It generates lots of search hits on “find out who you are” “do it on purpose” as well as the question: “what does it mean?”  I’m really interested in the fact that so many people are looking for an answer to this question – which is a big one, after all.

One reader commented that she was curious about the meaning of the quote because she’d found it on the mirror of a house she’d moved into.  I thought you might be interested in the reply I gave at the time:

Thanks for the question. As far as I know it was Dolly Parton who first said this. I read it in a newspaper article about her and I’ve since seen it attributed to her in various different sites.

As to what it means… Well for me great quotes are words that mean slightly different things to different people. We seek and find our own meaning. It might depend on where we are in our lives, what else is going on. Sometimes people find that a word or a phrase ‘resonates’
with them – is just the word or phrase that they were looking for. Perhaps that’s how the words ended up on your bathroom wall? They meant a lot at one moment in time to the person who used to live there.

Living life on purpose comes up in lots of thinking on coaching and self-development (and I think some religion too). A lot of people wonder if there is a purpose to their life, or they want to want to try and find out what their own particular purpose is. Other people feel like they’re drifting. Living life on purpose is about making choices as to how you live, each and every day, so the life you end up living is the one you have chosen – on purpose.

Find out who you are and do it on purpose – well to me that’s about starting with yourself, so the purpose stems from inside, the unique person that you are, rather than what someone else has decided for you (even indirectly, like pressure to live or think in a certain way). It also makes me smile because – for me – it captures a sense of pride in who you and going out and doing it big style, full of va va voom – which is definitely how Dolly does it

That’s what “find out who you are and do it on purpose” means to me.  It’s only one answer though.

I wonder what it means to you?