Let your purpose find you rather than chasing it

What's your purpose?

What's your response when asked? Are you clear on your purpose or do you make something up just to be seen to have one, or to avoid admitting you have not found one yet?

There seems to be an ever-present pressure to have a purpose - a purpose that is worthy of the life you wish to lead. We are bombarded with ideas, concepts, courses, meet-ups, webinars, coaching offers to help us find our purpose. Every day we are exposed to:

• ikigai, a Japanese concept "the reason for being",
• "start with why"
• "finding your passion and purpose"
• "the purpose path"
• "the quest for purpose"

A search on Amazon for books on "purpose" shows more than 40,000 hits. Get my point?

Are we overthinking purpose?

Adam Leipzig, in his TEDxMalibu Talk in 2013 took Plato's quote a bit further:

"An unexamined life is not worth living but if all we're doing is examining, we're not living."

Rather than overthinking our purpose, we may do well to live life each day in the best way we know how. Is being a good and better human being each day purpose enough?

Needless to say I have been mulling over this for some time because a number of the leaders I am working with are struggling with feeling inadequate because they are not able to articulate their purpose. They feel the pressure to come up with some lofty purpose influenced by what they are told by their organisational leaders, what they read every day, what they watch on YouTube and TEDTalk, what they listen to on podcasts, the advertising from self-help providers.

This feeling of pressure breeds anxiety and a sense of "I'm not good enough or my life is not worth enough until I have a purpose". The more we overthink this, the louder the noises in our heads, the less able we are to consider the simplicity of our purpose - just to be. Relax and just be!

"People say that what we're all seeking is a meaning for life. I don't think that's what we're really seeking. I think that when we're seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances with our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive." ― Joseph Campbell,  The Power of Myth

What if ...

What if we were to just hold it all really lightly and not yearn for or running after our purpose to find it? If we keep running how can our purpose find us? What are we missing out on the search for our purpose?

I recently listened to this fabulous and moving podcast - Chasing Purpose - a conversation between Jerry Colonna (CEO and co-founder of Reboot.io) and Jeff Orlowski (Filmmaker & Founder of Exposure Labs).

I am certain this article may draw some controversy from many different quarters and I look forward to our conversation on which is more important:

• to be open enough for purpose to find us, or
• that it is just the human condition to be on a quest to find our purpose?

Inviting you to be part of this conversation.

Grace Thomas, PCC, brings 'heat and heart' to partner with senior executive leaders, leadership teams and emerging leaders in complex global, multi-national and Australian organisations to be the best they can be in their work, life and world. How? Explore | Experiment | Extend | Embed | Empower. She does this as an executive leadership coach and a personal brand master strategist.

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