“Purpose is the place where your deep gladness meets the world’s needs.” ~ Frederick Buechner
Finding Purpose can be a daunting task. Just ask Princeton, the lead puppet in the show Avenue Q. He’s looking for purpose and his life takes a number of twists and turns, some happy and some incredibly unhappy, in his quest.
But finding purpose doesn’t need to be a torturous task. You don’t need to be a Princeton. There’s a better way, and it’s very similar to how companies create products every day: they identify what they do well, then they look at what the market needs, and they build products and services at the overlap between their strengths and the market’s needs.
You can do the same thing, and it won’t take long.
1.) First, figure out what you like to do and what you do well. These areas can be as broad or as narrow as you like. “Writing” is just as good an answer as “writing poetry for children”.
2.) Second, identify a pain point in the market. A pain point is something that causes people to waste time or causes frustration. For example, many people in New York City don’t have cars of their own and it can be difficult to transport a lot of goods from a store to home. For this reason, many stores and service providers have delivery service. This reduces frustration and saves time for consumers. As you go through your day, think about things that cause you to waste time or energy and things that cause you to be frustrated. Ask your friends, family members, and neighbors about their pain points. Observe other people’s behavior on the street, in stores, at work, etc. What pain points are they experiencing? Again, you can make these pain points as broad or as narrow as you’d like.
3.) Now for the fun part. Look at the list of what you like to do and where your strengths lie side-by-side with the pain points you’ve identified. This is where your creativity comes in. What can you build in the places where these lists overlap? That’s purpose, and a profitable purpose to boot!
Christa Avampato 