Could forgetting all about purpose give you more freedom, connection, and creativity?
This article could save you thousands of dollars and hours of time. Money and time spent on purpose finding books, courses, and coaching.
I used to be a “purpose junkie.” I yearned to find my true calling so I could lead a more fulfilling life.
Ironically, we can get so caught up in finding our purpose that it actually limits us from living and thriving.
If you have ever struggled to find your purpose, read this article:
Purpose Must be Important
“You’ve got to find your purpose,” the self help community shrieks at anyone that will listen.
Purpose this and purpose that. Thousands of books try to guide you toward figuring out your unique mission in life. Coaches and speakers alike want nothing more than to help you find your “why.”
If so many coaches, gurus, speakers, and books talk about it, it must be important, right?
Also, there must be something wrong with you if you haven’t discovered your unique calling by now.
“You know, I’m sick of following my dreams, man. I’m just going to ask them where they’re goin’, and hook up with them later.”
– Comedian Mitch Hedberg
My Purpose Journey
Before I found the understanding I now share, I would have agreed with everything above. I used to obsess over figuring out my purpose. Every single day (and usually multiple times a day), I meditated, visualized, and journaled. I spent thousands of dollars on books and courses. I kept opening my wallet because it seemed like I was making incremental progress.
Yet, I never quite found the exact right purpose for me. After exploring volumes of purpose finding material, I wasn’t really any closer. I searched, hoping for a transcendent moment where everything in my life would unlock. Life would become simple when I found my purpose, I reasoned. I could then access more motivation, find clarity of direction, and live a meaningful life.
There must be something wrong with my approach. I had yet to find the right books or the right courses. Sometimes, I thought the lack of results was my fault. If I can’t figure it out, there must be something wrong with me. It became a never ending treadmill. The more I focused on it, the more lost I felt.
Restlessness and anxiety built. I ached to find the clarity that would come with discovering my mission in life. I couldn’t understand why nothing was clicking. The more I gripped at the idea, the more elusive it seemed to be. I hit a wall. The anxiety took on a life of its own and consumed my days. Suffering from extreme burnout, I had a complete breakdown. I felt lost and afraid.
The overwhelm hit me the hardest one evening. I stepped outside and stood in the backyard under the stars. I remember asking, “God, why am I here?” Tears slid down my cheeks as I gazed up at the moon. My only answer was a sorrowful silence.
A New Way of Seeing Purpose
I recovered from this rock bottom bit by bit. During my recovery, I found an understanding that helped me drop all this overthinking about my mission in life.
I realized that I don’t need to figure out my purpose to have a meaningful and satisfying life. In fact, all that attention on my purpose got in the way more than it helped.
Now, I help clients see how obsession with purpose becomes a barrier to living a vibrant life.
All this energy spent on purpose takes us in the wrong direction. Not only does this hyper-focus setting us up to fail, it makes us more dissatisfied with life.
I invite you to join me. Drop finding your purpose for the 15 minutes that you read this. Try it out. See how it feels. You can always pick it back up later if you want to.
Doesn’t it feel like a breath of fresh air? Life can be a little lighter when you unburden yourself from this purpose finding task. Relaxed peace is the doorway to your innate creative spirit.
Why Does Purpose Feel Important?
Why is discovering a life mission such a prevalent idea?
We want success. We think we can create it through purpose. The successful often say “I found my purpose,” when they describe how they achieved so much. That must be the ticket. If we can figure out our purpose like they did, we will have success too.
But it’s only easy to see purpose looking backwards. These successful people can’t explain how they found it anymore than they can tell you how you can find yours. They lived it. Then, looking back, they connect the dots in a way that can be called purpose.
For them, it was a day by day experience. They didn’t plot out their exact mission and then execute it. Instead, they just did the next thing, and then the thing after that. They took their journey one step at a time, like we all do.
We seem to share a belief that says that finding your “why” is like a key. It unlocks all the good stuff in life. A clear mission will simplify everything. This mythical key, once found, will unlock a reserve of resilience and discipline we believe we don’t currently have. Life then becomes easy.
Really, purpose comes from clarity. You can’t get clarity from purpose. Even though we want it to, it doesn’t work the other way around.
Also, those successful people went through times of crisis and lostness as we all do. We just think there must be an easier way.
