Most people sit on their deathbed full of regret.

They start asking themselves a bunch of “why” questions:

• Why didn’t I spend more time with my family?

• Why was I so consumed with status?

• Why was I so worried about money?

• Why did I work so much?

• Why? Why? Why?

I’m not on my deathbed, but I’ve experienced a lot of change, death and loss in the past five years:

• My father-in-law passed away suddenly and unexpectedly in March of 2020.

• COVID shut everything down the week after my father-in-law passed away, cancelling the remainder of a promising season for the college baseball team I was coaching.

• My father passed away in August of 2020 after a year-long battle with cancer.

• I decided to quit my dream career (head college baseball coach) in June of 2021, seeing that the specific siutation I was in was no longer a good fit.

• I started a new, commission-based sales and advising job that has made my financial outlook fluctuate wildly.

• Several of my long-time relationships have been strained.

• My mom was diagnosed with cancer in the summer of 2022 and is still undergoing treatments today.

• My last living grandparent, my grandmother on my mom’s side, passed away in October of 2023.

These experiences have triggered many of these “end-of-life” questions for me. They’ve thrown me into an existential crisis about the meaning of life.

“What’s the point of it all?” has been on my mind a lot:

• What’s the point of hustling to make as much money as possible?

• What’s the point of working 12-hour days to “climb the ladder?”

• What’s the point of life in general?

So…What IS the Point of it All?

Here’s the best answer I’ve come up with to date:

The meaning of life is to discover what life means…TO YOU.

You can pull insights and wisdom from many places:

• Books

• Courses

• Coaches

• Teachers

• Podcasts

• Religions

• Therapists

• Spirituality

But these can’t deliver a complete answer. Only YOU can deliver a complete answer.

In fact, the answer is alreay within you. You just need to remove what’s in the way (conditioning, fear, trauma, etc.).

This process take a long time (usually a lifetime), but the benefits are infinite:

• The confidence to be yourself.

• Clarity on your best career path.

• Clarity on how to spend your time.

• Attracting the right people into your life.

• A decreasing need for the approval of others.

• Perpetual self-love, leading to love for others.

• The ability to intuit how to solve problems that arise.

How To Get Moving in the Right Direction

The path to achieving your life purpose may seem abstract, but following specific steps will point you in the right direction and generate untoppable momentum in your life.

1) Determine your core values and strengths

Your values and strengths provide the structure for your life purpose.

Your values are the bricks and your strengths are the mortar.

Some of your values and strengths are easy to see. Others may be under the surface, waiting to be discovered.

Take your time with this exercise. Your life purpose depends on it.

Let’s start with values. Follow these steps:

1. Review a large list of potential values. I recommend this list from James Clear, but you can find many other lists through a Google search. Feel free to add values if you have some in mind that you don’t see listed.

2. Cross off the values on the list that you KNOW are NOT values for you. Trust your intuition (don’t overthink this).

3. Circle the values on the list that you know ARE values for you. These will be obvious instantly. If you have to stop and think about a particular value for more than a couple seconds, don’t circle it.

4. Count the number of values you circled. The goal is ten. If you circled more than ten, eliminate values until you have only ten. If you circled less than ten, add values until you reach ten.

5. Once you’ve identified your top ten values, decide if you want to stick with ten or reduce the list further (I included ten on my list, but feel free to reduce to five, three, or whatever feels right to you).

6. Define the remaining values on your list. Feel free to research possible definitions as a guide, but think about what the value means to YOU and craft your own definition.

7. Rank order your values. Spend time thinking about which is your top value, second most important, and so on.

This process should take at least 30 minutes, if not an hour or longer. Don’t rush through it.

When you’re finished with the exercise, consider your final list as your FIRST DRAFT of core values. The list is not set in stone. You can and should review the list regularly and make adjustments if your intution leads you in that direction.

Now let’s move on to find your strengths. Follow these steps:

1. Take the VIA Character Strengths Survey at this link (this is a free assessment).

2) Determine your purpose

Your purpose is how you live through your values and use your strengths to make a difference in the world in a way that is meaningful to you.

Since you already know your values and strengths, the next step is to determine how you want to use them to make a difference in the world. Reflect on these questions:

• What would I do if I knew I could not fail and money was not a factor?

• What are you doing when you feel most aligned with yourself?

• How can you share more of myself with the world?

• What are the most meaningful things in life to you?

• What type of work is the most meaningful to others and/or the world?

