If you do not stand for something, you may fall for anything
The above quote is popularly used in the place where I grew up and I have come to see the truism in it. It is the purpose that you have that will ultimately give your life a meaning, and it will be worth living. Having no purpose in life means that there is nothing to propel and motivate you to action, and there is nothing to achieve. Obviously, you must have a goal, so that you will have what to achieve. Without having a purpose, it is just like living a life without goal. So the first step to achieve meaning in life is to create a purpose for yourself.
In order to have fulfilment in life, you must give your life a purpose. However, in the journey to giving your life a purpose, you should take these fundamental tools seriously. The first fundamental point of call is to have a total and indepth reflection over your life - which includes reflection of the past, in relation to the future, which will enable you to extrapolate it to the future. For example, to count the number "2," you will need to count "1" first. So the knowledge of your present state, gotten through reflection, will help you to know where you are going to. After reflection, there is a need for you to make plans of what you want to achieve in life.
It is worthy to note that the plan you create is what creates a sense of purpose for you. No matter what you want to achieve, without planning, it will be almost like a mission impossible. Take this instance, when someone has an idea of the house to build. The idea will still remain in the mind of the person until an architect puts a drawing of the house (which is planning in this context), so as to direct the building/civil engineers on how to go about it. So to succeed in life and then to drive yourself towards the fulfilment of your dreams, you must have a dream firstly, then you must have a plan in relation to the dream that you already have.
When you have reflected and have created a plan, then the next step is the execution - that is putting actions towards the plans to make it to yield results. Just like the example of the architect I gave earlier: The architect makes the plans and the drawings, but without a building or civil engineer putting the drawings into actions by building on it, it will still remain on paper. In the same way, what gives credence to the plans that you have made is the execution - the action you put into it. So without putting action into your plans, the result will not be attainable and the sense of purpose will be nonexistent. You will agree with me that the energy to perform an action increases by performing the action. So by taking steps towards your plans, you consolidate on your sense of purpose.
When taking steps and when executing your ideas, you have to understand that timing is very crucial. You may undertake the right action and may even do it rightly, but if it is not done at the right time, then the result may not be fully delivered as intended. So to make the right action that is done rightly to deliver maximally, it has to be done at the right time. The truth is that there are sometimes that a delay in taking the right action may have the same consequences with not taking the action at all. The same goes with having a sense of purpose and planning towards it. A delay in taking actions relating to your plans may defeat the aim. It is true that there is a quote that goes like this:
Delay is not denial
But one should also know that there is a level that you will delay taking actions towards your dreams and your plans, and the delay will invalidate the ultimate aim of the dream. So you see, even if a sense of purpose creates meaning for someone's life, one should try to take the required actions towards what they believe in at the right time to see the desired results.
Thanks for reading
