But sometimes people fear they have no purpose. So I want to explain what I’ve encountered so you get a better understanding of this thing we call “the life purpose.”

I have found after reading for thousands of people that some people incarnate with a specific purpose, and it’s practically encoded in your DNA. Growing up you’ll have a strong inkling or predilection for achieving your directive. Everything you attract into your life will support the drive towards this purpose. So much so that once you achieve it you’ll look back on life and say things like, “Yes, I always knew I was going to be a ….” Or “It never once occurred to me that I wouldn’t achieve this goal. I’ve just always known.”

Drive. Passion. Talent. Skill. Opportunities. It will be like heaven and earth aligned perfectly and you achieved your goal.

And that’s great. I see this with folks who are teachers, healers, communicators, scientists. There’s an unstoppable energy, like a stampede, towards a goal. Not only are they capable of achieving it, they’ve also seemingly “lucked out” in some way and been propelled towards their goal at light speed. That’s because the universe, their higher self, and their guides are all behind them pulling strings and getting things done.

But what if you aren’t one of these people? What if you’ve been drifting, passionless, unable to even figure out what you want to do or even what you’re good at. You squeak by, you try lots of different jobs and nothing excites you. You fail a lot. You meander. Your life is sometimes up and sometimes down. You’re just wandering through life, unknowing of your purpose, no drive and seemingly no opportunities.

Well guess what? You have a life purpose too.

Life is meant to be experienced. You’re here to have fun and explore. Your job is actually to simply be happy. It’s society and convention that drill into you that you have to find a career, settle down, have passion and drive. We’re taught it’s the only way to succeed.

But the truth is that some souls incarnate simply to play in the sandbox of life. They’re not here specifically to have an impact or change the course of the world. They’re here to experience life. To share, to learn, to grow. And honestly, that’s purpose enough.

Do not let society judge you. And don’t judge yourself.

Yes, some people decided to incarnate to have an impact, to change the world, to get their hands very dirty. Let them. Sit back with your bucket and shovel and just play in the sand. Along the way you will learn, grow, and experience. And your life will be just as purposeful as anyone’s.

Put joy, love and compassion into the world. Share the journey. Do what you enjoy. Drift from one joy to another. Don’t hurt other people.

Make your own personal castle in the sand. And if the wind or the water knock it down, build another.

Whether you came here for some grand purpose or to simply experience what life has to offer, you are an important and valuable piece of the greater puzzle.

Whatever you would say in those two minutes is a huge clue to your life purpose. Your life purpose is not your career or your job, but you can certainly align the two. Your life purpose is the message you would give to the world if the whole world was listening to you. Do you know what you’d say? What would you talk about?

Do this exercise: Make a list of the things you want to say to the world. Don’t censor or filter anything right now. Just make a long list of everything you’d like to say to the population of planet Earth. Here are some examples to get you thinking…

• Be excellent to each other
• You are loved
• You are never alone
• Be kind
• Treat others with respect
• Be compassionate
• Everyone deserves food, clothing, and shelter
• You are more powerful than you realize
• You come from God
• You are beautiful
• We are all connected
• You are more than enough

Now look at your list and figure out which of the items on your list is the most important one to you. Which one really burns in your belly, aches in your gut, fires up your heart? Which of the things you’ve written down do you feel would seriously have the most impact if people listened, believed, and acted upon?

The other items on your list may be important to you too, but just pick the one you would pick if some mighty supreme being told you that you could only pick one.

Now, write that down on the top of a piece of paper, and write or type up an explanation of your concept such that if you gave it as a speech it would last roughly two minutes.

For example:

We are all connected
If we could but understand that we are all cells in the Body of Humanity we would not attack the other cells. We would not hurt them, kill them, poison them, ignore them when they are in need. If we could see that we are all One, and that we are all connected, we would help each other grow, we would share food and resources, we would heal those who are suffering. We would strive together to ensure the happiness and well-being of the Whole. When one cell is suffering, we would aid it. When one cell was thriving, we would applaud it. We would not hurt others because doing so would only hurt ourselves.

You get the idea. Write your two minute speech to the world on the topic you chose above.

Your life purpose is tied in to this concept. Now it’s time to get practical. What are you supposed to do with this concept? The answer is to align your path with your concept. Now you can start determining how your life purpose and career intertwine.

Let’s say your life purpose is related to the concept of “You are more powerful than you realize.” What could you do to help people realize this while also getting paid?

