Interview: 'One leap of faith can change your life forever.'

I interviewed Dr. Robert Holden about how to find meaning and purpose in your life.

“One new perception, one fresh thought, one act of surrender, one change of heart, one leap of faith, can change your life forever.' Robert Holden

Sometimes we don’t have to do anything to change our lives.

Like Robert Holden says, it’s simply finding a new way of thinking, a change of heart or mind, or a leap of faith—and just like that, our world looks different.

I am a big fan of Robert’s work. I interviewed him over 25 years ago, when he was billed as one of the first UK ‘happiness gurus’. He has dedicated three decades to learning the core principles of positive psychology, publishing 10 successful best-selling books, and he’s had stratospheric success since I spoke to him about founding the first NHS stress buster clinic in the ‘90s.

His innovative work on psychology and spirituality has been featured on 'Oprah'; there’s been a PBS special called Shift Happens!; and two major BBC-TV documentaries, ‘The Happiness Formula’ and ‘How to Be Happy', have been shown in 16 countries to more than 30 million television viewers.

I was lucky enough to interview him recently for Metro.co.uk about his new book, Higher Purpose: How to Find More Inspiration, Meaning, and Purpose in Your Life (Hay House, £12.99).

‘On my radio show, it’s the one subject that would make the phones light up. Everyone always wanted to know how to find their purpose,’ he says.

For me, when Robert talks and writes about purpose, I translate that as living a life that makes your heart leap - what makes you feel most alive?

Here’s an excerpt from the interview

What is a purpose centred life?

It’s creating a life where we believe what we do matters, that we feel we’re making a contribution to life, that we’re being of service.

How do you find your purpose?

I’ve identified four paths to finding your purpose.

Inspiration is one. When we are inspired by something and it lights us up. For example, you might see a play and decide that you want to be an actor. When we’re inspired, we want to participate in the very thing that’s inspired us.

A second path is an act of service. You might recognise that you want to enter the nursing profession, for instance. Or work in a healing profession, because we want to serve, and we want to make a contribution that way.

The other way we can find our purpose is through some trauma and the healing from that trauma may wake us up and become a gateway towards living a more purposeful life. For example, you may recover from addiction and want to help others on the road to recovery too.

Finally, there’s also what I call a ‘purpose anxiety’ which is a sense of disillusionment with our lives. When you think – really? Is this it? 

How do we start living a purpose centred life?

There is a certain act of faith in living a purpose centred life. You’re called by an inner voice. To everyone else, it’s going to often look irrational and risky. A little bit like the Indiana Jones movie, where he’s standing on the edge of the cliff, and he takes the step into thin air only to discover there was already a bridge there.

Your purpose doesn’t necessarily show you the path, you’ve got to take a step and the path appears.

I would advise to call upon the support of your friends, find a mentor and start with baby steps. What I’ve found is that when you start to follow your purpose, support does appear.

How do you drill down and define what your purpose is?

Rather than trying to define your purpose, try to recognise when you feel most on purpose.

I created a checklist. Firstly, notice when you feel really alive. It’s undeniable when your pulse is racing, and your heart is beating, and you feel it in your bones. You don’t care what it looks like to anybody else.

Often when we’re not living our purpose, when we feel we’re just stuck in a job we dislike, we might not feel so alive. You might feel exhausted, tired and drained. This sense of aliveness is one of the most honest forms of feedback that your system will give you.

When you’re living on purpose, yes, it might be really hard, you might be putting in all sorts of hours, and you may still get tired but fundamentally, there’s this sense of aliveness that takes you forward.

Higher Purpose: How to Find More Inspiration, Meaning, and Purpose in Your Life (Hay House, £12.99)