A Wellbeing Problem
The desire to find purpose comes from fear. It comes from a sense of lack. We fear not being enough. I used to feel like I wasn’t good enough. I thought that if I could find my purpose, that insidious feeling of not being enough would go away.
Yet, when I was joyful and content, purpose didn’t even cross my mind. It was only when I was feeling low and not enough that it seemed so important to find a calling.
When we get into an unsatisfied state, we look to purpose because we believe it will bring about that missing satisfaction. We are wrong. Purpose isn’t what brings us satisfaction, joy, and fulfillment. These can only come from a full engagement with life. When we are simply living, we don’t concern ourselves with our purpose.
Figuring out why we are here is not an existential problem, it is a wellbeing problem.
When we feel good, purpose isn’t a problem. The only reason it looks like a problem is because we are in a low mood.
We can use our thinking minds to get in the way of living life. Our thoughts take us out of the moment. A thought about purpose can become a thought that gets in the way of living in the moment.
Said another way, we tend to hold on to an illusion that finding purpose will bring us satisfaction, meaning, and joy. This idea makes figuring out our purpose important and attractive. What we don’t realize is that satisfaction, meaning, and joy don’t come from our thoughts. They come from our innate wellbeing and are independent of circumstance. That is good news. A fulfilling life is available to us whether we figure out our purpose or not.
Early Warning Signal
Satisfaction, meaning, and joy are all inherent to who we are. They are the set point, the come from, and not the place to get to. We have the ability to use our thinking in a way that limits our experience of these feelings. We innocently take ourselves away from our own wellness. When we get out of our own way, our wellbeing comes through.
Sometimes, we can’t see how we are using our thoughts, so it looks like our low feelings come from not having a purpose. This isn’t true, but it seems that way from a temporary vantage point.
Moods reflect our in the moment thinking. Dissatisfied thoughts about missing purpose only add an experience of discontent.
What if that aching desire to find purpose was actually a sign we are in a low mood? Then, a feeling of lack of purpose becomes an early warning signal rather than a problem. It is a signpost that means we should slow down and let our minds clear.
When our minds clear, when we feel better, figuring out our mission in life won’t seem like such a big deal.
A coaching client wrote a poem about this idea:
“My Anhedonious Ambition” I have experienced realization And it is that I am pleased. What is odd is how simple this feeling of “pleased” feels. Almost to the point where it feels like I no longer have purpose. …What one does when they realize they are living a purpose that is only to do what pleases them… To feel pleased is not a synonym to the word pleasure. Pleasure is to acquire a feast of every taste you could ever crave, as pleased is to share your meal with someone in need of food. When one feels pleased, you no longer seek to change, or to acquire more. My “pleased” looks upon ALL with love. My “pleased” overlooks any hunger that may be present, and simply senses an understanding that ascends all logic or yearn. It can feel as though that which feeds your purpose is smaller than that which feeds your pleasure, leaving you to ask “then what’s the point?” For in the end, (In the moments that count) If you think that life was about finding something entirely more exciting, That would imply that you were never really all that much… By Sierra Snow
You are more than your purpose. So much more.
If we are pleased, the need for purpose dissolves because it was nothing more than an idea in the first place.
Even those few that do “figure out their mission in life” will lose touch with it. This is completely natural. Moods shift. They disconnect with the vibrant energy that they were just in touch with. It didn’t go anywhere. They only changed how they were using their minds. Those that experience this think that they lost their purpose and question if they had ever found it. No wonder finding purpose can seem so complicated.
The desire to find purpose is the desire to be in touch with the greater energy of life.
In the Moment Purpose
We can find purpose, but not in a grand, overarching sense.
Purpose is best found in the moment. While it is daunting to figure out an entire life’s calling, we can discover purposeful moments. Playing with a child can be a purposeful moment. So can cleaning the dishes. What if true purpose was just mindfulness, a oneness with the moment?
We can follow these simple in the moment purposes toward greater purpose. Doing the dishes links to a higher purpose of caring for a household, of caring for self and family.
This idea does not work the other way around. We can’t find a greater purpose first to know what to do in each moment. It seems like that is the way it should work, but if we approach purpose in that way, we will frustrate ourselves. Finding an in the moment purpose is certainly less difficult than figuring it out for our whole lives.
