You'll hear it called your "life's purpose". You'll hear it called your "meaning" or "what drives you as a person". I prefer to use the term "mission". It's a much manlier term and one that I think is more specific and action-based. A "mission" has the connotation that there are steps needing to be done to reach a final goal. Saying something is your "life's purpose" is just too vague and foo foo for me. Hell, reading poetry and eating chocolate could be your purpose if you wanted it to be... but it won't actual get things DONE, and it arguably won't make you a better person.
For many of you Fraternity members, you have done a very good job of summarizing your own personal life mission as such:
"I'm a father and a husband."
There is nothing wrong with that, per se. Most people you ask will say that's a very laudable goal. To be the father to some children and a partner to a wife is time-consuming, difficult, and worthy of putting a great deal of your energy and attention towards. The problem that many of us have found: You lose yourself somewhere along the way. As far as the rest of society is concerned, "Father and husband" are a given. It's like saying that your mission is to eat food. Of course you'll care for your wife and kids... but what about YOU? What makes you ... YOU? In other words, if the wife takes the kids away to see her parents for a week, what do you do then? How do you direct your energy? What is it that gets you moving? What are you aiming for?
For the men I talk to that are in broken relationships, I would say that the majority of them lack a real mission in life. It then begs the question: Which came first? The horrible relationship or the lack of personal mission? Did his relationship start to fall apart because he lost his sense of self... or did he lose himself because of his horrible relationship?
Having a real mission and purpose in life, beyond your family, has many positive repercussions, many of which should sound familiar to you:
You get out of the house and/or away from your wife more often.
You are introduced to a whole new group of people to learn from.
You have more opportunities for "wins" in life.
Your perspective on life completely shifts.
You have fewer opportunities for negative life habits like laziness and overeating.
You have more confidence.
You have less time for ruminating and anxious thoughts.
It's almost as if finding a mission in life is a shortcut method to achieving goals set out in The Dead Bedroom Fix. Want to get laid more? Then go get a mission.
It's funny how life works. Much of the advice I and others in the Fraternity dish out can be summarized as "be a healthy man". The rest just seems to fall into place. If your end goal is to be a more complete man that others find sexy and fun... then put in the work and make it happen. Work on being the "Mentally Healthy Non-Needy Man" (MHNNM). You know what you have to do... you just don't like the idea that it will take time and effort. Sometimes it takes a great deal of both. Want to make that process as quick as possible? Then figure out your mission in life, and get to it.
If it wasn't for the "Dad Starting Over" idea I had years ago, I'm honestly not certain what my mission would be right now. Thankfully, this mission gave me some little wins early on which in turn gave me the energy and further motivation I needed to keep going and not lose interest. This could've just been another blog lost in the ocean of billions other blogs. Instead, I got some good feedback early on about my writing... which led me to write more... which led to somebody suggesting I should write a book... which led me to spend about six months writing The Dead Bedroom Fix... which led to selling a few copies... which led me to try and figure out how to sell more copies... which led me to starting an online store selling them directly... which led to Facebook ads... which led to more sales... which brought me to a point of needing help and admitting I knew nothing about online product sales... which led me to hiring a person to help... which led me to writing another couple of books... which led me to the realization that I need more than just books to keep this machine running... which led to coaching... and eventually the private men's group... which led to the hiring of coaches... more content contributors... Help For Men... and the rest is history.
All of the above happened over a period of several years. This was several years of pretty consistent hard work. Lots of fails. A few wins. Thousands of dollars of mistakes. Lots of people I have met along the way. Lots of "ah ha!" moments. Lots of self-discovery. Lots of achievement. Lots of moments where I stop and say to myself, "Wow... I'm really doing this. This is going somewhere." I haven't had this many fist-pumping moments of joy in well... ever. I've played sports. I've had jobs. I've had women. I've raised three kids. None of those things give the same level of achievement as a mission that I started from scratch and watched grow with my own hard work and effort. Yes, I can point to my boy out on the basketball court and say, "That's MY BOY right there!" or post on Facebook that my daughter made the Dean's List at school for the first time... but that's passive in nature. That's just me saying, "Look at what my offspring achieved!" Yeah, I may have had a hand in their development... but that's still not ME.
Once I found out what ME was really all about and what got me moving in the right direction, that's when things started to click.
You need to find the same ME. You need to find your mission.