How do we determine our life path?

I've been having a break from the blog as I have been on vacation - I had a lovely time in Canada (in beautiful Nova Scotia actually) visiting friends and family.  And I then flew down to one of my all time favorite cities, New York!  London and NYC are the same kind of world class, cosmopolitan, diverse city.  And yet, there is such a different energy about each city - NYC has a particular vibrancy about it. London is still my home and it's nice to be back in the UK and back to the old routine.  I've been coaching a number of clients from different parts of the world over my vacation  - what is great about Skype is that I can still coach clients whether I'm in Nova Scotia, NYC or London.

Today I am thinking about purpose - and what it means to live our live on purpose. Many of the people who come to me about the decision to have children or not also find themselves questioning the idea of purpose.  'If I don't have children, then I want to be leading a life with meaning and purpose?' is often a question posed by my clients..

One of the points I always make about purpose and the 'baby decision' is that I don't think that having children gives you your life's purpose although for some people, this may be the case.  However, in addition to my 'baby decision' clients, I see many clients for general career and life coaching who are also parents.  Many of the parents I see are also struggling with the concept of purpose.... and the questions they are coming to coaching include: how can we live a live with purpose, how can we make a difference in the world and have an impact?  Something I learnt from the wonderful US coach Dave Ellis who works with high-net worth individuals is that someone might have all the material wealth and success in the world but if they are not living life on purpose or making a difference in some way, they will not feel fulfilled.

I came across this very thoughtful piece in the Guardian from early this month  by Oliver Burkeman called Misery, failure, death and a slap in the face.   The premise of the book, written by James Hollis is we need to look beyond the ego - or the surface part of us that wants to be happiness.  Most techniques for happiness and becoming happy, claims Hollis, are bound to fail because we are staying on the surface level of the ego.  We need to listen to what Hollis called 'the forces of unconscious' want from us.   I love this because part of what I try to do as a coach is help people get underneath the surface of the ego and find ways to tap into our intuition.

Hollis had a wonderful question - which I think of as a coaching question - which he felt would help people who are at a crucial crossroads of their life.   The question is  'Does this path, this choice, make me larger or smaller?'    Usually, at some point during my coaching with baby decision clients, I tend to ask a similar question.   Because a question about happiness - whether the decision will make me happy or not, never has the same resonance.