HOW FINDING YOUR PURPOSE CAN AMPLIFY YOUR HEALTH - Toronto Functional Medicine

Is there anything more attractive than someone who is passionate about what they do? Seriously, picture the people you are most interested in talking to. They are often people who ooze passion. So how can you tap into your sense of purpose to amplify your health? Here’s what we recommend at TMB for finding your purpose.

5 WAYS TO SHARPEN YOUR SENSE OF PURPOSE

FINDING YOUR PURPOSE TIP 1:
Passion

In Ikigai, this is at the intersection of what you love and what you’re good at. If you’ve ever worked with one of our practitioners, then you know we are extremely passionate about what we do. Get us talking about fascia, facial acupuncture, or how we turned our lives around with functional medicine/healing the gut and we could go ON! What is something you are passionate about? That you can’t shut up about, that lights you up and you find so interesting, and that also comes naturally to you?

Part of the beauty of creating our TMB community who is like-minded to us allows us a platform to SHARE our passion with. Nothing worse than feeling passionate about something and then having no outlet for it. Ask yourself if this is something blocking you… if you are super passionate about something but your spouse/co-workers don’t want to hear it, find like-minded people to share with to allow your passion to be expressed!

FINDING YOUR PURPOSE TIP 2:
Alignment of values

The big picture of this is the value of living your life in accordance to your values, rather than living for someone else. It’s easy to get caught up in trying to people please or, “do the right thing” for our parents/friends/children/partners approval or comfort. However, IKIGAI challenges you to step away and focuses on creating your best self, from the perspective of YOU. It’s important to check in and see that your words, actions, habits and lifestyle are congruent with the person you are, and are striving to be. Set your expectations accordingly.

Ultimately, it’s important to know where you want to be, so you can be headed in the right direction. Put it this way: If you are passionate about the environment and you are a lawyer for a company that contributes to major pollution, the values don’t align, and maybe you thought your purpose came from the lawyering part, and if so, that’s great. But if your greater purpose is to help clean up the earth, it’s a mis-match for your purpose.

FINDING YOUR PURPOSE TIP 3:
Look outside the box

Remember in school the “jobs” you heard of were very concrete: lawyer, teacher, doctor, nurse, engineer, secretary, stay-at-home-mom etc. The 20-somethings coming into the job market today realize the world is their oyster and that you can be more than one. If you’re feeling stuck, find someone who is already doing what you aspire to do. If that one person doesn’t exist, find a few that encompass what you see yourself up to. This does not about just work by the way, this could also be giving back, starting a family, a health journey, a hobby etc.)

FINDING YOUR PURPOSE TIP 4:
Change your perspective

If you have been in the same routine, social circles, job, relationship, health for, well, ever and you’re not sure, diversify the people you interact with/follow on social media/take advice from/talk to! This will help you gain new perspectives and hear things that you’ll start to reject or resonate with. Diversify the places you go/travel to, the ways you move your body and the activities you partake in. Taking in new sights, sounds, smells and tastes will create new neural pathways in your brain, foster creativity and provide you new ideas!

FINDING YOUR PURPOSE TIP 5:
Does it bring you JOY

Western standards of success seem to weigh very heavily on monetary measures. At what cost? This is how many very easily reach burnout, always looking beyond the horizon line because when is enough, enough? Instead of looking at and celebrating how far we’ve come, we’re constantly chasing something. In other cultures, presence and joy are part of the culture (look how different this is even in Europe). Purpose is measured by so many more variables than the mighty dollar. Are you happy with how and who and what you spend your time with/doing? Does it (your purpose) bring you joy? If not, what has been the cost to you/your family? What else could you be doing to amplify your joy?

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This article is excerpted from our weekly TMB Magazine — an exclusive subscriber only publication that is packed with all sorts of in-depth latest study breakdowns, functional medicine insights and wisdom from Dr. Bhat and her team.