You do have the ability to overthink being in the moment. Don’t overcomplicate this. Listen to what you want to do now. Let go of worrying about the next moment. If you find the space of presence and follow an in the moment purpose, the next steps will take care of themselves.
Limiting Ourselves
A life mission isn’t found by figuring it out ahead of time. In fact, this attempt of planning and preconception is actually limiting. I tried to visualize and create my life the way I wanted it. I spent hours and hours meditating on abundance, wealth, and relationship satisfaction. It didn’t work for me. By visualizing a “better” future, I couldn’t enjoy the present.
The other problem with this approach is we can only imagine what we already know. True purpose is beyond what we know. More often, the most meaningful elements of our lives come out of nowhere. They are vastly different anything we might try to anticipate.
If you hold on to a limited idea of what your purpose is, you can’t be open to new possibilities. Purpose is a conceptual thought. Concepts are limited. It is not knowing your purpose, actually, that creates the space for unexpected meaning in life. Life saves the best stuff for when you least expect it.
Be Irresponsible
There is something about not searching for our purpose that feels irresponsible. We have latched on to an idea that we need to be in charge of our futures.
Become the captain of your own ship, or you can’t go anywhere. If you don’t take full responsibility for ourselves, your life will end in utter ruin. It is only an unwavering dedication and focus that keeps you on the right path.
This attempt to control gets in the way of life living us. Every human is born with an inherent pull toward thriving. Most of the time, we are in its way. For more ease, we have to get out of the way of our own vibrant nature.
But we don’t trust in life. We think we can do better. The power behind life is creative, responsive, and resilient. It is more than capable of guiding our lives.
It is the same drive that turns a flower to face the sun. This resource is our home base, a wellspring of happiness, meaning, and contentment. It is the creative energy that beats our hearts and heals our wounds. This higher intelligence can guide us through life better than any purpose could.
Why We are Here:
I wonder if there even is some grand calling for each person.
This is the way I see it:
- We are not here to learn or “grow.”
- We are not here to fulfill a role.
- We are not here to achieve.
- We are not here to change the world.
- We are not here to create a legacy or impact.
- We are not here to gain belongings or money.
- We are not here to transcend.
- We are not here to figure out our purpose.
Then, why are we here?
We are here to experience life.
What if that were it? Could it really be that simple? If it were, everything else would be icing on the cake. We can still do cool stuff like impact the world, grow, and transform. But none of that would be essential. It’s all extra credit.
If we are here to experience, we wouldn’t be messing up at life. In fact, there is no way that we even could. No one does life wrong, even if it feels like they do.
This is the irony: you are more likely to do cool stuff in the world if you aren’t worried about getting life right. Once you drop all this mental energy, you might find yourself doing something pretty freaking cool and “purposeful.”
Dropping Purpose
You don’t have to take on my line of thinking, but try it on for size. See how it feels. If this way of thinking feels more settled, clear, and simple, it is taking you closer to your true nature.
When figuring out your purpose feels essential, it might be a sign you are in a low mood. Let your feelings guide you back to your wellness.
See what it feels like to stop trying to figure out your purpose. Wouldn’t that make life so much easier? You can live with a free mind when you let go of having to figure yourself out. It feels like dropping a weight.
Pause and ask yourself: Am I making purpose a burden?
I don’t worry about purpose anymore and life tends to go more smoothly. I invite you to join me. It would be so funny if a purposeless life ended up being more fulfilling.
The other night, I walked back out under the same moonlit backyard where I once desperately searched. When I gazed up at the moon this time, I felt peace and gratitude. And purpose didn’t even cross my mind.
Ok, the article is over now, you can resume that search for your purpose,
but . . .
. . . does it still seem like a good idea?
Resources
My name is Rich Life and this is a Realization Reading. I invite you to take part in a transformative conversation.
If you liked this, learn why you can’t mess up at being human.
Much of my writing is based around the 3 Principles understanding of Sydney Banks, and enlightened Scottish mystic. Learn more about him here. The 3 Principles of Mind, Consciousness, and Thought he discovered helps us to understand the nature of our experience.
Those who explore this understanding find that their lives transform. Read more articles if you would like a richer experience of life. If you would like to connect, let me reach out to you or sign up for my mailing list and get Insights in your Inbox.
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Your vibrant life is a single thought away.
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