• If you were granted three wishes for the world, what would you wish for?

• What activities put you in the zone and make you “lose track of time?”

• What is something unique you could accomplish (that not many others could accomplish)?

• How can you best serve humanity?

• What does your gut instinct tell you about what you should do with your life?

This is not an exhaustive list of questions, but answering them will get your mind in the right frame to craft a purpose statement.

Here’s an example of a purpose statement (MY current purpose statement):

My purpose is to plan/organize/execute ways to help individuals move toward their mental, physical, and spiritual potential.

This purose incorporates my biggest strength, love of learning, and some of my top values, self-improvement, spirituality, and health, in away that gets me excited and contributes to the greater good (others) in a significant way.

Use this example as a template to craft your own.

3) Craft a vision for living out your purpose

Your purpose statement is an overarching view of what you’re meant to do.

Your VISION is more granular and practical. It details HOW you plan to live out your purpose.

Here are some questions to consider:

• If you were to start five businesses to impact the world, what would they be?

• What activities are you best at?

• What type of work (or careers) best align with your top values and strengths?

• What demographic of people would you like to work with?

• Where would you like to live?

• What does your ideal day look like?

• Do you prefer working alone, with people, or a combination?

• How much money do you want to earn?

• Do you want to start a family? How will this impact your vision?

• What are potential careers you could pursue to live out your purpose?

For me, writing this newsletter and posting on X are part of my vision for living out my life purpose. Writing is my preferred medium to “plan/organize” and deliver actionable information to “help individuals move toward their mental, physical, and spiritual potential.”

Eventually, I intend to pursue avenues, such as coaching, to help individuals “execute” on their plans to improve every aspect of their lives.

Answer these questions and use my example to craft your own vision.

4) Set goals and disciplines to realize your vision

Goals are time-based benchmarks for tracking progress.

Disciplines are daily and weekly actions and behaviors (“habits” are a more popular frame, but I prefer “disciplines”).

Using my life purpose as an example, here’s a possible vision:

Start a life coaching practice with at least 10 clients in the next year.

To realize this vision, here are possible goals (benchmarks):

• Build a website within one month

• Create a lead magnet withing one month

• Attract and start coaching at least three clients for free within three months

• Add at least three paid clients within six months.

• Add at least four more paid clients within a year.

Notice that these goals are specific, measurable, and time-sensitive. Use this same formula to set your goals.

To hit these benchmarks, here are possible disciplines:

• Learn about best life coaching practices for 30 minutes every day

• Work on the website for 30-60 minutes every day until it’s complete, then for 30 minutes three times per week for maintenance.

• Work on the lead magnet for 30-60 minutes every day until it’s complete.

• Write long-form content to add to the website for 30-60 minutes every day.

• Write short-form content and post on social media for 30 minutes every day.

• Once it’s complete, promote the lead magnet at least once every day.

• Contact at least three “cold” prospects every day.

• Follow-up with “warm” prospects every day.

Follow this process for each area of your life that’s important to you.

5) Review, reflect, and recalibrate frequently and systematically

Schedule time every day, week, month, and year to review your purpose, vision, goals, and disciplines.

Every night (30 min.):

• Review the day’s events on your calendar and in your planner.

• Reflect by journaling about what went well and what didn’t.

• Recalibrate by planning the next day, keeping in mind what you learned from the day that is ending.

At the end of each week (60 min.):

• Review the previous week’s events and journal entries.

• Reflect by journaling about how well your disciplines are working to move you toward your goals

• Recalibrate by planning adjustments to your goals and/or disciplines for the next week (if necessary)

At the end of each month (2 hours):

• Review the previous month’s events and journal entries

• Reflect by journaling about how well your goals are moving your toward your vision

• Recalibrate by planning adjustments to your vision, goals, and/or disciplines for the next month (if necessary)

At the end of each year (4 hours):

• Review the previous year’s events and journal entries

• Reflect by journaling about how well your vision, goals, and disciplines are fulfilling your purpose

• Recalibrate by planning adjustments to your purpose, vision, goals, and/or disciplines for the next year (if necessary)

This system of review, reflection, and recalibration provides the perfect balance of past, present, and future to keep your life on track toward the destination of your dreams.

That’s it for now! If you found this useful, please consider:

• Click here to follow me on X for more useful content.

• Reply to this email and let me know what was most helpful.

• If you’d like free coaching through this process, click here to schedule a 30-minute introductory Zoom meeting.

Thank you!

Matt