For millennia, sailors navigated vast oceans using the North Star. It wasn’t their destination, but a fixed point in the ever-shifting world that allowed them to orient themselves and plot their course.

In your own life, a similar fixed point is essential. This is your life purpose, built upon the foundation of your core values. It’s the internal compass that guides your decisions, fuels your resilience, and provides a profound sense of meaning.

However, discovering this north star is often presented through vague advice like follow your passion. This article bypasses such platitudes, offering instead a series of unconventional yet psychologically-grounded exercises designed to excavate what is already within you.

 You won’t be creating your purpose, you’ll be uncovering the evidence of its existence.

The Archaeology of the Self: Excavating Your Core Values

Your core values are not things you choose from a list. They are the principles you are already living by, often unconsciously. The key is to bring them into the light. You’ll act as an archaeologist of your own mind, digging past the surface to find the bedrock of your beliefs.

The Outrage Audit (Via Negativa)

A fascinating fact is that we are often more clearly defined by what we viscerally reject than by what we passively accept. The philosophical concept of via negativa, or the negative way, suggests that you can understand something by what it is not. You can apply this to your values. Your deepest commitments are often revealed not by what makes you happy, but by what makes you angry.

This method is effective because it taps into the amygdala, the brain’s emotional core. Anger, particularly righteous anger, is a powerful signal that a deeply held value has been violated. It’s a raw, unfiltered data point about what you believe is fundamentally right.

Journal Prompts:

• The Injustice Inventory: List three things in the world (from global issues to everyday annoyances) that you find deeply unjust, inefficient, or wrong. Be specific and go into details. Don’t just write “poverty”; write “the fact that children go hungry in a world with so much surplus food.”
• The Value Mirror: For each injustice you listed, ask yourself: “What is the positive value that this situation offends?” For example, If you are enraged by manipulative advertising, the violated value might be truth or autonomy. Or if you are deeply frustrated by bureaucratic red tape that prevents good work, the violated value might be efficiency or impact.

This exercise bypasses aspirational thinking (“I’d like to be honest”) and reveals the values you already hold so deeply that their violation provokes a powerful emotional response.

The Childhood Evidence Locker

The activities that absorbed you as a child (before you knew about careers or social and financial expectations) are pure clues to your innate desires. The key isn’t what you did, but the verb associated with the action.

This connects to the concept of innate schemas in developmental psychology. These are the recurring patterns of thought and behavior that emerge early in life. A child obsessively lining up their toys isn’t just playing; they may be expressing an innate drive for order and systematization.

Journal Prompts:

• Identify Obsessions: List three things that you were completely obsessed with between the ages of 8 and 14. This could be anything from dinosaurs or building Lego cities to taking apart electronics or writing stories.
• Identify Verbs: For each obsession, identify the core action you were performing. Were you organizing a collection? Exploring the woods? Building new worlds? Caring for a pet? Solving puzzles? Persuading your friends?
• Connect the Drive: How do these core verbs (e.g., to organize, to explore, to build) show up in your adult life? Where do you feel most “in flow”? This verb is a critical part of your purpose.

The Energy Compass

Your intellectual mind can rationalize anything, but your body tells no lies. The tasks, conversations, and environments that energize you versus those that drain you are the most honest feedback you’ll ever get. This method turns you into a scientist of your own energy.

This is a practical application of the psychological concept of flow, a term coined by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. A flow state (where you are fully immersed, energized, and enjoying a process) is a powerful indicator that you’re operating at the intersection of your skills and values. Conversely, activities that consistently drain your energy often conflict with your core values or operate outside your natural strengths.

Journal Prompt:

• Conduct an energy audit: 

For one week, track your activities in a journal. At the end of each day, review your list and mark each activity with a:

• + (Plus): This activity left me feeling more energized than when I started.
• − (Minus): This activity drained my energy or left me feeling depleted.
• = (Equal): This activity had a neutral effect.

• Analyze the patterns: 

At the end of the week, look at all your ‘+’ activities. Ignore the formal descriptions of activities and try to define its core. What was the underlying experience? Were you solving a complex problem? Were you creating order from chaos? Were you making someone feel understood and supported? The patterns in your high-energy activities point directly to your purpose. Do the same for ‘-’ activities. Only when you define the essence of an activity, the next step is to find its opposite. This also is a sign of an important value.

Your Personal Board of Directors

You don’t have to generate all the wisdom yourself. You can borrow it from the figures you admire most. This visualization technique helps you uncover your values by seeing them reflected in others.

This exercise is a form of projective identification used in coaching and psychology. By articulating the specific traits you admire in others, you are projecting your own highest values and aspirations onto them. You are essentially creating a map of your ideal self.

Journal Prompt:

• Assemble the council: 

Choose 3 to 5 people to be on your personal “Board of Directors.” They can be living or dead, real or fictional. Pick people you deeply respect for their character, not just their accomplishments (e.g., a grandparent, Abraham Lincoln, a character from a novel like Atticus Finch).

