Why You're Still Stuck Trying To Find Your Life Purpose

Cath: A big, warm welcome to Productive Flourishing Readers coming over today from my guest post on Charlie’s blog, The Four Essential Drives That Every Creative Needs to Stay Motivated and Do Genius Work.”

I get a lot of questions along the lines of “How do I figure out what I’m meant to do with my life?” It thrills me that we’ve entered an age in the world of work where the idea of doing meaningful and purposeful work is actually on the agenda and we’re no longer seeing work as just a vehicle for earning money so that we can get by. And it excites me that so many people are asking questions about “What’s it all about?” and “How do I use my life well, rather than just getting by each day?”

But the other side of all this focus on discovering our life purposes is that I’m seeing a lot of people who are causing themselves terrible grief and frustration and stuckness, because of all the stories we’ve been told about what purpose is, what to do to find your purpose and how you know when you’ve found it. These stories and beliefs about finding your life purpose are meant to help people, but instead they’re exactly what’s getting people stuck, so I wanted to share these stories and assumptions with you, so that you can get unstuck and get on with living and enjoying a purposeful life.

You’re still stuck trying to find your life’s purpose because…

You’re assuming there’s just one purpose to find

We’ve been brought up in a very left-brain-directed world where we’ve been taught to think in a very linear, focused way and we’re still sitting with the hang-overs from the Factory Age and the Information Production Age, where specialization was encouraged. As a result, we’ve accepted the assumption that there’s just one thing we’ll get to be when we’re big. We’re encouraged to choose this one thing as early as possible in life, so that we can get going specializing and mastering it.

Perhaps some people really do have it in them to choose one thing and specialize in making that one contribution in the world, but my sense is that there are more of us who have multiple “things” that we’re meant to do, experience, create and share in the world. And believing that you have just one thing can shut down your ability to see the many things you could enjoy experiencing and contribution throughout different phases of your life.

What would you love to be experiencing and creating if you knew that your life purpose could be multi-faceted?

You’re assuming that you have to find it rather than create or decide it.

Life purpose is such a mysterious thing and there are people that report experiences of having their life purpose find them, or sensing that their life purpose was pre-ordained and finding it suddenly one day. There’s something incredibly attractive about the idea of having your life purpose find you, or believing that your life purpose is pre-ordained, waiting to be found by you… it suggests that you’re special, that there’s some greater power at work, and that the life purpose that finds you must be the right life purpose if it came to you from that greater power that’s at work in the world.

Oh, and you don’t have to go through the hard part of growing up and taking responsibility for making decisions in your life….

While there may be some element of co-creating your life purpose and “finding” it, I see a lot of folks getting stuck and putting their life on hold, and feeling really bad about themselves because they haven’t found their life purpose yet. And there’s something incredibly dis-empowering about having someone else pre-ordain your life purpose for you – even if it’s a greater power!

My sense is that it’s much more useful to assume that your life purpose has to be created or decided by you, trusting that you’re wise enough to carry that responsibility – afterall, our design involves a decision-making centre in the brain, so we must be meant to make decisions. With this assumption, you’re more likely to get on with living, and discovering more about your life purpose as you live, rather than getting stuck and putting your life on hold while you try to find your life purpose.

What would you love to be experiencing and creating if you knew that your life purpose was something that was totally up to you to invent and decide?

You’re assuming that once you find your life purpose, it never changes

If you’re telling yourself that your life purpose is a static thing and that you just need to find it and then you can get on with living it and never have to worry about the question of your life purpose ever again, then you’re going to find that you outgrow your life purpose. Your life purpose always flows from who you are and what you’ve got to offer the world right now, and so it makes sense then that, as you learn and grow and change, your life purpose would change and grow along with you.

The other unfortunate consequence of believing that your life purpose never changes is that, if you ever do feel that you’ve radically changed your idea of your life purpose, then that would discount all the previous ideas you had of what your life purpose is. It would mean that all the things you did with your life before weren’t your life purpose. What if that stuff was your life purpose… for then, and now this is your life purpose for now?

