Photo of woman in white dress and white hat walking on path through mountains. — Transformative journal prompts for finding purpose on your journey

Journaling to find your purpose

Sometimes we go around life chasing purpose like it’s something that can be checked off a list. It’s tempting to believe that we will have - or find - purpose when we accomplish some tangible thing in the outside world. I wonder, though, is purpose more of a feeling that we’re seeking? The feeling of being connected to something meaningful, or maybe just the feeling of being connected at all?

Maybe that’s the case for you, maybe it’s not, but whatever has you seeking purpose right now, I know that you have important things to say to yourself that are worth listening to.

Journal prompts to find your purpose

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These journal prompts to find your purpose are designed to help you reflect deeply on what it means to have purpose, why purpose matters to you, and what the drive for purpose that you’re feeling has to tell you about yourself and your life’s journey.

What does it mean to have a purpose in life?
Is it important to have a purpose in life? Why or why not?
Think of a time that you did something you felt had purpose. Write about your memory of this experience. What did you do? Why did this feel purposeful to you? What thoughts did you experience? What emotions did you experience? How did others respond to you?
What does it feel like to do something that has purpose? What other emotions do you associate with this experience? What physical sensations are associated with these emotions?
Can you have more than one purpose in life?
Imagine that you are living a life full of purpose. Write a short story from a third person perspective about a day in your “full of purpose” life. Re-read your short story. What does your story tell you about what it means to you to have purpose?
Where does purpose in life come from? Does it come from someone or something outside of you? Is it internally created? Is it a mixture of both?
How do you recognize when something is your purpose?
Make a list of 5 times you felt like you were doing something that had purpose. Do these experiences have anything in common?
Who is someone you admire for living a purposeful life (someone you know in real life, celebrity, historical person, fictional character, etc.)? How do you know this person lives a purposeful life? What is this person’s purpose? What do you admire about how this person lives their life? What do you not like about how this person lives their life? Do you see some of these same qualities in you?
Who is someone you think lives without purpose in life (someone you know in real life, celebrity, historical person, fictional character, etc.)? How do you know this person lives without purpose? What do you not like about how this person lives their life? What do you admire about how this person lives their life? Do you see some of these same qualities in you?
How is a life lived with purpose different from a life lived without purpose? What does this tell you about what purpose means to you?
Without thinking too hard about it, draw a symbol to represent your purpose in life. Now, write out a description of this symbol and what it means. What does this tell you about your purpose and what it means to have purpose?
What emotions do you associate with being aligned with your purpose (joy, contentment, happiness, fulfillment, etc.)? For each emotion you identified, write out a list of 5 times that you remember experiencing this emotion. Re-read your lists. What can these lists tell you about what it means to have purpose to you?
If someone analyzed only how you spend your time and nothing else about you, what would they say your purpose in life is?
What do you want your purpose in life to be? Are there any parts of you that are critical of this purpose in any way?
When you were a child, what activities that you engaged in felt the most purposeful to you?
When you were a child, did the adults in your life display a sense of purpose? If yes, write about how the adults in your life displayed a sense of purpose. If not, write about why you think the adults in your life didn’t live with purpose.
How overlapped in your mind are the concepts of a career/vocation and your purpose in life? Can your purpose in life be different than what you do for work? Ideally, would your career and life purpose be the same or overlapped? Why or why not?
Fill up a page in your journal with a messy brainstorm list of all the words you associate with the word “purpose.” Don’t think too hard about it! Now, re-read your list and circle the word that looks the most intriguing or surprising to you. Write about how you associate this word with the word “purpose.”
What makes life worth living to you?