So many people think “okay I want more purpose and meaning in my life”. They say, “I heard this was important and it was mentioned on this podcast. . .” So, what do they do? They go out and buy the Dalai Lama’s book or the biography of Gandhi and they make it all seem so overwhelming.
A smarter approach is to ask yourself, how can I bring more purpose and meaning to this next moment in my life. To this encounter, task or meeting. It really often starts these seemingly small moments we have in our day. The better question is, “What purpose do I serve in this moment?”
You know I have been into exercising for a long time and I practiced martial arts when I was younger but we didn’t eat well. At one point I finally decided that I wanted to begin to eat more healthfully. I started really small. I use to put three sugars in my coffee and the first thing I did was to cut it down to two. I can almost remember the day. I would go to Dunkin Donuts and almost order three sugars and stop myself and say “nope, I’ll take two sugars” in my coffee today, please. I kinda worked my way back down. I just kept going from there. It has been those seemingly small changes that brought me to building healthy habits.
It is the small changes and small habits that we evolve over time and then we begin to string together these series of behaviors that hopefully leads to this life that we want for ourselves that is consistent with our purpose or goals or whatever feels meaningful in our lives.
But it starts small and builds from there.
Dr. Adam Perlman 