The pattern to holistic personal growth consists of the following areas:

- Purpose:

   some sort of goal (at best a higher purpose or vision)

- Mission:

   the challenge of figuring out the path to make your purpose real

- Passion:

   an innate drive, motivation, a burning passion or inspiration towards your purpose

- The Self:

   the main character of your story (you), willing to develop and improve and live even bigger

- Community:

   a group of like-minded, sharing the goal and the mission

Finding these parts for yourself and  and interconnecting them in your life will set you up for a journey towards greatness.

Here is a more detailed explanation of the areas:

Purpose:

This can be a vision or a purpose.

A vision is an idea of your ideal world. How should the world look for everyone involved? You can also pick one topic and focus on that. 

A purpose is your role you play in making this vision become reality. Purpose is your job, your part, in turning this real.

In this area of the Human Journey, you have to find your own unique answers from within you. But don’t worry, there are people who want to help you find your own answers, by stirring your thinking and asking the right questions.

Having a purpose is the way to find meaning in life. When we switch from thinking primarily about our own comfort to acting for a higher purpose, we can free ourselves our own smallness. If our path isn't primarily about ourselves, we get possibilities to add value to the world and to others’ lives and we experience a new form of freedom.

~ A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself ~ Joseph Campbell

~ The secret to life is to have a task, something you devote your entire life to. ~ Henry Moore

~ Your life isn't about you. ~ Neale Donald Walsch

Mission:

If the purpose is the target you are heading towards, the mission is the path that leads you there.

Imagine it as a journey: You figure out the place you want to go and then you start going towards it, with all the trials and great experiences on the road. That often includes struggle and fear. This is essentially the hard part but also the one with all the fun surprises.

A perfect example of this is the story of Frodo in Lord of the Rings. His goal, his purpose, is to destroy the almighty ring of power, so that the evil lord cannot get it. The only place it can be destroyed is in the volcano in Mordor on the other side of the world. The whole story is then about him walking there. In the process he is facing challenges, but also having uplifting moments. That journey is what makes Frodo grow with time.

You cannot go on a mission without a purpose, but without going on the actual mission you won’t grow, no matter how much purpose you have. But a mission is also the key to great experiences. If you are on a road, chances are that there will be adventures, breathtaking sights, great experiences and fellow travelers to meet. On the way is where you have the opportunity to come alive.

~ Opportunities to find deeper powers within ourselves come when life seems most challenging. ~ Joseph Campbell

~ Suddenly you're ripped into being alive. And life is pain and life is suffering, but my god you're alive and it's spectacular. ~ Joseph Campbell

~ The most extraordinary people in the world today don't have a career. They have a mission. ~ Vishen Lakhiani.

Passion:

Passion is the root of it all. If you don’t have the innate drive to makes you want to find your purpose and pursue it, you won’t even start at all. Without passion, you wouldn’t even be here reading this.

It sparks a sense of curiosity, a feeling that there is more, a desire to be greater, to experience more, in one word: to live.

Passion is what makes the whole journey joyful. Without passion, none of the other areas are of any use. They are all pointless without passion at their core.

Imagine it like this: All the other areas listed here are the parts that make up your car. But passion is the fuel. Without passion, the whole car is useless.

Actions from passion are actions that have the potential for greatness.

Note: Passion doesn’t mean everything is always bright and joyous. Passion can also be present in the hard times. It can show itself in a different form then, maybe as a decision to still not give up, as a decision to push through towards the light, as a grind, as a decision to struggle and take the hard things on in order to get to the extraordinary things. In dark times, passion can show up as determination, as a not bendable will, maybe even as regret or hate.

~ If you do follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while waiting for you, and the life you ought to be living is the one you are living. ~ Joseph Campbell

~ Allow your passion to become your purpose and it will one day become your profession. ~ Gabrielle Bernstein

The Self:

After you have your purpose, after you decided for your mission, there needs to be a person there, ready to actually go on that mission. That requires not only passion, but a sense of determination, a willingness to grow, learn and evolve and to become the person who is actually capable of turning the vision real. It needs a personality committed to their own values, their own journey and their purpose.

Every story needs a main character.

This is why working on the external things alone won’t do the trick. The main focus of your mission will be internal work: working on yourself, on your perception, on your beliefs about reality, on your self-image, on your behavior, on your character, on your state, on the way you feel.

This is the true challenge and it is the only place in which mastery and success can be found.

The true task of a Human Journey is to have the person who embarks on the journey develop into their greatest self, so that person can then act from that higher place to realize their purpose.

~ You are the hero of your own story. ~ Joseph Campbell

~ All the gods, all the heavens, all the hells, are within you. ~ Joseph Campbell

~ The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are. ~ Joseph Campbell

~ Mastering others is strength. Mastering yourself is true power. ~ LaoTzu

Community:

This is about finding people who are with you on your road, who you can learn from, get help from, be there for and have fun with.

This is important for development. Strong bonds breed a sense of certainty that allows you to give it even more.

A group also accelerates growth because everyone can profit from what the others have learned. It gives the possibility for role models and for learning from other people's experiences.

A community gives a feeling of belonging, a feeling of a home and having a place in the world. A feeling of having people to be there for and who are there for you. That gives security and also acts as a drive to do you best, because you don't want to disappoint your team.

A group that understands your purpose makes you feel seen on a deeper level. That gives energy. It makes you feel that your purpose means something to more people than just yourself and by that your purpose becomes more important, more valuable to you.

But that's not all. With more people working towards one purpose, it is accomplished faster and better.

And, of course, it makes life more enjoyable if you don't go after your purpose all alone.

A community is one of the best sources of self-confidence, fulfillment, joy and connectedness.

~ Work is only important because it helps us connect with and impact people. ~ Simon Sinek

More Articles

For further reading, you can jump right to the article called The Journey, which will show how to integrate the metapattern of growth in your life.

If you are curious about where this growth can lead you and how to find meaning in it, check out this article: Evolution of Consciusness.

Or check out the Blog.