Three principles to discovering your lifes purpose
depression
nobody likes to feel depressed
helpless hopeless
meaningless but yet depression is
something that we’ve all
felt in fact the world health
organization estimates that more than
264
million people of all ages around the
world
suffer from depression
and every year according to the american
foundation for suicide prevention
depression causes an estimated 1.4
million americans to attempt to end
their own life
and the sad news is more than 48
000 per year succeed
and i was almost one of those people
i mean we’ve all heard the stories of
former pro athletes like
junior seau world beloved
robin williams marilyn monroe kurt
cobain
ernest hemingway vincent van gaal
and there’s so many other famous
entertainers athletes and politicians
and veterans
who had everything but still felt
so depressed and for the longest time i
couldn’t understand why some of the
most richest most famous most gifted
people in the world
would want to end their own life a life
that millions of other people across the
world
were aspiring to live it’s so hard to
understand how people with money
friends and seemingly everything could
feel so alone
and worthless and depressed
i mean we have more medical assistance
more information
more knowledge more wisdom and more
access to people who can help us than
we’ve
ever had before i mean for goodness sake
there’s a suicide prevention hotline
that’s available
24 hours a day seven days a week 365
days
a year and yet no matter what time of
day it is
you can still log on to social media and
there’s always someone online
who can be a listening ear and even a
friend
i mean think about it we’ve got facebook
instagram snapchat zoom facetime
tick tock microsoft teams slack
daily apps and i mean if you like we’ve
got online video game communities
i mean come on there’s so many ways for
us to connect
but yet we feel so disconnected
so discouraged so alone
that somehow we feel that dying
is better than living well i’m here to
say no more
i’m here to introduce a new concept
well it’s actually not really a new
concept it’s an old concept
that many don’t believe but i believe if
we believe this one thing
it can serve as one of the most
effective remedies
to depression and also one of the best
ways to live
a more fulfilled life it’s called
purpose
that’s right purpose purpose is the
driving force behind
everything you do it’s what makes you
get up in the morning enjoy the pursuit
of your dreams
it will it’s what brings more joy into
your life and the lives
of those around you i tell you that
there is nothing i mean
nothing more attractive than a man or a
woman who knows their purpose
i mean nice clothes money maturity are
attractive
but nothing is more enticing than
someone who knows who they are
so whether you’re a religious person or
not whether you’re struggling with
depression
right now or you’re just someone who
wants to live
more fulfilled i’m gonna share three
purpose principles with you
that will help you get clarity over your
life’s purpose
and that understanding will help you to
remedy to cope with
your depression and live more fulfilled
ready number one
your purpose is not what you do
it’s why you do it we make the mistake
of thinking that our purpose is what we
do
we think it’s our passion we say things
like my purpose in life
is to teach to speak to write to
entertain to build to heal to
administrate
but your purpose is not what you do it’s
why you do it
and if you make a list of all the things
that you like to do all the things that
you love to do and that you’re
passionate about i mean
everything and you ask yourself this
question
why they say when you ask yourself why
five times you get beyond the surface
level of your mind
and you get into the core of who you are
your purpose is not what you do
that’s why you do it number two
your purpose is unique to you
now this is just my personal opinion but
i am so tired
of people telling me that their purpose
is to help other people
discover their purpose or that their
purpose
is to leave a lasting legacy for their
family
honestly every time i hear i just want
to say you really think
sherlock like who doesn’t want to help
other people
who doesn’t want to help the next
generation avoid all the crap that
they’ve been through
i believe your purpose should be as
unique
as your fingerprint i believe we should
be able to read
a purpose statement about your life and
say that’s john that’s susie that’s
jeff that’s rita why
because you are unique and so is your
purpose
and this is one of the favorite things i
love helping my clients with
because it sounds like a good concept
doesn’t it that we can have this unique
purpose statement
but because we have so many insecurities
and we don’t believe that there’s
anything special about us
many of the people i work with have
doubts
and then we walk them through this
purpose discovery process and then they
have that light bulb moment
and they find out that they do indeed
have a unique purpose
like one of my clients is an actress and
i so
uh wish i could show you her face when
we walked her through this process
because we took her from a generic
purpose to a unique purpose
so she originally thought her purpose
was to inspire
to entertain and and to make the world a
better place
generic and we took her from
understanding that that was her purpose
to believing
that she had unique purpose she went
from my purpose is to
inspire and to entertain and to help the
world be a better place
to my purpose is to help women
who struggle to be happy to experience a
more fulfilling life through art and
conversation
so that they can experience a more
compassionate
empathetic and beautiful world
you see how different that is and i told
her this i said
i bet at your next audition you’re gonna
nail it because while everyone else is
there
auditioning because it’s their passion