Here are just a few ideas off the top of my head. You could become:

• a life coach – helping people get past blocks and fears and giving them tools to achieve success
• a healer – helping people use their own energy to heal their bodies
• a fiction writer – writing about characters who discover they are more powerful than they initially realized
• a teacher – helping young people access their talents and intellect
• a minister – helping people realize the power of prayer
• a motivational speaker – inspiring and motivating people towards personal growth
• an intuitive counselor – helping people get realigned with their life purpose
• a book publisher – publishing books that inspire and help people grow
• a career counselor – helping people enter fields that are aligned with their life purpose
• a sports coach – helping people improve their physical abilities beyond what they dreamed possible
• a software engineer – designing software that helps people grow and improve
• a personal trainer – pushing people to achieve physical fitness goals that will make them healthier
• a physical therapist – helping people adapt to life-changing injuries that threaten to keep them down
• a parent – helping your children understand themselves and go after their dreams

And the list goes on and on. You don’t have to actually stand on a stage and speak your message. You can live your message. Spend your day putting into the world what you feel is most important. That is your life purpose.

So figure out what you most want to see in the world, and align your career path towards it. You may have a huge impact or a small one, but whatever you do will send ripples of positive energy through the Body of Humanity. And that’s good for everyone, because we’re all connected.

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This week’s question comes from Diana. She asks:

“Can we have more than one life purpose?”

Here is the transcript of this episode:
Hello, and welcome to another episode of “Ask Erin Pavlina”.

Today’s question comes from Diana. Diana writes, “Can a person’s life purpose change over the course of a lifetime, or is there only one for each incarnation?”

This is an excellent question. How often do we ask ourselves, “What is my life purpose?” It’s one of the top questions people ask me during readings. After doing thousands of readings, I’ve seen a lot of life purposes, and I’ve seen a lot of the variations, and I can definitely help you with this question.

First let’s talk about what a life purpose really is. What is a life purpose? It’s the reason that you came here, it’s the reason that you incarnated, it’s the reason that you decided to come all the way back here, at a lower density, and experience life again. So hopefully, there was a purpose in it. What happens is, your higher self is who determines what kind of life you desire to have. Your higher self is the one that sets the intention for what kind of life you’re going to have. For example, does your higher self want to incarnate so that you can have an impact on the planet, or do you want to have a personal growth experience? In my experiences, I have seen that people generally fall into these two categories: Coming here to have an impact, to teach, or coming here simply to have a personal growth experience.

Both of these are very valid types of life paths, and there’s no right or wrong or good or bad about either one of them. When you come here with the specific intention to have an impact on the planet, which is generally what we see with the lightworkers, it’s usually so ingrained and coded into the spiritual DNA of your body, that you can’t help but follow that one life course throughout your life.

Now you may have different modalities and different ways of expressing that life purpose, and different ways of having an impact on the planet, but you will be pushed and have that sense of urgency and desire to make a difference in the world and to have some kind of impact. Maybe you’re trying to empower women, maybe you’re trying to help encourage other people, maybe you’re trying to bring love back to the planet. People who wanna make an impact come with some kind of design, and it’s really coded inside of them, so it really pushes their actions throughout their life. In that sense, I would say, you have one life purpose, which is to have an impact, but again, the choice of how you’re going to have that impact is up to you.

In the other case, I see people who incarnate simply to have a personal growth experience. There’s no pre-designed idea or intention about exactly what’s going to happen here. So you choose your parents, you incarnate, and you enjoy life. You’re receiving information from every experience you have. You have growth, and it’s great, and so you’re just tooling along through life, and having your personal growth experiences, and incorporating them into your wisdom.

Now what happens with these people I have seen is…sometimes, after they’ve been doing that for a long time, they can actually turn around and have an impact on the planet. So after you’ve been growing for years or decades, you may have learned so much that you’re actually ready for a new purpose in your life, which could be to have an impact, to help other people with life.

So basically, the answer to your question: The people who come here to have an impact from the get-go usually just have the one life purpose. The people who come here to have a personal growth experience will either continue to have that throughout their lives, or at some point, they will have grown so much, that they are now able to have an impact on the planet, based on the experiences they’ve had.

So, which category are you in? You’ll know-eh, you might know *laughs*. You might know, you may not know. Sometimes when I do readings for people, they can feel that sense of, “I came here to make a difference! I came here to have an impact!” and they’re usually right, I’ve really never read for somebody who thought they were here to have an impact, and they were wrong. I have read for people who thought they were here to have a personal growth experience, but had not realized that what they’ve already learned is enough to begin to have an impact on the planet. And that’s not something you wanna waste, because you’ve been here for decades. Why not make the best use of your time and kill two birds with one stone?

