A way into your purpose
Efforts and courage are not enough without purpose and direction. ―J. F. Kennedy
👥 Serves: 2-10 people
🎚 Difficulty: Medium
⏳ Total time: 61-120 minutes
🥣 Ingredients: 1 person to talk to, 3 inspirational life experiences
🤓 Wholebeing Domains: Accomplishment, Liberatory Learning, Meaning
💪 Wholebeing Skills: Ambition, Coaching, Commitment, Curiosity, Flourishing, Fulfilment, Inquiry, Planning, Purpose, Self-directed learning
A way into your purpose
📝 Description
A peer-coaching activity to help you gain clarity over your life purpose. (To be repeated every 6 months)
Peer-coaching is a powerful tool to help you take ownership of your own life journey. Through the use of powerful questions, you can gain clarity about your life purpose and take the first steps to become the change you aspire to.
Importantly, when you are the coach, remember to:
- Hold a space for your partner to explore. You are not there to provide answers to your partner, but to facilitate a space. They are inherently creative, resourceful and whole.
- Choose non-judgemental, non-leading and open questions, such as: “What feelings/emotions emerged for you when recalling these experiences?”, “What do these experiences reveal about your journey so far?” or simply, “What else?”
- Focus on the positive and the future, do not dwell too much on the negative or the past.
When you are the coachee, remember to:
- Believe in yourself. Nobody knows you better than yourself, so do not expect your coach to provide you with answers, but rather stay curious to look at yourself and your life through different lenses.
- Know your boundaries. If you are uncomfortable answering a question, simply say so and your partner shall respect your boundary.
- Focus on the positive and the future, do not dwell too much on the negative or the past.
Discovering your purpose is a process, so do not expect to come up with answers right away. If you let go of the need to do so, you will be much more successful in progressing on your journey and you will enjoy it too!
👣 Steps
Step 1 – Life scan (5’)
Person A scans their life to identify three inspirational work/life experiences, e.g. times when they felt energised, alive, in the flow.
Step 2 – Share (10’)
Person A shares these experiences with person B, taking around 3-4 minutes per experience.
Step 3 – Peer-coaching (30’)
Person B listens carefully and coaches person A into understanding the common elements that underpin all three experiences, e.g. context, places, patterns, environments, etc. They do so by asking powerful, non-judgemental, non-leading and open questions to help person A get a clearer idea of their own purpose.
Step 4 – Swap and repeat (45’)
When person A has finished sharing their experiences, swap so that person B shares their three experiences and person A listens to and coaches them.
Step 5 – Next steps (10’)
Revisit this process several times over a 6-month period, gaining a bit more clarity each time.