Forming a personal philosophy isn’t easy – but it’s worth it. A personal philosophy provides you with a fundamental framework for creating a meaningful life. You can use it to align all facets of your higher self and find a purpose in everything you do.
Many people flow through life with no personal guidance system in place. From this position of uncertainty, we end up breezing through life with little direction and struggle to meet our long-term goals.
By forming a personal philosophy, you create an invitation to exist intentionally and catapult yourself towards your vision of a fulfilled life.
Whether you’re reinventing yourself or about to shift careers, a personal philosophy gives you the blueprint to ensure that you approach everything in life with intention, regardless of your current circumstances.
Does the idea of a personal philosophy resonate with you? Then keep reading to discover how to form a personal philosophy and create a life worth living.
Creating a personal philosophy is the secret ingredient to living a deep and meaningful life of purpose.
It’s a set of principles, unique to you, that guide you towards achieving your greatest dreams and aspirations.
A personal philosophy is a means of matching your thought patterns with your values, goals, and overall life vision. It’s the stepping stone towards living in alignment with your truth and reaching your highest self.
An article from the Journal of Space Philosophy explains that every human being has a personal philosophy that’s influenced by genetics, environment, and a lifetime of learning.
In this philosophical piece, Robert Krone suggests that:
“A small percentage of humans have explicitly documented their own philosophy as an analysis of their own value systems, or to understand the values, sources, and influences on their beliefs over time.”
Robert Krone
Philosophy, in general, provides you with the means to deepen your understanding and improve your intelligence. Personal philosophies provide motivational guidelines that nurture expansive thinking and soul searching, ultimately enhancing your quality of life.
Personal philosophies can be a wonderful ignition for your self-discovery journey. Devote this time to you, and let yourself be vulnerable in this period of discovery.
Below you will find an outline of 7 questions that will ignite inspiration and guide your mind towards new paradigms of thought.
Take some time on each to really dig deep and do the work.
Begin by asking yourself, “What are my core values?”
Understanding your core values offers you an insight into your true identity and sets the bar for establishing core moral principles.
What values drive your actions?
As you write out each value, attach a definition to each and add a line or two about how you envision aligning your actions with your values.
“I live and work with honor. I believe that everything I do must come from a place where honesty springs up like the headwaters of the river. In decisions and actions, I allow integrity to be my first and foremost directive. I do not expect to be perfect at this. I do expect integrity to be a constant ideal.”
By outlining your core values, you are building the foundations of your truth. Once you understand what you hold close to your heart, you can then discover ways to align your actions and values to reach your goals.
If you need some guidance, check out my course, Be True: Discover Your Core Value System. In it, I personally walk you through proven exercises to discover your true self, find your truth and begin living it.
Take a moment to venture inwards.
Dive deep into the core of your being and unearth the beliefs rooted in your soul. These can be associated with your worldviews or that in which you have great faith.
Share or write down two or three of your most potent, deeply-rooted beliefs that are ingrained into your soul. These deeply-rooted beliefs are the ones that influence your perception and how you view the world.
A podcast episode by Boss Project on the subject demonstrates how our deeply-rooted beliefs are influenced by our environment and social norms.
When you react to a situation, rather than consciously responding, it’s your deeply-rooted belief system, crafted from your upbringing and life experiences, that triggers you to act, often without thinking.
Outlining these beliefs for your personal philosophy allows you to truly understand what you stand for and, in turn, allows you to create life guidelines that are rooted in your truth. It’s like planting a seed of sincerity and watching it grow as you evolve.
Now that you’ve taken some time to explore your core values and fundamental beliefs, it’s time to outline your general philosophy for life.
For this step, take a look at the principal thoughts which have blossomed from the experience, knowledge, and wisdom you have gained so far.
The basis of identifying a general philosophy starts with one question:
According to Joseph Campbell,“The meaning of life is whatever you ascribe it to be. Being alive is the meaning.”
This means that the answer to this question is different for every single person.
From the second we are born into this earth, we each have a unique experience influenced by many internal and external elements.
Write down what you believe your life’s general philosophy is – what you believe your life’s meaning is – and allow this to guide you down the path towards success, satisfaction, and fulfillment.
We all want to succeed in life, but understand that success looks different to everyone.
You may believe that you have ‘made it’ if you are excelling in your career. If you’re more family-orientated, you may feel that you’ve made it when you have created a beautiful family surrounded by love.
Regardless, by understanding success as it relates to you, you can inspire to integrate this definition into your personal philosophy and set out the actions you need to align with in order to achieve it.
The answer to this intuitive question empowers you to define success broadly, in the context of your life and in relation to the unique challenges you face.
