What's My Purpose?
Maybe we’re asking the wrong question.
What's my purpose?
I’ve asked this question it in some form or another my whole life. Maybe you have too. For me and many other women I’ve talked to, being unable to answer this question can be really painful.
Here’s the big idea to get you unstuck: If you haven’t found the answer, maybe it’s the wrong question.
How does it make you feel?
When you ask, “What’s my purpose?” how do you feel? For me, I feel my heart tighten and clench. I get really still, almost frozen and look furtively around me, then up and to the right, as if the answer might be on my ceiling.
If asking what your life’s purpose is makes you feel tense, ironically, it doesn’t really help you find your purpose. Now, that’s a mind-bender.
If it doesn’t invite inspiration, wonder, or curiosity, that’s a clue that we’re all asking the wrong question.
Slow it down.
Slowing things down and pondering can help us get past blocks. With this particular question, I wondered what would happen if instead we asked, “How do I live on purpose?” By, “on purpose”, I mean with intention, deliberately, unwaveringly.
Instead of taking what comes along in life, what if we were living our lives by purposely and proactively discovering what makes us tick, taking informed steps towards that, making proactive decisions, and acting on our own behalf.
Turn it around.
If it helps you can use my way of turning it around, or you might find another way to make it more useful to you. The point is to take what’s not working and turn it into something that works for you.
If there are other big questions, you can do enquiry on them too. Slow it down. Notice how they make you feel. If it’s something close to despair, find another way to ask the same question. You can replace a word or add “I wonder” to the front of the sentence. Play with it until it feels good.
These questions (that make my heart clench)
- How do I find work that matters?
- What am I meant to be doing with my life?
- Is it too late to make a change and find meaning in my work?
Become these questions (that make me relax and get curious).
- How could I make it fun to discover work that matters to me? What if I was a detective? How would I go about finding out more about a job I think is so interesting? What if I explored my values so I know for sure what matters to me, not what the culture tells me matters?
- In what ways could I be of use, right now, in the world?
- Who, what, or where do I really want to help with the skills and abilities I have right now? What if my first idea isn’t my best idea but it’s my first step?
- What do I love about myself right now? What quirks make me, me? How have I always been or in what ways have become I unique? Who might be helped by my story?
- What is it about me that got me to where I am today? What is that thing in me that only I know about? It makes me proud. Where else could that take me?
- I wonder if there is a tiny, turtle step (that no one but me knows about) that I could take to explore what’s calling to me?
- What feels like play to me, but feels like work to others?
Get unstuck by asking better questions.
Develop your own questions. Don’t get stuck on the ones the world doles out. Break it down and ask in a way that is customized to you, that invites good feelings and, in turn, inspired action.
Answering questions like these are first steps. Don’t stop there. Ask new questions after you’ve answered these. Keep the momentum going forward.
Become a Wayfinder.
The Wayfinding way is to begin where you are and take your next best step “on purpose”. You hold your destination lightly in case something better comes along. You take each step on purpose, using the information you have at the time to make the best decision you can. With each step you get more information, you narrow things down, you discover things you’d never have heard of if you were still on your couch asking yourself what your purpose is. You don’t need to know the answer before you begin.
My purpose in the world. In case you were wondering!
My purpose is to help women in the middle of their lives manage work and life transitions – to get promotions, to have better careers, to start and grow businesses, to figure out what to do with their next chapters when they retire from their first careers. I help women get on the journey to finding purpose and meaning. I pretty much bumbled my way through my midlife transitions, and if I can help other women avoid the holes I fell into, I consider that an honor.
Another purpose of mine has to do with nature and saving it somehow. In recent years that has become focused on helping horses. When I set out on this particular journey, I thought it might be about the environment (and it still is in some ways), but somehow by taking one step after another, it became about helping horses. I know, in my bones, that I’m in the right place when I am connected to a horse through the healing energy work I do.
My journey continues!
