purpose Archives

The Spiritual Side of Purpose

03/17/202503/17/2025 by Gregg Vanourek

Article Summary:

How are purpose and spirituality related? How about calling? Excerpts from my conversation on purpose and spirituality with best-selling author, Richard Leider, in the wake of the publication of the 4th edition of The Power of Purpose: To Grow and to Give for Life, with David Shapiro.*

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Gregg Vanourek:

Richard, I want to ask you about defining moments or phases of your life that have been purposeful. What’s your personal experience with purposeful living?

Richard Leider:

Well, I think we’ve all had fortuitous encounters with people in our life who have made a difference in some way, who have awakened us. In 1968, I spent a week with Viktor Frankl, the author of Man’s Search for Meaning. He was in three different Nazi concentration camps. He was a world-renowned thinker at the time with Sigmund Freud, Alfred Adler, and others. Frankl he was writing about logotherapy, about meaning and purpose in life—that we’re here for a reason.

In the concentration camp, he would get up in the morning and give others what I call a “small p” purpose action: a kind word, a hug, a crust of bread, hope for the future. Out of that came Man’s Search for Meaning.

At that point, I was trained as a counseling psychologist, but I said, This message needs to go somewhere. I’m going to do what I can with it. It was a fortuitous encounter. I didn’t have any money, and I was the youngest person in the room. But I was there for a reason, I think. And here we are today.

So, think about your fortuitous encounters. You’ve had your own, I know, with your father, with others, who are wellsprings of wisdom we can learn from.

Gregg:

You’re one of them in my life, Richard. I think part of that story is being awake and alert. These fortuitous encounters may come to us, but if we’re not ready, if we’re not willing to take action and follow up, then they’re lost.

And here we are with the redemption of suffering. The most unimaginable evil and cruelty in the world, and yet Dr. Frankl turns that into Man’s Search for Meaning and logotherapy.

Richard, you wrote a book called Something to Live For. Frankl had this idea during the darkest days of the Holocaust, being away from his family, of: I have something I want to share with the world. It helps him survive and also be part of the community of fellow prisoners, helping each other survive.

Richard Leider:

And the Foreword to that book was written by Richard Bolles. He said, I had this dream that I had a conversation with God that I wanted to go to Earth and do something. And God being a loving God said, Well, you need something to do and give while you’re there, so I’m going to give you some gifts to give while you’re there.

Richard wakes up from his dream, and he can’t remember the gifts that God gave him. But he said, All of us have gifts. We have to figure them out ourselves, because no one gave us the manual.

So, my work has really been about discerning, What are those gifts, and how do we give them in ways that are about a “purpose and a paycheck”? We need to have a purpose, but we also need to make a living. Look at our vocation and our livelihoods as well as our dreams and other things. I think that, a lot of times, people get off-kilter because they don’t know what their gifts, passions, and values are.

Take the Traps Test

We all fall into traps in life. Sometimes we’re not even aware of it, and we can’t get out of traps we don’t know we’re in. Evaluate yourself with our Traps Test.

Gregg:

Different people have varying conceptualizations and practices when it comes to spirituality. For some, it’s a faith tradition and worship. For others, more of a spiritual outlook or way of being. How do you think about purpose and spirituality? Is spirituality part of the equation of purpose and good living?

Richard:

A while back, I took a year off and went to the seminary for a year to study purpose and world religions, and I found that every religion that I studied basically had the same point of view, and that was: The reason you’re here is to serve. I think serving is central to every faith.

The bottom line is, You’re here for a reason, and that’s to serve. And at the end of your life, when you die, you either did that or you didn’t.

“Is purpose spiritual? Yes! …. Purpose is spiritual wisdom embodied….
Unlocking our purpose is ultimately a spiritual path.”
-Richard Leider and David Shapiro, The Power of Purpose, 4^th edition

Gregg:

It sounds like that implies part of the journey of living is the journey of self-discovery, of asking, Who am I? What’s my place in the world? What are my gifts, my calling? And then, if there’s a calling, it implies something or someone doing the calling or placing a purpose within you.

Richard:

Well, the call is a felt sense, whether it comes from God up above or it comes from within. The call is people feel like they’re here for a reason, and it comes in different ways, often through a crisis. I’ve interviewed people over the age of 65, as you know, for decades, and asked them if they could live their life over again, what would they do differently? There’s three things that always come up, and that is, if I could live my life over again, I would be more reflective about what matters in life. When are you reflective? It’s usually in a crisis: I get cancer, I get a divorce, I get fired, and then I have to step back and look at what really matters.

Secondly, if they live their life over again, what’s authentic? They want to live authentic lives. People say over and over again, I did what my parents wanted, or what my parents would pay for in terms of my education. And I ask, Well, what really matters? And they’ll say, Work and love. I want to do work that fits who I am, and I want to be in relationships that who fit who I am.

And third, mattering matters. I’ll go to my grave saying this. It’ll probably be on my tombstone. Mattering matters. 100% of the people have said, I want my life to matter somehow. I want to leave my footprint. It doesn’t have to be a big deal. It could be just with my family, just with my church, just with my synagogue or temple. But I don’t want to die without some sort of dent.

And so that’s what purpose is all about. Mattering, ultimately, matters. But we all want to do it our own way. In our book, The Power of Purpose, we’re just saying, check it out. Do your homework. Don’t blow it off.

* Video conversation between Gregg Vanourek and Richard Leider via Zoom, recorded, transcribed by Otter.ai, and then edited by Gregg.

Gregg Vanourek is a writer, teacher, and TEDx speaker on personal development and leadership. He is co-author of three books, including LIFE Entrepreneurs: Ordinary People Creating Extraordinary Lives (a manifesto for living with purpose and passion) and Triple Crown Leadership: Building Excellent, Ethical, and Enduring Organizations (a winner of the International Book Awards). Check out his Best Articles or get his monthly newsletter.

Richard Leider is an internationally best-selling author, coach, and keynote speaker who’s widely viewed as a thought leader of the global purpose movement. His work is featured regularly in many media sources, including PBS and NPR. He is the founder of Inventure—The Purpose Company, a firm created to guide people to live, work, and lead on purpose.

