I first discovered that blending together three basic components results consistently in a life purpose with those qualities, not just for me but for many people. I later recognized a fourth component. They are:

* Vision
The first component is a unique vision of what you see to be possible for your life, your community, and ultimately the world. Often times, determining your vision of what's possible is more of a remembering process, since we all begin life with a sense of possibility. Unfortunately, many of us lose that sense of awe and wonder as we grow older and are repeatedly told to "get real.”

* Values
Each of us has a set of core values, those intangibles of life that matter the most to us, that we'd be willing to give our lives for. Perhaps we're not quite ready to stand in front of a firing squad for them, but we are willing to give our life in service of having these values be more present in the world in which we live.

* Being
Who we are at the core of our being, our very soul, is the third basic component that makes up our life purpose. It's the essence of who we are, that part we know of ourselves that we can count on and which others can count on as well.

* The Glue
When we blend these three components together, we get the makings of a force that can shape our lives in each moment as we do whatever we're doing. But the mixture isn't complete yet. We're still missing a key ingredient: the glue that holds it all together. We can think of that glue in several different ways. One is to view it as the universal, attractive force of love that binds us all to each other and to the rest of the universe. Or we can think of it as our relationship to God or a Higher Power, or call it our spirituality or our spiritual nature. Whatever the description, this fourth ingredient when mixed with the other three results in a powerful, long-lasting force that can shape our lives and all we do, while still giving us plenty of room to express ourselves fully.

Why aren't more of us allowing our divinely-inspired life purposes to shape our lives? Because there's a second force that has been shaping them for so long we're mostly unaware of it. In fact, it's because we are unaware of it that it continues to have such a strong influence in our life.

©2003 Brad Swift of Life On Purpose Institute, Inc. This article can be reprinted freely online, as long as the entire article and this resource box are included.