• Define their core value: 

Next to each name, write down the single, specific quality you admire most about them. Not just “they were successful,” but “their unwavering determination,” “their boundless curiosity,” or “their radical compassion.” This list of qualities is a powerful snapshot of your own core values.

• Seek their counsel: 

The next time you face a difficult decision, convene your board. Ask yourself, “What would [mentor’s name] advise me to do here, in order to best honor the value of [admired quality]?” This shifts the decision from “What should I do?” to “Who do I want to be?”

20 Reflective Journal Prompts for Defining Your North Star

When you’re done with previous exercises, use these prompts to additionally explore the corners of your mind. Don’t censor yourself; write freely and see what emerges.

• Describe a time you felt perfectly content and at peace. What were the core ingredients of that moment?
• What is a belief you hold that you would not compromise on, even if it cost you a job or a relationship?
• When have you felt most proud of yourself? What action did you take?
• What are you willing to struggle for? What is worth the sacrifice of your time and comfort?
• Think of a difficult decision you made in the past. What were the two options, and what was the ultimate principle that guided your choice?
• When have you had to say a firm “no” to something? What important value were you protecting?
• What brings you a feeling of deep, lasting joy, rather than just fleeting pleasure?
• If you had to teach one core principle about how to live a good life to a child, what would it be?
• Describe a compliment you received that truly meant something to you. What had you done to earn it?
• What does the word “dignity” mean to you? Describe a time you saw it in action.
• What kind of problems do people naturally come to you for help with?
• If you had to give a 20-minute presentation with zero preparation, what topic would you choose?
• What topic could you read 50 books about without getting bored?
• Imagine your 80-year-old self. What is the one thing you would regret if you didn’t try it or pursue it?
• What activity makes you lose track of time?
• If you could create one thing—a business, a piece of art, a community project, a family—what would its primary mission be?
• What injustice in the world fires you up the most and makes you want to act?
• What is a unique combination of two or three of your skills that most people don’t have?
• Describe a “perfect” average workday that is not a vacation. What is the theme or feeling of that day?
• What is something you feel the world needs more of? How can you be a source of that thing, even in a small way, starting this week?

The Architecture of Purpose: Designing Your Guiding Principle

With your core values excavated, you can begin to architect a purpose statement that acts as your North Star. This isn’t a job title; it’s a guiding principle for how you want to move through the world. 

The Commemorative Bench Test

The common advice is to write your own eulogy. This can be morbid and encourages rambling. A more powerful and concise alternative is the Commemorative Bench Test. It forces you to distill your life’s desired impact into a single, powerful sentence.

The psychological principle at play here is legacy motivation. Research from Stanford University shows that reflecting on the legacy one wants to leave behind can significantly increase pro-social behavior and a sense of purpose. This exercise frames that reflection in a tangible, public way.

Journal Prompt:

• Imagine a park bench is dedicated in your honor after you’re gone. The plaque has two lines.

Line 1: In loving memory of [Your Name].

Line 2: A 10-15 word sentence describing your contribution to others.

• What does that second line say?
  • Example 1: “She taught a generation of children to love science.”
  • Example 2: “He built spaces that brought the community together.”
  • Example 3: “She always made you feel like you truly mattered.”

Don’t overthink it. Keep an open mind and don’t filter yourself. Consider the values you defined in previous prompts and write the first thing that comes to mind. That sentence is the heart of your purpose.

Prototyping Your Purpose: The Life Design Odyssey

A life purpose isn’t a static destination you arrive at. It’s a direction you pursue, and the path can have many forks. The most effective way to gain clarity is not to think more, but to prototype. This concept comes from the Life Design Lab at Stanford University, which applies design thinking principles to building a well-lived life.

The Life Design methodology has been shown to decrease anxiety about the future and increase individuals’ ability to take action by reframing life planning as a series of creative experiments.

The Life Design Odyssey Plan

Take a piece of paper and sketch out three different versions of the next five years of your life.

Life 1: The Current Path. The life you are living now, projected forward. What does the next five years look like if you keep doing what you’re doing?

Life 2: The Pivot. Imagine that your current job or industry completely disappears tomorrow. What would you do instead? This removes your primary constraint and forces you to explore alternatives you’re already curious about.

Life 3: The Wildcard. What would your life look like in five years if money and what other people thought of you were completely irrelevant? What wild, creative, or seemingly impossible path would you explore?

For each of the three plans, give it a title, write down the key questions it raises, and note what you would need to get started. You don’t have to choose one. The goal is to see that you contain multitudes and that there are many valid ways to live a life aligned with your North Star. By externalizing these possibilities, you make them real and reduce the fear of choosing the “wrong” path.

Your North Star isn’t about finding the one, perfect answer. It’s about having a reliable tool for orientation. It’s the inner voice that helps you navigate by asking: “Does this decision lead me closer to, or further away from, being the person I want to be and making the contribution I want to make?” By using these exercises, you can make that voice clearer, stronger, and more confident than ever before.