Living with Purpose: A Morning Meditation Practice
I am a purpose coach.
I help people discover their purpose and find the basic practices to ensure that they can joyfully live a life according to their purpose.
In purpose coaching, I focus on helping my clients create more self-awareness, discover how to push their boundaries and perspectives for deep insight, and build resources that serve them beyond our coaching relationship.
Having a purpose is about gaining focus. A focus on your best state of being and aligning everything of significance with that.
Finding purpose and living purpose are two cogs in a machine which requires both working well to enable transformational growth. Once you have found your purpose, living it requires three simple practices, the first of which is the Morning Meditation Practice.
When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive — to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.
— Marcus Aurelius
The Morning Meditation Practice is an exercise that allows you to think about your day and to consider what this day will bring for you in pursuit of your purpose. It is a short practice, and it should take you no more than 5–15 minutes.
There are five simple steps in this practice and one optional step. Here they are:
- Find the time and space where you can do your practice uninterrupted by anyone or anything else.
- Come to a state of presence, the best way you know how to.
- Set your intention.
- Ask yourself the question: What will I accomplish today?
- Reflect on the question: Will achieving this outcome support my purpose?
- Optional step: Journal about your practice.
Let us take these step one by one and expand them:
Step One: Find the time and space where you can do your practice uninterrupted by anyone or anything else
It is essential to find a safe space for yourself to do this work without being interrupted by family, pets or the hustle and bustle of everyday life. Doing it in the same physical space every day will also help to access the states in the subsequent steps quicker and easier over time as your brain habituates to the practice.
I get up in the morning, walk to my office, settle down in my comfy chair and will do my morning practice even before I drink the first cup of coffee.
My office is a safe space where very little happens that early in the morning, it is silent and peaceful, and no one will disturb me.
It is a good idea to mute or switch off all devices that may interfere.
Step Two: Come to a state of presence, the best way you know how to
There are many exercises and techniques to bring yourself to a state of mindful presence. There are techniques like progressive relaxation, focused attention and even formal induction and meditative processes.
I use a technique called the COACH state. It is a simple technique to centre yourself, open up to whatever may arise with a curious mind, attend to the world around you and how you are present in it, connecting to all of the resources available to you, and holding that state and space with an attitude of curiosity and wonder.
Step Three: Set your intention
Your intention is what frames your expectation of what the day will bring.
A good intention is infused with positive energy and hope and intends to create a state supportive of possibility and curiosity.
Setting a positive intention for the day creates an expectation of the day playing out in a certain way and positively affects the mindset and attitude you bring to it.
Step Four: Ask yourself the question: What will I accomplish today?
It is tempting to think of a whole to-do list of outcomes for the day, but that is counterproductive.
Over time I have discovered that the best way of accomplishing what I set out to do is by limiting the number of outcomes. I prefer to set one decent outcome for the day and achieve it well rather than setting three tasks and only succeed partially. If you set only one outcome for the day, nothing stops you from working on others too.
It is up to you how many accomplishments you plan for daily, but experience has taught me that it is somewhere in the magic range of 1 to 3.
Over time, you will discover for yourself the appropriate size and number of outcomes that you can complete with the satisfaction of a job well done.
Step Five: Reflect on the question: Will achieving this outcome support my purpose?
For your outcomes, reflect for a moment on each and answer the question:
“Will achieving this outcome support my purpose?”
In most cases, you will either feel a clear resonance or dissonance of the outcome to your purpose.
Resonance means that the outcome aligns with your purpose, and completing it will take you further on your journey of discovery and growth. Resonance is good!
Dissonance is a clear indication that this outcome will either take you away from your journey of discovery and growth or significantly slow it. Dissonance is an indication that this outcome is one you should refuse. If you feel that your outcome will not contribute, directly or indirectly, to your purpose, it is wise to replace it with another one.
Optional Step Six: Journal about your practice
The five preceding steps contribute to a short, easy and efficient morning practice.
If you find yourself with the luxury of more time, it is a wonderful idea to spend another 10–20 minutes journaling about your insights and learnings from your morning meditation. It will serve you well to keep a paper journal and write your reflections with pen in hand.
There are numerous benefits of journaling in this way, as it allows you another way of thinking and preserving your journey of growth and discovery for later perusal and reflection.
In Conclusion
The one who puts the finishing touches on their life each day is never short of time.
— Seneca
Living with purpose is a journey of discovery, not a race to be won.
Committing to a daily morning meditative practice sets you up for a day of purposeful growth and learning and it gives you the gift of connecting with what is important to you. And most importantly, it serves you by preparing for a life lived well.
Follow me for discovery of the other Purpose Practices. I will reveal them in the coming days.