Gregg’s Tools for You

Traps Test (Common Traps of Living) to help you identify what’s getting in the way of your happiness and quality of life
Quality of Life Assessment to help you discover your strongest areas and the areas that need work and then act accordingly
Strengths Search to help you identify your core strengths and determine how to use them more in your life and work

Quality of Life Assessment

Evaluate your quality of life in ten key areas by taking our assessment. Discover your strongest areas, and the areas that need work, then act accordingly.

Postscript: Inspirations on Purpose and Spirituality

“I believe that we are put on this earth to live our soul’s purpose. To me, that means using our unique gifts and talents to make a positive impact in the world and help create the world we want to see…. We are all born with an inner compass that tells us whether or not we’re on the right path to finding our true purpose. That compass is our JOY.” -Jack Canfield, author
“You have to build meaning into your life, and you build it through your commitments—whether to your religion, to an ethical order as you conceive it, to your life’s work, to loved ones, to your fellow humans.” -John W. Gardner, author and civic activist
“Everyone has a calling, which is the small, unsettling voice from deep within our souls, an inner urge, which hounds us to live out our purpose in a certain way. A calling is a concern of the spirit. Since a calling implies that someone calls, my belief is that the caller is God.” -Dave Wondra, executive coach
“I believe there’s a calling for all of us. I know that every human being has value and purpose. The real work of our lives is to become aware. And awakened. To answer the call.” -Oprah Winfrey, teacher, author, and entrepreneur
“Purpose is the recognition of the presence of the sacred within us and the choice of work that is consistent with that presence. Purpose defines our contribution to life. It may find expression through family, community, relationship, work, and spiritual activities.” -Richard Leider, author
“As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” -Isaiah 55:10-11 NIV
Spirituality is “recognizing and celebrating that we are all inextricably connected to each other by a power greater than all of us, and that our connection to that power and to one another is grounded in love and compassion. Practicing spirituality brings a sense of perspective, meaning, and purpose to our lives.” -Brene Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection
“Earlier in my life, I thought the things that mattered were the things that you could see, like your car, your house, your wealth, your property, your office. But as I’ve grown older I’ve become convinced that the things that matter most are the things that you can’t see–the love you share with others, your inner purpose, your comfort with who you are.” -Jimmy Carter
“The deepest desire of our hearts is for union with God. God created us for union with himself: This is the original purpose of our lives.” -Brennan Manning, author
“We have not come into the world to be numbered; we have been created for a purpose; for great things: to love and be loved.” -Mother Teresa of Calcutta
“The purposes of a man’s heart are deep waters, but a man of understanding draws them out.” -Proverbs 20:5

“God is the one who can tell us the reason for our existence, our place in the scheme of things, our real identity.
It is an identity we can’t discover for ourselves and that others can’t discover for us.
How we have chased around the world for answers to this riddle, looked in the eyes of others for some hint, some clue, hunted in the worlds of pleasure and experience and self-fulfillment for some glimpse, some revelation, some wisdom, some authority to tell us our right name and our true destination.
But there was, and is, only One who can tell us this: The Lord Himself. And he wants to tell us, he has made us to know our reason for being and to be led by it. But it is a secret he will entrust to us only when we ask, and then in His own way and His own time. He will whisper it not in the mad rush and fever of our striving and our fierce determination to become someone, but rather when we are content to put our rest in him, to put ourselves in his keeping, into his hands. Most delightfully of all, it is a secret he will tell us slowly and sweetly, when we are willing to spend time with him.” -Emily Griffin, Clinging

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Unlock Your Purpose–3 Key Elements

03/20/202503/04/2025 by Gregg Vanourek

Article Summary:

Knowing and living your purpose is hard for many. It helps to break it down to the three key elements of purpose. Excerpts from my conversation with best-selling author, Richard Leider.*

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Gregg Vanourek:

Richard, you have something you call the “napkin test.” You’ve written that calling, which you sometimes use as a synonym for purpose, is a function of your gifts and your passions and your values:

G + P + V = C

“’Finding your purpose’ is misleading, however, because it’s not something we have to go out and ‘find.’ Rather, purpose is revealed when we turn within and unlock it. We’ve already got it—even if we haven’t clarified it yet! But how do you unlock it? By looking in the most essential places—our individual gifts, passions, and values….
Combining our gifts with our passions and values reveals to us purpose.”
-Richard Leider and David Shapiro, The Power of Purpose, 4^th edition

What if someone comes to you and says, I don’t have any gifts, or, I don’t have any passions? Say a bit more about how you’d respond to that person who’s really struggling and just doesn’t see it.

Richard Leider:

I call it the “Got-a-minute school of coaching,” because people say, Got a minute? Can you tell me what I should do with the rest of my life?

I say, Take out a napkin and write down your gifts, passions, and values. And let’s talk about that after you do some work on it.

I’ve interviewed thousands of people over five decades of life. There’s not one person I’ve ever interviewed who doesn’t ultimately own their gifts. They say, Yeah, I really enjoy that, I love that, I’m good at that. So, a gift is the first thing in the formula.

Gregg:

How do you define a gift?

Richard:

A gift has four characteristics:

First, it’s something you love to do.
Second, your hand turns to it naturally. Others observe you doing it effortlessly and superbly.
Third, you can’t remember learning it. When asked how you learned it, you might say, I don’t know. I don’t have a degree in that, but I just do it effortlessly and well.
Fourth, you say, I love learning more about it and hanging out with people interested in it.

Ask someone, What’s your gift? Ask what they love to do. They come up with it automatically. They know there’s something there.

I created a tool called Calling Cards. It’s available on Amazon, and it helps people to do a deeper dive into that. Sometimes I use that when I’m working with leadership teams, because people are so starved for that.

Strengths Search

We all have core strengths–the things in which we most excel. Take this self-assessment to determine your core strengths so you can integrate them more into your life and work.

Gregg:

What are passions, the second element?

Richard:

Passions are, What do you want to use your gifts in the service of? What do you really care about? What keeps you up at night? But it’s not about your problems. It’s more about your opportunities. What are you reading and thinking about? What do you care about?

I’m 80, and I wake up early in the morning. The first thing I do is write. What I write about is what I’m thinking about, what I care about, and what I read about. It makes me happy. So, What is it that you care about, that you would love to use your gifts in the service of?

Passion Probe

Our passions are the things that consume us with palpable emotion over time. We love doing them and talk about them often. Take this self-assessment to find the ones that resonate most with you.

Gregg:

And what about values, the third element?

Richard:

Values are about where you do what you do. So many people have a good job, but they don’t like where they’re doing it. It doesn’t fit them.

The number-one knockout factor in most career research is this: I don’t like where I’m working. I don’t like the people. It’s not a good fit for me. The job is good, but the place is not. That’s why so many people would rather do their own thing, something on their own.

Personal Values Exercise

Complete this exercise to identify your personal values. It will help you develop self-awareness, including clarity about what’s most important to you in life and work, and serve as a safe harbor for you to return to when things are tough.

* Video conversation between Gregg Vanourek and Richard Leider via Zoom, recorded, transcribed by Otter.ai, and then edited by Gregg.

Gregg’s Tools for You

Strengths Search to help you identify your core strengths and start using them more in your life and work
Passion Probe to help you find the things that consume you with palpable emotion over time
Personal Values Exercise to help you clarify what’s most important to you

Personal Values Exercise

Postscript: Inspirations on Purpose

“Purpose is already within us waiting to be discovered.” -Richard Leider, author
“Respond to every call that excites your spirit.” -Rumi, 13th century poet
“Your life is an opportunity to give the gifts that your soul wants to give.” -Gary Zukav, author
“I believe that we are put on this earth to live our soul’s purpose. To me, that means using our unique gifts and talents to make a positive impact in the world and help create the world we want to see…. We are all born with an inner compass that tells us whether or not we’re on the right path to finding our true purpose. That compass is our JOY.” -Jack Canfield, author
“Purpose is a presence within us all the time. It is a constant presence in our lives that merely needs to be unlocked via reflection and action.” -Richard Leider and David Shapiro, The Power of Purpose, 4^th edition

“If we lack purpose, we lose connection with our true nature and become externally driven, generating discontent or even angst. Because purpose can be so elusive, we often duck the big question and look for ways to bury that discontent, most often through ‘busyness,’ distraction, or worse.”
-Christopher Gergen & Gregg Vanourek,
LIFE Entrepreneurs: Ordinary People Creating Extraordinary Lives

Gregg Vanourek’s Newsletter

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Purpose Demystified

03/20/202502/27/2025 by Gregg Vanourek

Article Summary:

Many people resist thinking about their purpose, in part due to common misunderstandings about it. Excerpts from my conversation with best-selling author, Richard Leider.*

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Gregg Vanourek:

Richard, congratulations on your new book, the fourth edition of The Power of Purpose: To Grow and to Give for Life, with David Shapiro. Great to see it doing so well. I want to start at the beginning. Many people, when they think about purpose, might be a little skeptical. They might struggle with it. Some might come to you and say, Purpose sounds a little abstract, Richard. It sounds a bit distant and philosophical. I live in the real world. What would you say to them?

Richard Leider:

Well, the quick answer is, I talk about “Big P” purpose and “little p” purpose. Big P purpose is what they’re struggling with when they say that. It’s like, I need to save the planet. So, it’s having a cause or being committed to something you care about. Little P purpose is what you do when you arise this morning to make a difference in one person’s life. It can take 10 seconds. You can give a hug, a kind word. There are 1,440 purpose moments in a day. Can’t you find just one purpose moment to make a difference in another person’s life? That is the power of purpose.

Gregg:

I love it. There are 1,440 minutes in a day, and you can use even just a few of them for little P purpose. You don’t always have to get caught up in Big P purpose.

Richard:

Yes, Big P is good, but mostly, it’s not what I talk about these days. What I talk about is that people live the lives they need to. As you said, Gregg, I live in the real world. Well, the real world is 1,440 purpose moments.

Take the Traps Test

We all fall into traps in life. Sometimes we’re not even aware of it, and we can’t get out of traps we don’t know we’re in. Evaluate yourself with our Traps Test.

Gregg:

What would be an example of a Big P purpose versus a little P purpose?

Richard:

Well, my Big P purpose is to help others unlock the power of purpose. That’s how I make a living. It’s my vocation. That’s what I’m known for. But my little P purpose, right now, is what we’re doing to make a difference in one person’s life today—and then again tomorrow.

Gregg:

And you can do that in so many different ways that are much more accessible. It can be a nice conversation with somebody. Recognizing someone. Thanking the barista. Holding doors open for someone.

Richard:

Exactly, but you have to be intentional. This is who we are as human beings. It’s in our DNA to be part of a group or community. How do we do that? We do that through what you just said, with the barista, at the gas station or the store. We turn to somebody and say, Oh, you look great, or, Thank you. And out of that comes a felt sense. The bottom line here is that purpose is a felt sense. You feel it because it is who we are as human beings.

Quality of Life Assessment

Evaluate your quality of life in ten key areas by taking our assessment. Discover your strongest areas, and the areas that need work, then act accordingly.

Gregg:

It sounds like it’s something that, instead of being distant and abstract, you end up living into with your day-to-day actions and mindset. You come back home to that DNA that’s your heritage. You come back into it, as opposed to being separate from it.

Richard:

Purpose is age-agnostic. It can be young people, it can be mid-life people, it can be retired people. Often, we hear from retired people, Well, I’ve had my career, I’ve done my job, I’ve done my role. And I say, You haven’t done your life. Your life still exists as part of the community. What’s your reason to arise?

“Purpose is age-agnostic. It can be young people, it can be mid-life people, it can be retired people.”
-Richard Leider

Gregg:

What are some other things that people often don’t understand or get right about purpose?

Richard:

My favorite quote about purpose is from the American essayist, E.B. White, who says this:

“I arise in the morning torn between a desire to save the world and a desire to savor the world.
This makes it hard to plan the day.”
-E.B. White

He got it right. It’s about both saving and savoring. You want to savor life. Yes, you want to do the things you love to do and enjoy. You don’t have to be Mother Teresa, or Martin Luther King, Jr., or some Big P purpose person. What you have to do, though, is not just be about you. The dark side of purpose is self-absorption. When we’re around narcissists, self-absorbed people, we don’t like that.

Purpose is always about serving others.

But you don’t have to have your whole life be about that. It can be just a few minutes a day. It’s about the balance between saving and savoring.

Personal Values Exercise

Gregg:

I think many people can have this mistaken idea that purpose sounds like navel-gazing, that it’s all about me, sitting around thinking, What’s my purpose? You’re saying it’s not. It’s serving. And giving is fundamental to living on purpose. The subtitle of the new edition of The Power of Purpose is “To Grow and to Give for Life.”

Richard:

One of the examples of that is a story about a man named Ed Rapp. He was one of the presidents of the three big units within Caterpillar Inc., and he was about to become the CEO of Caterpillar worldwide. He was out running with his son, and his son noticed his foot was dragging. Long story short, he was diagnosed with ALS (Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease).

Ed is from a farm community in Missouri. There were 30 kids in his high school class. He was the first in his family and class to go to the University of Missouri, get a business degree, etc. Here he is about to ascend to the higher levels of leading on purpose, and he has to resign because he’s got ALS.

I talk to him regularly, and he has the Big P purpose and the little P purpose. His Big P purpose is to make a difference with the science and research of ALS. He created an organization, Stay Strong vs. ALS. I think they’ve raised about $20 million. Every day, five days a week, he gets up and he coaches somebody just diagnosed with ALS, someone who’s scared and wants to know, What can I do?

He said, Richard, I get more juice out of that. It’s not going to save my life. I’m going to die from this. But it brings more aliveness to me than almost anything else, that ability to make a difference in one person’s life.

Gregg:

I love that, and it raises the issue of suffering in the world. Part of the human journey is that we all suffer. Many people today are concerned about the state of the world. There’s a lot of pain and concerning things happening, but purpose is something that can redeem suffering. Ed’s story is also interesting because it’s not this abstract thing. He found purpose in a way that was personal for him, and ways in which he could really connect with the people who are newly diagnosed, because it’s been part of his story—his story of making the best of it and doing good with it. That’s the personal piece.

* Video conversation between Gregg Vanourek and Richard Leider via Zoom, recorded, transcribed by Otter.ai, and then edited by Gregg.

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Gregg’s Tools for You

Traps Test (Common Traps of Living) to help you identify what’s getting in the way of your happiness and quality of life
Quality of Life Assessment so you can discover your strongest areas and the areas that need work, then act accordingly
Passions Probe to help you find the things that consume you with palpable emotion over time

Postscript: Inspirations on Purpose

“When we are clear about our purpose, or at least working toward it, our lives come together in powerful ways.” -Christopher Gergen & Gregg Vanourek, LIFE Entrepreneurs: Ordinary People Creating Extraordinary Lives
“Purpose reveals itself when we stop being afraid and start being ourselves.” -Richard Leider, “An Incomplete Manifesto for Purpose”
“If there’s just one habit you can create to help you find your purpose, it would be helping others.” -Amy Morin

Gregg Vanourek’s Newsletter

Join our rapidly growing community. Sign up now and get monthly inspirations (new articles, opportunities, and resources). Welcome!

The Problem with Not Being Clear about Our Purpose

02/27/202511/29/2022 by Gregg Vanourek

Article Summary:

Not being clear about our purpose harms us in many ways, affecting our quality of life, relationships, work, leadership, and more.

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Many of us have a general sense of what we want in life but haven’t taken that further into a clear sense of purpose—of our deeper why.

Of all the personal and leadership development practices, purpose tends to be the most difficult for many, in part because of all the myths and misconceptions about purpose. Some people feel what’s been called “purpose anxiety”: distress from not knowing our purpose in life or from not living it.

Our purpose is why we’re here, our reason for being. It’s related to but not the same as our values, vision, and passions.

Purpose is important because it gives us a sense of meaning and coherence in our lives, as well as a connection to something larger than ourselves. And it’s hard to live our purpose if we don’t know what it is.

The Problem with Lacking Clarity about Purpose

What are the impacts of not knowing our purpose—or from lacking clarity about it? There are many, and some are severe.

When we’re not clear about our purpose, we can suffer from:

anxiety
stress
frustration
loss of hope
lack of a sense of coherence in our lives
lack of fulfillment
lack of joy
less engagement with family, neighbors, friends, colleagues, and community
lower resilience
burnout
depression

“If we lack purpose, we lose connection with our true nature and become externally driven, generating discontent or even angst. Because purpose can be so elusive, we often duck the big question and look for ways to bury that discontent, most often through ‘busyness,’ distraction, or worse.” -Christopher Gergen & Gregg Vanourek, LIFE Entrepreneurs: Ordinary People Creating Extraordinary Lives

When we lack clarity about purpose:

It can negatively impact our physical health. Researchers have linked purpose to better sleep, fewer heart attacks and strokes, longer life span, and a lower risk of dementia. (See the section below on purpose and health.)
We feel that our lives lack a sense of meaning and significance.
Our goals and actions can be haphazard, lacking focus and direction.
We can lose our motivation to work hard or persist through adversity because there’s no animating aim driving our actions.
We can lack a sense of progress because we don’t know what our ultimate aims are.
It can keep us from growing because we lack the clarity and motivation that comes from a deep and meaningful why.
We can feel that success is unachievable because our efforts seem aimless and scattershot, without lasting redeeming value.
We start living from the outside in, conforming to the desires or expectations of others instead of living by our own guiding lights.
We tend to turn inward and “cocoon” instead of reaching out to others, causing disconnection and loneliness, two of the leading causes of unhappiness.

Take the Traps Test

We all fall into traps in life. Sometimes we’re not even aware of it, and we can’t get out of traps we don’t know we’re in. Evaluate yourself with our Traps Test.

Not being clear about our purpose harms us in many ways, affecting our quality of life, relationships, work, leadership, and more.

Of course, the flip side is that knowing our purpose and living it comes with many benefits.

“When we are clear about our purpose, or at least working toward it, our lives come together in powerful ways.” -Christopher Gergen & Gregg Vanourek, LIFE Entrepreneurs

For example, McKinsey research during the pandemic found that people who say they’re “living their purpose at work” reported levels of wellbeing five times higher and engagement levels four times higher than people who say they’re not doing so.

According to a recent McKinsey report, purpose can be an important contributor to worker experience, which is linked with employee engagement, organizational commitment, and feelings of wellbeing. Also, those who experience congruence between their purpose and their job are more productive and more likely to outperform their peers.

One CEO cited in that report noted that articulating his purpose helped make him a more observant and empathetic leader:

“I believe I’m more honest with myself and faster to recognize if I might be doing something that’s motivated by my own vanity, fear, or pleasure. I know I’m more open to feedback and criticism. I spend less time talking about weekend or vacation plans and more time exploring what motivates, frustrates, or scares people—the things that really matter. I make faster connections with people now.”

Conclusion

When we’re clear about our purpose and building it into our daily lives, we feel authentic, energized, awake, and alive. The key is not just knowing our purpose but living it—intentionally building it into the fabric of our days.

Personal Values Exercise

“How to Discover Your Purpose“
“The Most Common Myths about Purpose“
“Purpose Demystified“
“Why Self-Awareness Is So Important–And How to Develop It“
“The Problem with Neglecting Our Inner Life“
“How to Discover Your Core Values“
“The Problem with Not Being Clear about Our Values“

Tools for You

Traps Test (Common Traps of Living) to help you identify what’s getting in the way of your happiness and quality of life
Personal Values Exercise to help you clarify what’s most important to you
Quality of Life Assessment to help you discover your strongest areas and the areas that need work and then act accordingly

Postscript: Inspirations on Purpose

“Many of us are starved for coherence in our lives…. The most effective people know how to carry out daily activities while keeping their eye on a longer-range vision and purpose they want to center their lives around. Purpose has a way of ordering time and energies around itself….” -Richard Leider, writer and expert on purpose
“Purpose is adaptive, in an evolutionary sense. It helps both individuals and the species to survive.” -Jeremy Adam Smith, Greater Good Science Center
“You might do a hundred other things, but if you fail to do the one thing for which you were sent it will be as if you had done nothing.” -Rumi, 13th century poet and Sufi mystic

Appendix: Purpose and Health

Research in different domains has found powerful connections between purpose and health. For example:

Longevity: A study of more than 79,000 Japanese people found that those with a strong connection to their sense of purpose tended to live longer. According to researchers in a 2014 study, “having a purpose in life appeared to widely buffer against mortality risk across the adult years.”

Heart disease: A 2008 study of Japanese men found that a lower level of purpose was associated with cardiovascular disease, and another study found that “purpose is a possible protective factor against near-future myocardial infarction among those with coronary heart disease.”

Stroke: Researchers found that people who say they have a sense of purpose are 22 percent less likely to exhibit risk factors for stroke compared to those who say they don’t—and 52 percent less likely to have experienced a stroke.

Alzheimer’s disease: Neuropsychologist Dr. Patricia Boyle found that people with a low sense of life purpose were 2.4 times more likely to get Alzheimer’s disease.

References

Boyle, P.A., Buchman, A.S., Wilson, R.S., Yu, L., Schneider, J.A., Bennett, D.A. (2012). Effect of purpose in life on the relation between Alzheimer disease pathologic changes on cognitive function in advanced age. Archives of General Psychiatry; 69(5): 499-505.
Boyle, P., Buchman, A., Barnes, L., Bennett, D. (2010). Effect of a purpose in life on risk of incident Alzheimer disease and mild cognitive impairment in community-dwelling older persons. Archives of General Psychiatry; 67(3): 304–310.
Naina Dhingra, Jonathan Emmett, Andrew Samo, and Bill Schaninger. (2020). Igniting individual purpose in times of crisis. McKinsey Quarterly.
Hill PL, Turiano NA. (2014). Purpose in life as a predictor of mortality across adulthood. Psychological science. 25(7): 1482-1486.
Koizumi, M., Ito, H., Kaneko, Y., Motohashi, Y. (2008). Effect of having a sense of purpose in life on the risk of death from cardiovascular diseases. Journal of Epidemiology; 18(5): 191-6.
Rainey, L. (2014). The search for purpose in life: An exploration of purpose, the search process, and purpose anxiety. University of Pennsylvania Master’s Thesis.
Schaefer SM, Morozink Boylan J, van Reekum CM, Lapate RC, Norris CJ, et al. (2013) Purpose in Life Predicts Better Emotional Recovery from Negative Stimuli. PLOS ONE 8(11).

Gregg Vanourek’s Newsletter

Join our rapidly growing community. Sign up now and get monthly inspirations (new articles, opportunities, and resources). Welcome!

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Gregg Vanourek is a writer, teacher, TEDx speaker, and coach on personal development and leadership. He is co-author of three books, including LIFE Entrepreneurs: Ordinary People Creating Extraordinary Lives (a manifesto for living with purpose and passion) and Triple Crown Leadership: Building Excellent, Ethical, and Enduring Organizations (a winner of the International Book Awards). Check out his Best Articles or get his monthly newsletter. If you found value in this article, please forward it to a friend. Every little bit helps!

How to Discover Your Purpose

03/04/202511/17/2022 by Gregg Vanourek

Article Summary:

Many people struggle with finding their purpose. It can be intimidating and confusing. Where to begin? This article clarifies what purpose is and how to discover it.

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Why are you here? (On the planet, that is.) What’s your purpose?

Do you know? Have you thought much about it? Are you living your purpose?

Note that we’re asking here about your purpose in life, not the purpose or meaning of life generally. Asking about your purpose is a practical matter, not a philosophical one.

Many people struggle with purpose. According to a New York Times article, only about a quarter of Americans have a clear sense of purpose. In a Harvard Business Review article, Nick Craig and Scott Snook noted, “we’ve found that fewer than 20 percent of leaders have a strong sense of their own individual purpose. Even fewer can distill their purpose into a concrete statement.” According to an Edward Jones report, 31 percent of new retirees say they’ve struggled to find a sense of purpose in retirement.

A lack of purpose is behind much of the pain and suffering in the world today, including many of our mental health challenges. We can have many good things in our life, including a nice family, a good career, and friends and experiences to enjoy, but we can still feel like something is missing. Often, it’s purpose that’s missing. Lack of purpose is also one of the drivers of the “Great Resignation” and a big driver of disengagement at work.

“The drive to be more purposeful explains much of the momentum
behind the massive exodus from mainstream corporate life.”
-Aaron Hurst, writer

What Is Purpose?

Part of the problem is confusion about what purpose is (and isn’t). Purpose often gets conflated with things like passion, meaning, and calling. (See my article, “The Most Common Myths about Purpose.”)

Our purpose is why we’re here, our reason for being. William Damon, a Stanford University professor and author of The Path to Purpose, defines purpose as “a stable and generalized intention to accomplish something that is at the same time meaningful to the self and consequential for the world beyond self.” Note that purpose takes us beyond ourselves, to something greater.

Author Richard Leider distinguishes between two kinds of purpose:

“BIG P” Purpose (a noble cause or something we can dedicate our life to).
“little p” purpose (the day-to-day choices of how we can contribute to others). Note that “little p” actions are just as worthy, and they can compound over time into something powerful.

Purpose vs. Passion

Purpose and passion are connected but not equivalent. While purpose is why we’re here, a passion is a compelling or powerful feeling. Our passions are those things that consume us with palpable emotions, the things we love so much that we’re willing to suffer for them. Those are important, but they don’t usually take us all the way to knowing our reason for being.

Purpose vs. Meaning

While purpose and meaning are related, they’re not the same. Meaning is a broader concept. According to Dr. Michael Steger of Colorado State University, “Meaning in life refers to the feeling that people have that their lives and experience make sense and matter.” He notes that “Purpose is one facet of a meaningful life.” According to Steger and his fellow researcher, Frank Martela from Aalto University, there are three general facets associated with meaning in life: purpose, coherence, and significance. See the image below.

Image source: Derek Hagen, Money Health Solutions, LLC, “Money and Meaning,” https://www.moneyhealthsolutions.com/post/money-and-meaning Used with permission.

“…when people say that their lives have meaning, it’s because three conditions have been satisfied: they evaluate their lives as significant and worthwhile—as part of something bigger; they believe their lives make sense;
and they feel their lives are driven by a sense of purpose.”
-Emily Esfahani Smith, The Power of Meaning

Purpose vs. Calling

There’s also confusion about the difference between purpose and calling. While purpose is why we’re here, a calling has been defined as “a strong urge toward a particular way of life or career” (Oxford Dictionary), and also as “a strong inner impulse toward a particular course of action, especially when accompanied by conviction of divine influence” (Merriam-Webster). So, if we have a clear purpose, it can flow naturally into a calling as a way to express it in the world.

“Everyone has a calling, which is the small, unsettling voice from deep within our souls, an inner urge, which hounds us to live out our purpose in a certain way. A calling is a concern of the spirit.
Since a calling implies that someone calls, my belief is that the caller is God.”
-Dave Wondra

The Benefits of Purpose

There are many benefits to knowing and living our purpose. It can be incredible powerful, flowing through everything we do and how we show up in the world. When we know and live our purpose, it gives us the following:

direction
coherence
energy
agency
hope
health (mental and physical)*
connection with others
community
enjoyment of life
happiness
fulfillment
gratitude

When we have a clear sense of purpose, we can reduce our anxiety and stress (which are fueled by uncertainty and aimlessness) and also focus our efforts in the right areas, boosting our performance, earnings, and impact. Our purpose can also help us clarify which goals to pursue and make us more likely to accomplish those goals.

“When we are clear about our purpose, or at least working toward it, our lives come together in powerful ways.”
-Christopher Gergen & Gregg Vanourek, LIFE Entrepreneurs: Ordinary People Creating Extraordinary Lives

We can also feel a strong relational and spiritual connection, a sense that we’re linked with others, part of the larger scheme of things, and in tune with nature, life, and God.

Finally, those who have lived purposefully tend to experience fewer regrets in life, helping them face and accept death with equanimity.

Take the Traps Test

We all fall into traps in life. Sometimes we’re not even aware of it, and we can’t get out of traps we don’t know we’re in. Evaluate yourself with our Traps Test.

How to Discover Our Purpose

So how to discover our purpose? Here are things we can do to help us discover our purpose:

reflect on what kinds of people or groups we feel called to serve and what kinds of issues we feel called to address
notice what energizes us (and what drains us) and what brings us joy
observe what we’re doing when we’re making a difference in someone’s life and loving the process of doing it
reflect on when we’ve felt the most fulfilled, noting what we were doing (and with whom and where and how), then finding patterns across those experiences
ask what we have a fierce commitment to and what we’re willing to sacrifice for because it’s so viscerally important to us (e.g., family, friends, work, colleagues, community, cause), then reflect on how it might inform our reason for being
notice what kinds of pain and suffering (yours or others’) affects us most (what Umair Haque calls our “zone of heartbreak”) and consider ways to turn that hurt into healing or growth
develop our self-awareness, our ability to see ourselves clearly and understand our feelings, motives, desires, and character
mine our story (our personal history), write it down, tell it to others, and find the themes that animate our lives, including what we loved doing when we were young and the meaning we’ve derived from the pivotal moments and adversity we’ve faced

“Purpose often arises from curiosity about your own life. What obstacles have you encountered? What strengths helped you to overcome them? How did other people help you? How did your strengths help make life better for others?”
-Jeremy Adam Smith, Greater Good Science Center

read books and articles that feel meaningful to you (researchers have found links between reading things like fiction, poetry, and the Bible and having a stronger sense of purpose)
take a holistic view of our life—thinking about our family, relationships, work, learning, community, beliefs, impact, and more—and noting what’s most important
discover our strengths—the things we’re good at
get clarity on our passions—what we love to do and what consumes us with palpable emotion
pay attention to what we’re doing when we love our work
clarify our personal values and consider instances in which we’ve honored or upheld them and what that suggests about our purpose
try different things (experiences, projects, jobs, careers) and gauge whether they feel meaningful or not
engage more often in “discover mode” (learning about who we are and what we can do in the world) and less in “climbing mode” (focusing so much on advancing up the ladder of success)
take time each evening to reflect on the day that just passed and note the activities or situations that felt most purposeful
think about our “ideal self” (the person we want to be, versus the person we are now) and what that person would be doing—and with and for whom
connect the dots between the needs we see in the world and our strengths, passions, and values
ask those who know us best to share the themes that make us who we are
work with a mentor, coach, or small group to help us uncover our purpose
ask ourselves what our older self or a wise mentor would advise us to focus more on
preserve enough white space and margin in our lives so that clarity can emerge
sit and get quiet with solitude and sanctuary so we’re better able to hear our inner voice
engage in an iterative process of action and reflection, of trying things and then reflecting on their meaning and significance
ask ourselves repeatedly what our purpose is (why we get up in the morning) and listen to what comes up
engage in spiritual seeking, such as prayer, worship, contemplation, yoga, or pilgrimage, in the process seeking clarity about why we’re here
project forward to the end of our lives and consider what we want our legacy to be, what we’d want said about us in a eulogy, or what we’d want to do differently if we had another chance at life (the deathbed test)
consider what life is asking of us now and see if meaningful ideas emerge
connect with experiences of awe, since they can help us feel connected to things larger than ourselves
maintain a sense of gratitude (researchers have found connections between gratitude and our propensity to contribute to others, a key aspect of purpose)
keep serving others (researchers have found connections between things like volunteering or donating to charities and having a greater sense of purpose)

In the process of uncovering our purpose, it’s important to slough off the layers of expectations put upon us by others, including parents, peers, teachers, coaches, colleagues, or society. We need to stop caring so much about what other people think and lean into being ourselves more openly and fully.

“Purpose reveals itself when we stop being afraid and start being ourselves.”
-Richard Leider, “An Incomplete Manifesto for Purpose”

The Universal Purpose

It’s worth noting that discovering purpose is one of the most challenging personal development practices for many people. It can take time to unfold, like a fine wine.

So, what to do in the meantime? Should we sit on the sidelines and await clarity via revelation? Or “monk out” in a remote mountain cave?

Absolutely not. We must stay engaged with the world. Purpose isn’t about navel-gazing. It’s about knowing our reason for being and bringing it to the world via helping others.

Richard Leider suggests that, beyond our individual purpose, there’s also a universal purpose that animates us all:

“The universal purpose is to grow and give.”
-Richard Leider

So, if we’re not yet clear on our personal purpose, we can keep growing and giving. When we do that, good things are bound to happen.

“If there’s just one habit you can create to help you find your purpose, it would be helping others.”
-Amy Morin

Personal Values Exercise

Examples of Personal Purpose Statements

Sometimes it’s helpful to see examples of purpose statements for inspiration and context. My own purpose is “to help people lead good lives.” For me, that means helping people lead lives of integrity, service, and purpose—and re-connecting them with what truly matters. I’m most keen on helping people develop their own conception of the good life and then bring it to life.

Here are some other purpose statements:

“To love God and serve others.” –Bob Vanourek (my father and co-author)
“To inspire and empower people to live their highest vision in the context of love and joy.” -Jack Canfield
“To wake you up and have you find that you are home.” -Nick Craig
“To help others unlock the power of purpose.” -Richard Leider “Big P” purpose
“To make a difference in one person’s life every single day.” -Richard Leider “little p” purpose
“To be a teacher. And to be known for inspiring my students to be more than they thought they could be.” -Oprah Winfrey

Conclusion

In the end, purpose is something we should be doing and not just thinking about. We should be infusing more and more of our home and work life with purpose.

The key is not knowing our purpose but living it. That also means focusing on things that are purposeful and avoiding things that aren’t as purposeful. It takes insight, persistence, and flexibility to figure out how to translate our purpose into effective action in the world.

Discovering our purpose doesn’t necessarily mean that we need to quit our job, change our career, or otherwise alter our lives dramatically. Often, we can creatively find ways to infuse our life and work with more purpose right where we are. (See, for example, Professor Amy Wrzesniewski’s work on “job crafting.”) Other times, big changes may be warranted.

Discovering our purpose and living it is the work of a lifetime, and it’s incredibly rich and rewarding—especially when we connect it with our core values, vision of the good life, strengths, and passions. Wishing you well with it, and please let me know if I can help.

–Gregg

“You may be moved in a direction
You do not understand,
Away from the safe, the familiar,
Towards a vision that is blurry,
Yet still pounds against
The doors of your dreams,
Screams for recognition,
Petitions for understanding,
Whispers for acceptance.
Out towards distant possibilities,
You are propelled by a fire,
You will never fully comprehend,
But cannot extinguish.”
-Susan Rogers Norton, “Destiny”

Reflection Questions

Do you know your purpose?
Are you living it?
What more will you do to clarify your purpose and build your life around it?

Tools for You

Traps Test (Common Traps of Living) to help you identify what’s getting in the way of your happiness and quality of life
Quality of Life Assessment to help you discover your strongest areas and the areas that need work and then act accordingly
Personal Values Exercise to help you clarify what’s most important to you

Gregg Vanourek’s Newsletter

Join our rapidly growing community. Sign up now and get monthly inspirations (new articles, opportunities, and resources). Welcome!

More Sources on Purpose

Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning
Richard Leider, The Power of Purpose
Emily Esfahani Smith, The Power of Meaning
Hill PL, Turiano NA, Mroczek DK, Burrow AL. The value of a purposeful life: Sense of purpose predicts greater income and net worth. Journal of Research in Personality.
Khullar D. Finding Purpose for a Good Life. But Also a Healthy One. New York Times. The Upshot. Jan. 1, 2018.
Morin, A, 7 Tips for Finding Your Purpose in Life. VeryWell Mind. July 12, 2020.
Musich S, Wang SS, Kraemer S, Hawkins K, Wicker E. Purpose in Life and Positive Health Outcomes Among Older Adults. Popul Health Manag.
Schippers MC, Ziegler N. Life Crafting as a Way to Find Purpose and Meaning in Life. Front Psychol.
Smith, Jeremy Adam. “How to Find Your Purpose in Life,” Greater Good Science Center, January 10, 2018.