You can dissect this into different timeframes and metrics such as daily, annually, or even a lifetime measure of success.
Outline how you hope to achieve success using the most meaningful metric for you.
“When this life comes to an end I will measure success by how open my mind has remained and how soft my heart still is.”
It’s not uncommon for people to not yet know their life’s purpose.
Whether it relates to your career, passions, or relationship with others, each of us has a reason as to why we are here, on earth – but we might not yet know it.
Finding purpose in life can be difficult for some yet easy for others. It may take weeks, years, or even a lifetime. But once you have an understanding of what this purpose is you can live each day intentionally, consistently doing the things that are in alignment with your truth.
You can choose to add this step in or leave it out; it’s totally up to you. If you are exploring this step, see if you can write up no more than three sentences about what you sense your life’s purpose to be.
To make things even more simple, make the statement high-level, and less specific.
“My purpose in life is to provide as much love as I can to those around me. I want to enrich my immediate environment and community. I want to leave the world a better place than when I arrived in it.”
You can take this exercise further by developing a full personal purpose statement.
A study on purpose, hope, and life satisfaction by the Journal of Positive Psychology states that when individuals, no matter what age they are, identify with a purpose in life, they experience greater life satisfaction.
Once you feel that you know your purpose, you can translate these inspiring and actionable guidelines into your personal philosophy. This in turn allows you to lead your life, nurture your relationships and achieve your goals with a sense of gratification.
As with everything in life, we embody both strengths and weaknesses and translate these into everything we do.
Identifying each of these can attribute great value to your life, and help you understand where you already excel and where you can improve.
Take some time to learn how to identify your strengths. While your strengths may change as your work life and circumstances shift, start with today.
Create a list and layout the great traits that allow you to elevate your everyday life and allow you to thrive.
For example, you may excel at what you do for a living, you may have a heart of gold that supports others, you may be the first person people call if they need help creating a PowerPoint presentation, and so on.
By adding your greatest strengths into your personal philosophy, you can identify how to take advantage of the skills that enhance your life and do more of what you are good at.
In fact, Hungarian psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi explains that doing something that you love, whether that’s work or play, invites you into a flow state.
It’s from this state of flow that you tap into your creativity, encourage free-thinking, and in turn increase your chances of success.
As the final question for guiding your personal philosophy, ask yourself, “What is essential in my everyday life?”
Each of us has our own unique needs and when these are met, we are the best version of ourselves.
List the needs that you require at this moment in time. Next to each need, attach an intention for how you intend to meet these.
“In my day-to-day life, I search for peace amidst the chaos. In every moment, I sprinkle a sense of calmness onto all situations as it’s from this place of serenity that I can make conscious choices that are beneficial for me, others around me, and the environment. Even when I have no control over outside circumstances, I always have a choice to venture inwards where true peace resides.”
Maybe you are unsure as to what you truly need from this lifetime. That’s okay. Why not first figure out how to discover your passion and take it from there?
When we lead from the heart, we can never go wrong.
We’ve shared the questions to ask yourself when forming your own personal philosophy, now let’s take a look at some examples of how they might look:
This example is a life philosophy someone might create to remind themselves to embrace challenges and the unavoidable setbacks they will face on their path to success. It will guide and inspire them to keep going, especially when things get tough.
Nothing worth having in life ever comes easy. It’s only natural to experience failure along the way when pursuing your dreams.
Keep in mind that failure is not the end. Rejection is only redirection that can support you on this journey called life.
No matter whether it’s in your personal, career, or romantic life—failure welcomes learning curves and can even be an invitation down the path less taken.
The path to success is never a straight line. It involves frustration, setbacks, replanning, but most importantly, continued effort. And from there springs ultimate satisfaction and achievement.
Core values:
Someone with this life philosophy wants to remain true to themselves in all situations, and build authentic connections to enrich their lives.
When you make decisions based on honesty you can stand up for what you believe in while also staying humble.
It’s from this place that you can stay rooted in your truth while also staying open-minded to others’ perceptions.
Treat every interaction as an opportunity to discover something new. You might just find learning something from welcoming a different outlook.
Core values:
Discovering the right direction in life isn’t always easy. And often it’s not about the destination but the beautiful, complicated, and sometimes painful journey along the way.
It may take exploring different avenues before you discover and unleash your true purpose. By dedicating time to understanding your values, beliefs, and goals through developing a personal philosophy, you’ll get there.
One step at a time.
And when you do, I promise it’ll all be worth it.
If you need a push in the right direction, check out my Online Course: Believing in Yourself. You’ll learn a number of proven methods to push past self-doubt, take action and achieve your goals.
