The Search for Purpose

Posted on June 03, 2020 by Colleen Jones, One of Thousands of Career Coaches on Noomii.

As I get older I find it harder and harder to remember things from childhood. I accept this as a fact of life, but it makes me feel a bit sad all the same. Some memories stand out so clearly however, that you can travel back to that place in time in an instant, and remember exactly how you felt in that moment. For me, one of those memories is an assignment I had in grade 1. The assignment itself was simple enough. Draw a picture of what you wanted to be when you grew up. We were supposed to do a really good job with this particular assignment because it was one that was going to be hung up on the bulletin board in the hallway, so we needed to bring our very best colouring and printing to the task. I was stressed. I had no idea what to draw. What did I want to be? And how did all the other kids in my class know exactly what they wanted to be, that they could just get on with it and start drawing? Because this was such an important assignment, we had a few days to work on it. I thought about it all night, and into the next morning when I woke up. I knew that I wanted to be authentic in what I drew, but I just didn’t have the answer. I felt like a failure that I hadn’t figured out what I wanted to be like all the other kids in my class. I was 6. To hide my failure, I decided I would just copy what some of the other girls were doing. My friend Pam beside me was going to be a nurse, so I decided that is what I would draw too. I had fun drawing the picture, but I can still feel the weight of the shame I felt when my teacher and I went to hang that picture up on the bulletin board in the hallway. I had lied. To myself, my teacher and everyone who walked by that bulletin board about who I was and what I wanted to be. Worse, before this assignment, I hadn’t even given a moments thought to how I wanted to spend the working years of my life. I felt like I was already losing a race I hadn’t even known I was in. There I was, at 6 years old, beginning my journey to find my purpose.

The Oxford dictionary defines Purpose as: the intention, aim or function of something. The thing that something is supposed to achieve.

Purpose has an other-worldly feel like it is some sort of divine destiny that will find us when the moment is right. Perhaps it is because of this divine sensation, that most of us sit around patiently waiting for our Purpose to come to us, rather than actively seeking it out. Unfortunately, the reality for most of us is that our Purpose is more complicated than that, and it is certainly harder to find than the divine destiny vibe would imply. Our Purpose is a culmination of our strengths, our values and our motivations and is guided by the practical realities that surround our life. The Harvard Business Review (2014) describes Purpose as “your brand, what you’re driven to achieve, the magic that makes you tick. It’s not WHAT you do, it’s HOW you do your job and WHY – the strengths and passions you bring to the table, no matter where you are seated.” Sometimes our Purpose is big and bold and clear for the whole world to see. At 16, Greta Thunberg seems to have found an important, meaningful purpose that could impact all of us. But Purpose doesn’t need to be big and bold. Your Purpose may be on a smaller scale but it doesn’t make it any less meaningful or impactful. The value is in how our Purpose engages us. The power it instills in us to get up in the morning, face our day with energy and enthusiasm, and finish the day with a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment for having fulfilled ourselves through our work.

The average employee spends over 90,000 hours working throughout the course of their life. Aside from sleep, that is probably more time than any of us spend on any other single activity during our lifetime. We rely on our work first and foremost to meet our basic needs like paying the bills and putting food on the table. These needs are fundamental, and the most important reason that most of us go to work. Once those needs are met however, we often find ourselves searching for something more from our work. Something that fulfills our innate human belief that we were put here to achieve something. And this belief that we are destined to do something special is pervasive throughout our life. As children from an early age we start thinking about what we want to “be” when we grow up, and this drives important life decisions like what we study in school and the extra curricular activities we engage in. For many of us this search for what we want to “be or do” continues well into adulthood and into our working years. In fact, Google reports over 100,000 searches for Purpose each month. And the benefits of Purpose go beyond our own intrinsic satisfaction. The Harvard Business Review (2014) reports that people with a sense of Purpose achieve greater performance, have a greater sense of well-being and are less prone to disease. Purpose matters. It matters for our health, it matters for our sense of well-being and it matters to organizations who are looking to maximize the potential of their employees.

Despite the importance of Purpose, many people lack clarity on what their own personal Purpose is, or they aren’t sure how to connect their Purpose to what they do during their work days. Discovering your Purpose is a journey that requires reflection on your core strengths, your values and a true understanding of what motivates you. With those insights, you can begin to plan for how to tap into your Purpose in your current job, or chart your course for a new beginning. If you aren’t living your Purpose, ask yourself what is stopping you from starting your journey today!