What would you love to be experiencing and creating now if you knew that your life purpose would evolve and change over time?

You’re looking for your life purpose at the level of “What should I Do?” rather than “Who do I want to be?” and “What experiences do I want to have?”

Your work may be a part of your life purpose, but it’s not your life purpose. Your life purpose may flow through your work, but your life purpose is always bigger than your work. Your life purpose isn’t a task or a project or a career or an achievement. It’s a state of being, a way of being in the world, a way of experiencing the world and an energy that you want to bring into the world, as you do the things you choose to do.

What would you love to be experiencing and creating if you knew that your life purpose was all about who you’re being?

You’re resisting the scariness of the real world

Trying to find your life’s purpose can be just a big stall to prevent you from having to deal with the scariness of living your life purpose. Here’s how it works; if you’re still trying to find your life’s purpose, then you get to stay in square 2 of the change cycle, where it’s all dreaming and scheming in your imagination, and you get to avoid the scariness of ever going into square 3, the hero’s saga, where you have to actually get on with making your dream a reality. Agonizing over what dream to choose is often just a sneaky procrastination and resistance tactic that your lizard brain uses to avoid getting into the scariness of living your purpose.

What would you love to be experiencing and creating if you knew that it would be okay when you experience and create it in the real world?

You’re expecting that everything will go smoothly and easily once you’ve found your life’s purpose.

If you’re expecting that everything will go smoothly for you once you’ve found your life purpose then you’re always going to think that you haven’t found your life purpose yet… because it’s never going to go entirely smoothly!

Instead you’re going to take a stab at deciding your life purpose and who you want to be in the world, you’re going to try your best, you’re going to be pleased with some of the experiences and results you create and you’re going to mess up on some stuff, and you’re going to keep going anyway. Your messy results are an indication that you’re alive and well and living in the real world where some stuff works out and some stuff doesn’t, and some stuff feels good and some stuff doesn’t. But at least you’re living it, rather than sitting stuck in over-analysis about what your life purpose is!

What would you love to be experiencing and creating if you knew that ups and downs are a natural part of experiencing and creating, and a sign that you’re living your life’s purpose?

Coaching news: I’m opening up 4 coaching slots on 1 April.

As you all know, I’ve had an incredibly busy time over the past four months, what with preparing for our volunteer building project in the Eastern Cape, doing the building project in the Eastern Cape, packing up in Cape Town and coming to Calgary, and attending a series of conferences and workshops over this past month whilst settling into life in Calgary. I’ve limited my coaching slots over the past four months and now that we’re settled in Calgary and we’ll be sticking around here for a while, I have more time and I’m opening up 4 more coaching slots. If you think you’re ready for coaching and would like to chat with me about it, you can email me and we’ll set up a time to chat on Skype, or just go ahead and grab your coaching sessions here.

Also, after doing some research into what other coaches are charging, I’ve also decided to increase my coaching rate as of 1 May. I haven’t settled on an amount yet, but it’ll probably be around 20 to 25% more than my current rates. I don’t buy into the whole thing of charging people more so that they value you more, but at the same time, as an experienced coach with over 1200 paid coaching hours under my belt and 4 years of full-time social work experience prior to that, I’d hate for people to compare me to beginner coaches who are charging what I’m currently charging!

I’m giving you a big heads-up on the price increase because I don’t want to surprise you and I know that some of you have been considering doing some one-to-one coaching with me and might want to save money by buying a package of sessions before the price goes up on 1 May. I honestly don’t know how quickly the coaching slots will fill up. I usually work with people for between 6 and 12 sessions, so my next intake for coaching could be in 2 or 3 months time. You can find details about coaching options and grab your sessions over here, or just drop me an email if you’d like to discuss it more before you decide to sign up.