So, you can have more than one purpose, or you might just have one purpose, but the bottom line is to follow your heart, follow your heart’s desire, and do what you feel called to do. Good question.

Your life purpose is not to be an accountant, a writer, a coach, or an airline pilot.  No. Those are mediums with which you can express your life purpose.  Your life purpose is more about who you are at your core and what you are here to learn and give than it is about what you do for a living.  So first let’s disconnect life purpose from career path.  You may use your career path to express your life’s purpose, but rarely do I see an actual career being your life purpose.  So when people ask me their life purpose and are expecting to hear accountant, writer, coach, airline pilot, they will be disappointed.

After doing more than a thousand readings where nearly everyone has asked about their life purpose, I’ve seen some generalities develop.  People fall into one of two categories: 1) They are here to have a personal growth experience, to learn, grow, and understand more about life, relationships, and oneness so they can evolve and become more conscious, or 2) They have incarnated to have an impact on the planet, to change something for all of humanity, to make a difference and change the course of many lives, to share a profound wisdom of which they are already aware, that will benefit everyone.

People in the first category (here to have a personal growth experience) will still impact the people in their lives.  And people in the second category (here to have an impact) will still have a personal growth experience.  But their primary life purpose is one or the other.  On rare occasions I’ve seen people here to have a personal growth experience who are also here to have an impact on the planet, but only after that personal growth is achieved to a certain extent where it would then benefit the planet as a whole.

When I read for people who are here to have a personal growth experience, I usually get a certain energy around them like healer, teacher, humanitarian, entrepreneur, communicator, etc.  Healers, for example, are here to help alleviate the physical and emotional suffering of others and are well suited for careers in the medical field, psychology, energy healing, etc.  People with teacher energy are often drawn to teaching, writing, speaking, or coaching.  And on it goes.  So when people in the personal growth category ask their guides for their life purpose, they will probably hear their category (healer, teacher, communicator, etc.) and then get some suggestions for career paths that are closely aligned with their path.  It’s up to you to decide what works best for you.  There is no spiritual imperative for you to be any particular profession.  As long as you are in alignment with your higher energy, you will do just fine.  You can have a personal growth experience being homeless, being a pole dancer, or even a prostitute. 

Now when I read for people who incarnated to have an impact on the planet, I usually pick up on something very specific.  Example:  “You came here to have a major impact in the field of physics, specifically in the area of DNA and how it relates to consciousness.”  Another example, “You came here to teach people compassion, specifically in the area of domestic violence by teaching women to have higher self esteem, and by educating parents on how to keep their sons from being abusive.”  Usually people in this category totally resonate with what their guides are telling them, much like when Luke Skywalker told Princess Leia she was his twin sister to which she replies, “I know.  Somehow, I’ve always known.”  That’s the reaction I usually get when people’s area of impact is revealed.  It’s like it’s been encoded in their DNA and I’m just reawakening the memory. 

I often find Lightworkers in this second category of people who are here to impact the planet.  It’s practically the only way to get a Lightworker to re-incarnate here on Earth. ;) Part of the reason I incarnated was to remind people where we come from and to help people remember we are all one.  The idea that I might someday succeed at this is what got me out of my cozy ethereal bed.  Part of Steve’s impact is to teach people to live consciously.

Why are you here?  What is your primary reason for being?  How do you know what it is?  In my personal experience doing all these readings, I find that the people who are here to have an impact already somehow know what they’re supposed to be doing, so a reading with me provides validation and confirmation, a sort of activation of their programming. 

People in the first category, here to have a personal growth experience, tend to have more flexibility in what they do while incarnated, because they can have their growth experiences in any job they choose to have.  They may not even find growth in their chosen career.  Perhaps someone is a really good accountant, but has most of their growth experiences on evenings and weekends being the coach of a little league team or going skiing with friends.  Nothing wrong with that.  Not everyone is here to save the planet.  Some people are here to save themselves and a few others caught in their personal growth crossfire.

So how do you know which category you’re in?  I find most people are not surprised when their guides tell them what category they’re in.  So you can find out in a reading with me.  Or you can ask your guides yourself.  Or you probably already know on some level and just need to remember.

Does everyone have a life purpose?  I believe so, yes.  Everyone has a reason for incarnating here.  You may not be a Jesus, Gandhi, or Abraham Lincoln, but you’ll get just as much out of your time here if you are a Karen Smith, Joe Johnson, or Susan Jones.  So make the most of it.

And remember, we’re all here to help each other learn, grow, understand, and live consciously.  So plug into your purpose and get busy making the most out of your life.