you’ll be the only one there
auditioning from a place of purpose
you’ll know your highest purpose
and you’ll express that energy through
your audition
your purpose should be unique to you
number three you have
to be convinced that you have purpose
and that your life matters now here’s
the hardest challenge because we
struggle
to see our own value and uniqueness
because we
constantly compare our gifts
our talents and our abilities and
ourselves
to others and then we make the dangerous
conclusion that says
there’s nothing special about me
we say things like well i can sing but i
can’t sing better than her
we say i can draw but i can’t draw like
him
we look at speakers and say well i can
speak but i’m not that good
we look at administrators and say i’m
organized but i’m not that organized
and we make a dangerous conclusion that
just because we aren’t the best at
something
that means we’re not special
listen to me just because you’re not the
best at what you do
doesn’t mean that you’re not special
just because you’ve got some
issues doesn’t mean that your life is
meaningless
let me tell you something you may not be
the best coach
you may not be the best mother you may
not be the best friend
you might not even be the best spouse or
lover
but you matter i love what dr
seuss says he says to the world
you may just be someone but to someone
you may be the world and you do not
know what you’re fully capable of until
you are convinced
that you have purpose one of my favorite
quotes
is that our greatest fear is not that we
are inadequate but the
that we are powerful beyond measure
marielle williamson if you
stopped comparing yourself to other
people
who are smarter prettier more talented
than you are
and instead you just enjoyed who you are
you will never be convinced that you
have purpose until you
learn to love yourself
listen i used to hate that i was this
big guy
that had this huge gap in my teeth but
now i love
that my gap gives me a unique smile i
used to hate that i was some big black
tough guy
with this high pitched laugh but now i
enjoy hearing myself chuckle
i used to hate that i didn’t fit in with
anybody and i didn’t get invited to the
clubs and the parties and all that stuff
but now i’m glad that i stand out i’m
one of a kind i’m special
and so are you newton’s third law says
that for every action there’s an equal
and opposite reaction it sounds cliche
but
that means for every positive there’s a
negative
and if you don’t believe newton take it
from tupac
he said for every dark night there’s a
brighter day
it’s about perspective my friend
and listen
i know firsthand
how dangerous depression is
i battled it head-on after i lost my
dream of playing in the nfl
due to an unexpected back injury that
caused me to have emergency
back surgery and on top of that i had a
girl
who i dated for four and a half years
and was planning to marry
that left me and got engaged to another
man
and i didn’t think my life mattered i
didn’t think i had purpose
and i saw counselors i prayed
i meditated and nothing helped i took
medication and honestly it made it worse
so i tried numbing my pain with drugs
shoving pills down my throat but i
couldn’t get
high enough to drown out my pain
as soon as that high were off there is
that
depression again and then as a former
division one athlete who had all this
attention
i know what it’s like to be surrounded
by people
and yet still feel so alone i mean i
know what it’s like to have people say
that
you matter and that they care but it
feels like they don’t or
they’re just saying that because it’s
the polite thing to say
the real problem is that i didn’t
believe that i had purpose beyond sports
so one day i sat in my car
i got high i drank a whole fifth of
alcohol
and i said goodbye to everybody
in my suicide letter
i was convinced i didn’t have purpose
i was convinced that the pain of dying
was better than the pain
of living another day
and i know what it’s like to face that
depression
to feel so alone and insignificant and i
can’t say it any other way it just
sucks but i’m telling you
that my life radically changed
when i survived my suicide attempts
and was convinced that i had purpose
and i believe understanding your purpose
will help you like it helped me i mean i
am literally
living the life that i tried to end
so take it from someone who’s been there
that there’s life beyond your depression
and there’s hope
so my challenge to you in this moment
is one thing to believe
believe in yourself believe that you
have
purpose i mean what if
for the next 30 days instead of focusing
on your weaknesses
you chose to focus on your strengths
what if instead of being depressed about
who you are not
and where you are not you started
celebrating
who you are and how far you’ve come
you know i shared this speech with some
recovering addicts and
one of them said hey bro i love your
speech and all of that and it’s
inspiring but i’m not just gonna do
something just because you tell me to do
it he said that’s all good and stuff for
you man
i get it i can’t make anyone
do anything
but let me ask you this aren’t you
tired of living the same life
aren’t you tired of going into a new
year
with the same you i mean think about it
you’ve been depressed your entire life
isn’t it time to try something different
i mean you’re already depressed what do
you got to lose
i dare you to give yourself 30 days
start as soon as this talk ends take 30
days
and choose to be fully convinced that
you have purpose
and your life matters and if you’re
spiritual i dare you
instead of fasting food how about you
try fasting doubt
fear and negative thoughts
i believe that if you do this your life
will change
you’ll find better ways to cope with
your depression
and i honestly think you can start
helping others too
so i’ve shared my story i’ve been
vulnerable with
you i’ve given you
tips i’ve done my best
to send you my hope
the rest is up to you
you