With Purpose Success, part 35

You may be surprised to discover that the things that you've done that have made you feel most significant were the simple things that brought a smile to someone's face or improved their life in some small way. You may not even have recognized this joy at the time. Yet upon reflection you find that the service aspect is what lit your fire.
Search Your Youth. Now apply the same exercise to your earliest years.
Take a minute to think back to your childhood. What did you dream about doing with your life? Write down everything you remember about those dreams and ask yourself how you may have kept them alive in your work, hobbies, or recreation. Although your joys may have evolved, many people find this exercise to be a powerful starting point for recovering their core strengths and passions. Remembering the first things you wanted to do with your life and the first things that made a lasting impression on you can provide invaluable insight, especially if you feel that your dreams have been obscured by the struggle to survive and raise a family over the past thirty years.
Study People You Admire. You do it all the time in other parts of your life. If you see someone who seems especially well put together or confident, you may take note of their clothes or hairstyle or how they speak.
If someone beats you at tennis every week you may observe their serving technique or when and how often they come to the net. At work, you may take note of fellow workers who always seem to have the boss's ear and try to figure out what they're doing to get that recognition.
It's natural to study things that impress you and try to learn from them, and you can go about your search for new purpose the same way.
Find role models and try to identify what makes them so special. Is it their honesty? How carefully they listen to others? How they respect old people or relate to young people? How they care for an aging parent or sick spouse? Do you admire their commitment to their religion or a community project? Write it all down, and after you've studied three to five role models find the traits that appear on your list most often. Look for ways to practice those traits in your life.
Craft a Vision Statement. Key to unlocking your strengths and vision for the next phase of life is making the effort to think things through. Once you've reflected on the meaningful points of your life, use them to mold a vision statement. Your vision statement doesn't need to be longer than one paragraph, and it should summarize what you are good at, where your core strengths and passions lie, and how you plan to fuse the two.
Here are two sample vision statements: