3 Important Lessons to Remember About "Finding Your Purpose" That No One Teaches You

There’s a popular yet misleading quote about meaningful work, “find your purpose, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” The phrase implies if you love your work it will not feel like work.

Sounds appealing on the surface but if you have actually found your purpose you may have discovered that the reality tends be, “find your purpose, and you will pretty much work all the time.” Or better yet, “find your purpose, and you will constantly live in a state of stress because you feel that you should be doing more of the work you care about.”

Knowing your purpose can cause a lot of pressure and become something you feel you have to do instead of something you want to do. I remember when I first found my purpose at work, I could never shake the feeling that I had to do more. I used to lie down in bed after a long day; exhausted, anxious, and frustrated, thinking about everything I still “needed’ to do, and “should” be doing.

The idea of “finding your purpose” is touted as this grand milestone yet I did not know what to do once I found it, or more so, how to have a healthy relationship with my purpose. If you were to compare the number of days I felt bad to the ones where I was happy, you would have probably told me to stop caring so much and take a break. But I did not know how, and it continued to negatively impact my life in every category; mental, physical, social, etc.

Over the years though, through a lot of trial and error (and more stress and anxiety), I learned three important aspects of how to let my purpose serve me, instead of feeling like I needed to serve my purpose. Because why should caring about something mean you stop caring about yourself?

1)    Your purpose is a concept that ignites emotions but does not make you immune to other emotions. The whole point of finding purposeful work is to feel connected, engaged, motivated, and fulfilled with how you are spending your time. But there will be days where life decides to throw a curve ball (maybe a global pandemic, layoffs, etc.). And despite feeling like your purpose should always trump other emotions, it does not. Accepting that it's ok to focus on other parts of your life that need your attention outside of your purpose is an important belief.

2)    Your purpose is not a milestone to achieve, it is a lifestyle. It is easy to confuse your desire to work on things related to your purpose with feeling like you must work on things related to your purpose. As if there is going to be a point in your work when you stop and say, “Wow, that’s it. My purpose is complete.” By definition, your purpose cannot ever be finished, that is the beauty of it. So, what is the rush? Just relax and enjoy it.

3)    You created your purpose, so that means you are greater than it. Your purpose is just something that you decide to believe in. You discover, label, and choose to attach to it. But that also means you can take that label away at any time. You create your purpose and thus are not defined by it, more so, you control it.

Your purpose is just the thing or things that you feel connected to. The areas of work and life that if you dedicate your time should bring you greater fulfillment, motivation, and most of the time, happiness. Sometimes though we forget that and instead let our purpose drive us instead of the other way around.

Overall, life and work are not about accomplishing any specific thing, they are just about discovering the things that you care about (your purpose), and then finding opportunities to spend time on them. You do not have a commitment to your purpose, you have a commitment to yourself.