Find Your Purpose
An important element of Right Ambition is identifying and aligning your work to your purpose, not necessarily your passion.
In a 2018 study by the non-profit Populace, as written about in “Dark Horse: Achieving Success Through the Pursuit of Fulfillment,” respondents from their own view defined successful people as those who followed their purpose, different from society’s perceived definition of success. What’s more, work by Morten Hansen, a professor at U.C. Berkeley who wrote, “Great at Work: How Top Performers Work Less and Achieve More,” found that purpose trumps passion for successful workers.
Finding one’s purpose can sound lofty.
But purpose can take on a range of meanings from establishing a meaningful goal for oneself to doing work that contributes to others. As Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi writes in his book, “Flow,” “People who find their lives meaningful usually have a goal that is challenging enough to take up all their energies, a goal that can give significance to their lives. We may refer to this process as achieving purpose.” This definition can more broadly apply to individual pursuits and many topics or areas of enterprise. At minimum, it’s ideal to capture what motivates you to do your work, what draws you to want to make an impact.
For example, related to work, you might explore what gives your work meaning and how you can serve others, such as your customers, employees, and shareholders. Consider a purpose such as wanting to make an impact on your team’s development, nurturing talent, and building leaders. Or, perhaps you want to excel at delivering the highest customer service and insights to your clients. Or, you may want to put your company on a stronger, more resilient path for the benefit of your employees, customers, and investors.
Your purpose may be able to guide both life and work. For example, a purpose might be wanting to bring insight and clarity to help move people forward. Or, to bring kindness, empathy, and joy to every encounter. Or, to inspire and support people in being their best selves. Or, my purpose is to always look to contribute and give back.
To help you home in on your own purpose, select a few of these questions to ponder that most speak to you:
Think 1, 3, 5, 10+ years out (you pick the time horizon)—who is that future self you want to become? What is your way of being? What do you want to be doing? Where do you want to be? How do you want to show up? What kind of impact do you want to make?
When you look back a year or more from now, what will you wish you had contributed?
What do you want your legacy to be? What do you want to leave behind?
Who is your hero? Who are they being and what are they doing in the world? Why do they inspire you? What do you want to model?
Who do you want to be a hero to?
What villain are you willing to fight and take down?
What breaks your heart or upsets you? What makes you cry?
How would you like to help the people who are closest to you?
How do you want to contribute—to those around you, to your community, to the world?
Who do you envy? (It’s not bad to look at envy. It provides a signal to what draws you, what you desire.)
What do you love to do?
Where do you feel most alive and like yourself?
What can’t you not do? What can’t you not be? Said another way: What can you not help but do? Who can you not help but be?
What is your super power?
What are you most connected to?
What are you outrageously committed to?
Borrowing from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: What is a goal that is challenging enough to inspire your energy and give significance to your life?
To complement the questions, here are a few resources and exercises to also consider:
Watch Simon Sinek’s TED talk on the importance of Why. How might you apply this to your own life? What’s your why?
Do this Future Self exercise.
Consider taking a Strengths assessment, such as Strengths Finders or Strengthscope, to better understand yourself and the talents and gifts you have to give.
Ask good friends, family, and/or colleagues to describe you in a few words, phrases, or sentences.
It might seem a bit morbid but write a eulogy for yourself. How would you like to be remembered? What would you like others to say about you at the end of your life? What quotes would there be from your family, friends, and colleagues celebrating you? What would you like to think about yourself? What would you be proud of? What would you be thrilled to have been for people and to have accomplished or contributed? What would be on the list so you had no regrets?
To summarize
After you’ve answered the questions and done a few exercises. Step back and look for themes. Consider capturing main topics on Post-It’s and organize them into buckets. You might start to identify elements like:
Who you want to help
What kind of impact you want to have
What you want to contribute
What you want to accomplish
What you are committed to
What you love
What your heart desires
What you value
What brings you joy
What allows you to be your best self
Ways of being you’d like to embody
Ways of being that express your true self
Consider creating a Mind Map of what you’ve learned to further organize the output.
Then write a summary statement. This article at the end has examples and some framework approaches to consider. Pick which approach works best for you and will be most inspiring.
Now, one thing I want to be clear on—this may take a while to gel for you.
That’s okay. You may grow into your purpose over time, depending on your stage of career or life, your life experiences, or simply how you are wired. So be open to you learning and growing into your purpose over time. Look to get something documented to start that’s motivating to you and hold it loosely, allowing you to learn and grow into what that purpose might become over time.
With this in hand, complemented with your values (find an exercise in our Mid-Career Itch Toolkit or in an article here) and flow activities, you can define your Right Success, how you want to apply yourself and make an impact in the world on your terms and aligned with your personal fulfillment.
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Sustainable Ambition™ is about crafting a fulfilling career to support your life from decade to decade.
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