I ended up with:

To engage, inspire, touch and stimulate people emotionally, spiritually, and mentally in powerful, engrossing and innovative ways. To fill people with a consciousness of themselves, their place in the human family, their abilities to change and improve the world about them, and a desire to fully live and enjoy the bounties that life has to offer. To help people look critically at their lives and the realities they accept, to wake people up.

I like it, it's exciting, but it still doesn't feel quite right. Maybe it's too broad.

Anyway, what I'm trying to do is figure out how to narrow down exactly what it is I want.

Anyone have any suggestions for what I might do? Thanks.

[Steve Pavlina]

That does seem very broad and general for a statement of purpose.

Try reviewing the list of values here to see which ones strike you the most:
http://www.stevepavlina.com/articles/list-of-values.htm

That may help you narrow it down.

[Ramsus]

Thanks Steve, I went through that list and wrote down some of the ones that stuck out to me:

Awe
Adventure
Creativity
Flow
Heroism
Imagination
Learning
Sacrifice
Uniqueness
Wonder

Then I held a no-holds-barred tournament between them to see which would reign supreme, it turned out to be imagination. I feel really good about that, I can switch between the different values, and emphasize different ones through my work at different periods of my life (like what you talked about in http://www.stevepavlina.com/articles...-values-1.htm), but the dominant characteristic will be imagination.

Thanks a lot, I'll have to meditate on this for a bit and see how it settles in, but right now it is feeling really, really good. It's so obvious I don't know why I didn't see it earlier.

[AndreaHess]

I have a free audio on my website that actually is a very powerful process. Here's the link:

Discover Your Soul's Purpose.

Hope it is of benefit!

[Ramsus]

I haven't had a chance to listen to that yet, but it looks good. Thanks.

[sv800]

Originally Posted by AndreaHess

I have a free audio on my website that actually is a very powerful process. Here's the link:

Discover Your Soul's Purpose.

Hope it is of benefit!

Audio requires registration...listening now

[Ramsus]

Not sure if anyone cares, but I feel compelled to follow up on this with what has happened. I continued to ponder on imagination, and listened to several of Steve's PodCasts on finding our purpose and pursuing a meaningful career.

I also listened to AndreaHess's audio program, and found that to confirm and strengthen everything I had been thinking.

So my new mission statement is this: To live a vibrant and beautiful life brimming with imagination, and to help others find the wonder of imagination in their own lives.

I really like how that sounds, and it feels really good too, a lot better than that last bloated mission statement I had, it's also a lot more focused, while also allowing more freedom. My after work programming sessions are much more productive now that I am focused on my purpose, my life is more joyful, and it didn't even bother me when I got a rejection letter from a graduate school earlier today. A month or two ago and the rejection letter would have crushed me, but grad school isn't really in line with my purpose anymore, so it doesn't bother me.

Thanks a lot.