What gets you up in the morning? What is your purpose in life?
Have you ever been asked this? This is a classic job interview question looking to find out about you and whether you have a purpose.
It’s designed to help the interviewer find out what motivates you both personally and professionally. They’re looking to find out if you will fit for them.
How easy is it for you to answer on the spur of the moment? Right now … go on, answer the question. What gets you up in the morning?
Is it your children? To give them the best possible life? How about doing an excellent job and getting acknowledgement for it? Or maybe helping people get a better life for themselves?
Or is it your alarm clock!?
It’s a question that is so important to be able to answer, but one we don’t think about that much (unless going for an interview!). Often with the hectic business of life we find there is little time beyond thinking about paying the bills, meeting work and family commitments, cooking, DIY, booking holidays or fixing the car.
Things that motivate us are often put aside into the ‘hobby’ section of our lives, or something to do when everything else is done (which it never is), or something you will do when you retire.
I wonder how many people when asked ‘What gets you up in the morning?’ might simply answer ‘because I have to go to work,’ or ‘because I have so much to get done today’. There’s no enthusiasm, no excitement, just a sense of repetitive everyday routine – trapped in the mundaneness of life.
If you don’t at least have some reason to get up, then gradually … psychologically, emotionally and physically, you will detach from the world, from others and most importantly from yourself.
Hopefully, you will take this question today as a wakeup call, before you get too distant from everything. Why not think about your purpose right now? Give it some time, as it’s important.
To learn how to discover your motivations and just what it is that you value in life read on, as it’s time to find your purpose.
Tom.
Originally posted 2017-05-23 10:23:28.
Dr Tom Barber is an experienced integrative and existential psychotherapist and counsellor, who has been helping people overcome personal challenges for the last 25 years. He is a bestselling author of 6 books, and spends his time between private clients, teaching and lecturing internationally, writing, and developing programmes to help people improve the quality of their life. His academic speciality is in the subject of trauma and emotion.
