Playing with Purpose

When you hear the words deliberate purpose, what do you think of? What does it mean to you? Today, I am going to share with you the importance of that word in my life and how it can change the way you do everything.

As I walk through life and switch hats throughout the day (husband, father, athlete, business owner, mental coach, etc.), I do my best to place purpose on everything that I do. My time has become so valuable that I have to make sure that everything I do is for a specific purpose. As I make an honest effort to do this day in and day out, I ask myself, “Why am I doing what I’m doing?” hundreds of times. In my journey to developing this deliberate purpose, I found out a lot about myself and why I do the things I do. I found out why social media was the first thing I went to when I opened my computer, I found out why I open the fridge 5-6 times in a row, I found out why I have road-anger problem (pre-road-rage), and a bunch more, especially as an athlete. You see, the journey to deliberate purpose is on the path of self discovery and awareness.

This is a path that any person wanting to level up must travel on.

The definition of deliberate is “carefully weighed or considered; studied; intentional.” Think about what it means to you to have a deliberate purpose in all that you do. Think about how that will change your life, your business, your athletic career, think about how having a deliberate purpose will change all that you do.

I have found that in life, we do a lot of things for reasons that we do not know. We eat 3 meals a day, we shower, we listen to music, we check our phones, we go to college, we drive from point a to point b, there are many more examples, but the idea is that we have fallen into a mindless rut of living our lives. Today’s challenge is built to develop your awareness, take you through a path of self-discovery and to help you start living your life and doing all you do with deliberate purpose.

Challenge:

Your challenge is to do everything with a purpose: to question why you are doing the things you are doing. This can be something that you do for everything in your life but, I wanted to be specific and make sure we are putting purpose behind every training session, both physical and mental. Here is an example:

1. You question: “Why do I do __________ and _________ everyday before my training sessions?”

2. After you have identified your question, you then need to discover the root(s) of why you do it! No matter the reason(s), it is important to identify why you do the things you do.

3. After the discovery, it is time to put those reasons up against what you are trying to achieve. If what you do helps you get closer to what you are trying to achieve, keep doing it! If it only distracts or has no redeeming qualities, find better options. If you can’t find another option, reach out to us at Mental Grit for some ideas.

4. Be sure that you do everything in your training on purpose with purpose. This will assure that everything you do is helping you get to where you want to be!