What you will learn from reading this article:
- What Disneyland teaches us about purpose
- How you can begin to find your life’s purpose
Disneyland’s “Purpose”
Walt Disney famously said, “If you can dream it, you can do it.” He demonstrated this with the creation of Disneyland.
He was uncompromising with his vision. Every single detail at Disneyland is meticulously planned and perfected – from the Mickey Mouse design on manhole covers to the specific smells to make certain attractions more “real” for visitors.
Many of the details at Disneyland don’t make much business sense – they create more work and add more costs. But for Walt Disney, it was not just about making money. It was about creating beauty and bringing his vision to life.
According to some versions of the story, Walt Disney was inspired to create Disneyland after watching his two daughters play on a merry-go-round. He felt there should be some kind of family park built where parents and children could have fun together.
That was his purpose.
Life is about creating
Many of us have been conditioned to think that life is about chasing success and that is what will bring us happiness. As therapists, we see many clients who have achieved a lot financially and professionally. When they come to us for emotional therapy, they ask us:
- “What is the meaning of life?”
- “How do I find my purpose in life?”
- “I have a job that pays well. I’m able to take vacations in the best locations and enjoy all the riches life has to offer. But I’m still not happy. Something seems to be missing.”
- “I work and work but there does not seem to be some big reward at the end of it.”
Our response is that life is about CREATING.
We find purpose by figuring out how to bring what we can visualise in our thoughts, into physical reality.
This can mean different things for different people:
- Creating your version of a perfect life
- Creating the perfect environment for your children to thrive in
- Creating the perfect product to solve a problem
- Creating the perfect service to improve lives
- Creating the perfect system that runs smoothly and efficiently
- Creating the perfect policies to build a society
How to find your purpose
If you are looking for your life’s purpose, perhaps the question to ask is not “what is my purpose?”. Instead, ask yourself, “what do I want to create?”
This will then prompt you to reflect and ask yourself:
- “What is important to me?”
- “What do I care about?”
- “What do I enjoy doing the most?”
- “What can I do naturally well that others seem to have more difficulty with?”
These are some of the exact questions we use to guide all those who come to us for emotional therapy and mental wellness therapy.
As you go deeper into this self-transformation journey and grow more committed to living your purpose, you will start to come up against your inner limitations, including:
- Fears that hold you back
- Self-sabotaging beliefs about your capabilities and what you deserve
- Conditioned mindsets from childhood on how the world works (e.g. “you will not earn money doing what you like”)
This process of creating your vision will require you to face your inner fears and beliefs, and heal and transcend them. This is how we learn and grow in life.
This was the same process Walt Disney went through. We only see the final product, but we do not see all the struggles and doubts he faced in creating Disneyland.
Imagine how people must have reacted when Walt Disney first proposed the idea of Disneyland. That is how many of us react when we talk about our own dreams. They seem crazy, out of this world, unrealistic.
For many of us, it is not that we have no dreams or no vision. It is that our own fears and beliefs hold us back from entertaining those thoughts.
When we start to heal our traumas, insecurities and fears, our purpose starts to surface, almost effortlessly. Healing and purpose go hand in hand.
Intracresco as the “Disneyland of Healing”
We – Kavitha and Kester – have been through times in our lives when we have asked ourselves “What’s the point of all of this?”. Our journey of finding purpose led us to the work we do now. Through Intracresco, we hope to create the “Disneyland” experience of healing.
