Why Purpose Matters

Over the last few years, most professionals have lived through the pandemic and subsequent turmoil: people lost their jobs, society lived through scarcity and scariness – remember when we bathed our Amazon orders with alcohol wipes? Contracting Covid-19 pre-vaccinations was like getting the plague; for many of us, it meant isolation, fear, and embracing the unknown. When it came to the world of work, accepting ambiguity was the norm, and employing agility was necessary to survive the day-to-day shifts: masks/no-masks; back to the office/offices closed; schools open/schools closed. Since March 2020, we have lived through layoffs and unrest, from political polarization to racial reckonings, followed by a hiring storm, and then came inflation causing gas, flights, supermarket, and rent prices to skyrocket, which brings us to the here and now threat of a recession.

If you’re wondering how to find optimism in your day-to-day, you are not alone! It’s hard to find silver linings after tumultuous years, but it’s critical to our collective wellbeing to dig our way out of the chaos, find our purpose, and recharge our outlook.

What purpose has to do with it

When we go into survival mode due to stress and burnout, we tend to live between autopilot and one task at a time – get it done and move forward – both of which are the opposite of innovation and creativity. While autopilot is easy, it creates a barrier to knowing oneself. And when we don’t know ourselves, life tends to happen to us, leaving us feeling deflated and powerless. When you’re on autopilot, you can still be effective and show up at work, the gym, at family and friend events, but at a certain point in each of our lives, when we realize that our heart and soul is no longer in it, we are faced with now what?

If we want to soar and reinvest in ourselves and the world around us, we need to slowly shift out of autopilot, and reflect and consider where we are at and where we wish to go. While routines are helpful to keep us on track and organized, sometimes it’s not until we break out of them that we begin to remember what makes us tick, what gets us excited, what we want to do with our lives, and where or how we seek to make an impact. All of this has to do with discovering – or rediscovering – our purpose. We all have that something within us that makes our heartbeat faster and gives us a spark or hope or excitement – and if you haven’t discovered it yet, it’s never too late to find your purpose.

Considering all the time and energy many of us invest in our careers, why not do something that matters to you? Why not invest your time and energy in a mission that makes you feel invigorated, curious, invested, a little bit nervous, and requires you to be a better version of yourself each day?

Uncovering your purpose

Reflection and time outs are the key to uncovering your purpose.?Some reflect best when journaling, others when exercising or meditating; some prefer to take a time out to the beach, or listen to music, while for others a trip to a museum reinvigorates and enables one to turn off and tune in to oneself.

Asking yourself some key questions may not only be beneficial for the long run, but to help you reinvest in today. For starters, think about what drives you, what your values consist of, what brings you joy, and what you’re good at. Consider what you are grateful for, and the road you have traveled thus far – it all matters!

Then consider the following:

• When do you feel closest to your core? What are you doing, and who are you with?\
• What makes you feel alive and energetic?
• What impact do you wish to make?
• What’s the story you tell yourself about yourself? (Sometimes we limit ourselves from what we really seek based on the story we tell ourselves; how can you shift this narrative?)
• Who do you want to become?

Often, if you don’t know where you’re going, it’s because you missed a step along the way. Backtrack if necessary: what was your goal early on in your career? Where did you stay on track and where did you veer off? Sometimes the answers to our mission and purpose are buried in our pasts; sometimes we find the answers as we learn and grow.

The pros of purpose

Having a professional purpose and identity gives your life meaning and motivation, and often inspires you to keep going and growing in addition to encouraging those around you. When professionals lack purpose, work tends to be a daily grind, full of challenges that may feel like chores. Purpose, on the other hand, shapes your life, enables you to connect with the universe – and your colleagues and company – in a meaningful way, to work towards a goal that matters to you. While some people know their purpose early on in life, for others, purpose formulates over time and experience. We begin to realize what matters to us, the skills we have to create impact and those skills we wish to learn and acquire, and who or what we wish to serve. Sometimes our purpose is significant and visible, while other times it’s insignificant to the world, but meaningful to us.

In the end, each of us has the ability to add meaning and purpose to anything we do, from folding the laundry to helping at a local food bank. We are also the ones who have the power to shift our careers to ensure that what matters to us aligns with how we are spending our days. As we navigate this strange new world, one thing is for sure: your sense of purpose will help to propel you forward, and be a light and guiding force not only to yourself, but to those around you.