Why Do You Exist? 17 Journal Prompts To Find Your Purpose

One of the best journal prompts to find your purpose would always be, “What did you love doing when you were a child?”

I want you to remember what you were seriously obsessed with. What made you jump out of bed in the mornings? What was your mind busy with?

Answering those questions helped me find my purpose years ago.

But I offer 16 more journal prompts to help you live purposefully.

Figuring Out Your Life Purpose

If you look at the dictionary, you will quickly find that the meaning of the word “purpose” is “why you do something or why something exists“.

Would that mean that by asking, “What’s my life purpose?” we wonder, “Why do I exist?”

Can any of us honestly answer it without any trace of doubt? Probably not.

So what do we aim for when searching for our life purpose?

I believe that “life purpose” also equals having a solid direction ahead. The “purpose” always comes with being self-aware, happy, content, and valuable—especially the latter.

“Life can only be understood backward, but it must be lived looking forward.” says Soren Kierkegaard in the first years of the 19th century. Two hundred years later, he is still correct.

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“Life can only be understood backward, but it must be lived looking forward.”

Soren Kierkegaard

Understanding Life Through Journaling

The most accessible and powerful way to find answers within ourselves would always be through writing. Emerging into that “zone” where our thoughts have gone silent, but our hand keeps scribbling words is where the secret to the “inner self” is.

Journaling for finding your life purpose isn’t too much different than journaling for gratitude or mental health. It is all about grabbing the pen, kicking the expectations in the butt, and allowing yourself to not be profound in the first 10 minutes.

Just staying with the pen above the blank page, ignoring the frustration, and letting your mind play with the journal prompt is enough.

Because it is not about “not having an answer” but about “not digging deep enough to face it”.

But if you are ready to dig deep, here are my suggestions on journal prompts to find your life purpose (free pdf included below).

Read Next: 110 Things to Do With Empty Notebooks and Journals

Journal Prompts For Finding Your Purpose

1. What was your favorite game when you were a child? Why did you love it so much? What was enticing about it? Can you find its equivalent in your “adult life”?

2. What would “happy” look like for you if it were a goal? Describe your “happy”.

3. If the goal is “be useful”, what would that look like for you? Think of examples that are realistic and applicable to you only.

4. Think of when you were truly happy and satisfied with your life. Come up with as many memories as possible. What was common about all of those times?

5. What would you work if you didn’t have to work for money?

6. What does it mean to live a meaningful life? Let your imagination roam free on this one.

7. What did you want to become when you were a child? Why? What was so attractive about that profession?

8. What would it look like if you could snap your fingers and live a completely different life? What would you “take with you” from this life?

9. List at least ten things outside your comfort zone that sound enticing and exciting and that you want to try/achieve/do.

More Writing Prompts To Find Your Life Purpose

10. Can you expand on your hobby? Why do you love it? How does it make you feel? Can you turn it into something more?

11. Imagine yourself old and wrinkly, ready to leave this world behind. What memories would you like to have with you? What would you like to leave behind? How would you want to be remembered? What would matter?

12. Is there a skill you secretly dream you could master? What makes it so attractive to you?

13. Journal about something you tried and failed at. What did you learn from that experience? Did it alter your goals and/or dreams? How?

14. What would your life look like one year from now if “fear” didn’t exist?

15. How do you contribute to your family, work, and community? Which parts of your “contribution” give you pure joy?

16. Who is your role model? (it could be a real person or a fictional character) Why do you admire them so much?

17. What do you want your life purpose to be? See the question from the “I control my life” point of view: you “create” instead of “find” your purpose.