How Finding Your Purpose Actually Works
Love represents our relationships with other people.
Purpose represents our relationships with our lives.
Purpose is a lot like love in just about every other way, too.
Young & wide-eyed we almost expect it to fall into our laps.
"What are you gonna be when you grow up?"
Something we love. Of this we are certain. Every time.
Over time we realize life doesn't work like that, and the pendulum swings the opposite direction. We become more jaded. We settle for "ordinary purpose". Maybe we settle for even less.
The point is, bit by bit we start taking what we can get from life. Losing hope in what it really has to offer.
This is seen as a practical, pragmatic, good idea. The safe and realistic option. Until we realize how many hours of our lives we spend:
- Doing work we don't care (fully) about
- In communities we don't feel we fit into
- Struggling to make contributions and help create the world we want to see because we're drowning in the one we live in
- And building social structures & rules designed to hold each member back. Not realizing we can design a style of friend group, family, and professional team that propels each member forward into the felt sense of purpose we can't help but yearn for.
- And the worst realization of all, doing all of this to fulfill someone else’s sense of purpose for them.
If your goal is to spend your life feeling safe enough to complain about the struggle of this with others who can relate, sacrificing purpose is definitely a roadmap that will get you there. Furthermore, I support you.
Because let me be clear: finding that sense of true purpose is also painful. We still complain. It’s also hard. And it’s really, really scary. Full of unknowns. Often alienating.
And in my experience, extremely worth it.
So if you notice you yearn for purpose anyway, that there's some little flame of hope in you that something deeper exists for you… (Something actually worth living a hard life for)...
That hopeful part of you has got a point. There is more. This part of you knows this to be true, and its entire job is to point it out to you. From there, it’s a matter of if you want it enough to take it.
I tend to believe this part of you is your intuition. Trying to give you some direction for a more fulfilling life. Or at least it’s always been that for me.
Like a lot of people I put it off for a long time. The unknowns were just too much. I had to play it safe until I couldn’t anymore. So I feel you if the unknowns are a bit too much for you too. If this whole concept feels a bit too elusive or even a bit “woo”.
That Can Change Today.
Today you get some direction on how to “find your purpose in life”.
Because in discovering my purpose I learned a lot about it. It's not as wild or "woo" as you think, though it is hard and vulnerable work. There are some practical elements it helps to focus on.
I’ll share that here with you in case you find it helpful in your decision.
The Path They Didn't Show Us
I mentioned in the triggers video that I'm a big fan of understanding the nature of things. The more I can understand the nature of something, the better I can work with it.
This is about developing an intuitive sense of something. Then it becomes like riding a bike. Automatic. We get to think less. Do more.
That’s why I focus so much on a felt sense. We want the felt sense because we don't question it. A felt sense becomes a knowing.
Knowing brings us peace. Confidence. The ability to show tf up to our lives.
Speaking of which.
Defining Purpose
I'll define purpose here as a "felt sense of meaning and fulfillment in life". Simple enough.
Notice how I said that term, “felt sense”.
We think of purpose as a noun. Something to obtain. A status we achieve on paper.
It’s not.
I've worked with multi-millionaires who are the first ones to talk about "impact" publicly and confess to me their lives feel empty privately.
Purpose has nothing to do with success or status. It is not a thing we achieve.
It’s a feeling we cultivate, not much different from gratitude, and joy.
If you spend your life looking for “your purpose” you’ll stay looking.
If you switch to cultivating a felt sense of purpose you’ll start making moves in your life that lead you there.
And not just in your career. All over your life. Because feelings? Well, we can feel those just about anywhere.
Which brings me to my next point…
There are Levels to This
It’s not an “on/off” switch.
You don’t wake up one day and suddenly know your purpose in life, then everything clicks into place. Instead, it’s about identifying, cultivating, and deepening that felt sense of purpose in the life you’re living, piece by piece.
Over time, your felt sense of purpose can grow, deepen, wane, etc.
Putting it Into Perspective
Sticking with the love analogy: we like our partners, then maybe we're a bit smitten or infatuated with them. We fall in love with them, then we develop a deeper sense of love. We build a home in them over time. And they, us. No matter how much fear-mongering we see about codependency, that's what happens. Building homes in one another is something humans do.
Of course, we also go through other seasons. Seasons of disliking, avoiding, or even hating our partners, depending on what life throws at us and how we handle it.
And that’s the key. How we handle it.
Remember, Purpose represents our relationship with our lives as a whole. It's basically how in love with our life we are. All the same stuff applies.
There are levels. Levels of liking, loving, being smitten with, being in love with, disliking, avoiding, and hating our lives. We make choices at every step. Those choices heavily impact how much time we spend at each level.
If you want to spend more time experiencing a fulfilling, deep sense of meaning and connectedness with your life, it's important to be aware of - and intentional about - your choices.
It’s important to consider your relationship with your life as you make those choices.
It’s important to not give up on your sense of purpose. Instead, find it. Cultivate it. Lean into it.
Unlike romantic love, your relationship with your life is between you and yourself. You have a lot of control here in how you do this. The question is how will you acknowledge and exercise that control.
There are 5 elements in particular that, when we cultivate them, will give us a deeper sense of purpose.
I dare you to prioritize these in 2024 and watch your world bend to greet you in ways you didn’t realize could exist for you.
Let's dig in.
