A common misconception is that purpose has to be dramatic, leading to quitting your job or starting a business. Bold reinventions make better headlines than quiet shifts.
But that belief has a cost: you may stay stuck, afraid of a leap that feels too big to risk, or you may create a lot of stressful change when your life only needs adjusting.
Whether the change turns out to be big or small, discovering your purpose starts the same way: getting in contact with your own trusted source of inner wisdom and asking what you’re here to do.
Depending on your belief system, that source could simply be your intuition, or it could be your soul, God, the Universe, a guardian angel, or a power animal.
Many people avoid this inquiry for fear of what they’ll hear. What’s important to know is that you have choice. You can decide if, when, and how to act on anything you receive.
Here’s how it played out for one client. She felt dissatisfied with her work as a QA tester. Yet she loved the company culture where she worked.
Once in contact with her own voice of inner wisdom, she learned that her purpose involved bringing different pieces into a coherent whole. It made sense to her because she loved facilitating meetings where she guided differing opinions into a clear consensus. She also enjoyed organizing parties for her children.
That opened her eyes to realize how much fun it would be to be a product manager who coordinated all the components that went into producing a product.
She was fortunate to be able to make a lateral move to that role, landing on a more purposeful path with minimal upheaval.
If you don’t have that option, there can be subtler ways to fulfill your purpose. Consider how you can bring more of your purpose into the work you already do.
In a 2001 paper, researchers Amy Wrzesniewski and Jane Dutton named this job crafting: reshaping the tasks, relationships, and meaning of the work you already have.
In a related study, hospital cleaners who saw themselves as part of the healing team, chatting with patients and noticing what might lift their spirits, experienced their jobs very differently from colleagues doing the same work.
When do you feel most alive at work, and what would it look like to bring more of that this week?
And remember that purpose isn’t confined to a job. My client’s love of bringing pieces together showed up just as clearly in her children’s birthday parties as in her meetings. Wherever you are, you can bring more of who you are to everything you do.