Postscript: Inspirations on Purpose

“If we lack purpose, we lose connection with our true nature and become externally driven, generating discontent or even angst. Because purpose can be so elusive, we often duck the big question and look for ways to bury that discontent, most often through ‘busyness,’ distraction, or worse…. What does life want from us? In the end, the task is not finding our purpose but uncovering it—not propelling ourselves toward a more successful life, but rather getting out of the way of the good life that wants to live through us.” -Christopher Gergen & Gregg Vanourek, LIFE Entrepreneurs: Ordinary People Creating Extraordinary Lives
“Purpose is that deepest dimension within us—our central core. It is the quality we choose to shape our lives around. Purpose is already within us waiting to be discovered.” -Richard Leider
“I believe that we are put on this earth to live our soul’s purpose. To me, that means using our unique gifts and talents to make a positive impact in the world and help create the world we want to see…. We are all born with an inner compass that tells us whether or not we’re on the right path to finding our true purpose. That compass is our JOY.” -Jack Canfield, author
“Man’s main concern is not to gain pleasure or to avoid pain, but rather to see a meaning in his life…. One should not search for an abstract meaning of life. Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life to carry out a concrete assignment which demands fulfillment.” -Viktor Frankl, psychologist, author, and Holocaust survivor
“Purpose is adaptive, in an evolutionary sense. It helps both individuals and the species to survive.” -Jeremy Adam Smith, Greater Good Science Center
“Purpose is the recognition of the presence of the sacred within us and the choice of work that is consistent with that presence. Purpose defines our contribution to life. It may find expression through family, community, relationship, work, and spiritual activities.” -Richard Leider, The Power of Purpose
“You have to build meaning into your life, and you build it through your commitments—whether to your religion, to an ethical order as you conceive it, to your life’s work, to loved ones, to your fellow humans.” -John W. Gardner, author and civic leader
“Purpose is a universal need, not a luxury for those with financial wealth…. Money often conflicts with finding purpose, as it creates a false substitute for defining success…. You can find purpose in any job. It is all in how you approach it.” -Aaron Hurst, author
“The most fortunate people on earth are those who have found a calling that’s bigger than they are—that moves them and fills their lives with constant passion, aliveness, and growth.” -Richard Leider
“The difference between success and failure—between a life of fulfillment and a life of frustration—is how well you manage the challenge of making meaning in your life…. Learning to make meaning from our life stories may be the most indispensable but least understood skill of our time.” -Bruce Feiler, Life Is in the Transitions
“If you can find a way to use your signature strengths at work often, and you also see your work as contributing to the greater good, you have a calling.” -Martin Seligman, psychologist and author
“People don’t choose their calling, it chooses them.” -Richard Leider
“You might do a hundred other things, but if you fail to do the one thing for which you were sent it will be as if you had done nothing.” -Rumi, poet

* Researchers have linked purpose to better sleep, fewer heart attacks and strokes, longer life span, and a lower risk of dementia and premature death.

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Gregg Vanourek is a writer, teacher, TEDx speaker, and coach on personal development & leadership. He is co-author of three books, including LIFE Entrepreneurs: Ordinary People Creating Extraordinary Lives (a manifesto for living with purpose and passion) and Triple Crown Leadership: Building Excellent, Ethical, and Enduring Organizations (a winner of the International Book Awards). Check out his Best Articles or get his monthly newsletter. If you found value in this article, please forward it to a friend. Every little bit helps!

The Most Common Myths about Purpose

02/27/202511/10/2022 by Gregg Vanourek

Article Summary:

Many people struggle with knowing their purpose. It can be confusing, unclear, and intimidating. Here we bust the most common myths about purpose.

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Of all the top personal development practices, discovering our personal purpose can be among the most challenging for many of us.

It begins with confusion about what purpose is. Our purpose is why we’re here, our reason for being. William Damon, a Stanford University professor and author of The Path to Purpose, defines purpose as “a stable and generalized intention to accomplish something that is at the same time meaningful to the self and consequential for the world beyond self.”

Discovering purpose is also hard because there are many myths and misconceptions about what purpose is.

Quality of Life Assessment

Evaluate your quality of life in ten key areas by taking our assessment. Discover your strongest areas, and the areas that need work, then act accordingly.

Myths about Purpose

Here are the most common and damaging myths about purpose:

Purpose is the same as passion.

People often use the words “purpose” and “passion” interchangeably, as if they’re the same thing. They’re connected but not equivalent. While purpose is why we’re here, a passion is a compelling or powerful feeling or emotion. (This gets tricky because we obviously feel passionate about our purpose.) In our book, LIFE Entrepreneurs: Ordinary People Creating Extraordinary Lives, Christopher Gergen and I noted that passions are those things that consume us with palpable emotions. What are the things we love so much that we’re willing to suffer for them? Those are great, but they don’t get us all the way down to our reason for being.

My purpose must be completely original.

We need to stop putting so much pressure on ourselves when it comes to our purpose. There’s no competition for originality. The key is authenticity: have we landed on a sense of purpose that is real and true to us, that speaks to our essence?

Purpose is a luxury reserved for the select few, for the affluent and privileged.

Because it can be so hard and take so long, it’s tempting to conclude that purpose must not be for us. We can dismiss it as something reserved for the elite, or the fortunate, and not for us. But purpose is universally available. A hunger for purpose and meaning is built into human nature, and it’s accessible to us all, especially via connection with and service to others.

“Man’s main concern is not to gain pleasure or to avoid pain, but rather to see a meaning in his life.”
-Viktor Frankl

Purpose is abstract, theoretical, and impractical.

It can be easy to dismiss purpose as something that’s impractical. The notion of knowing our purpose can feel quite distant and philosophical. But in truth, purpose is utterly practical. It means infusing our actions with a deeper meaning informed by a highly motivating gift of clarity about fundamental aims. W. Clement Stone observed that “Definiteness of purpose is the starting point of all achievement.” In other words, the path to achievement and success starts with purpose.

“The difference between success and failure—between a life of fulfillment and a life of frustration—is how well you manage the challenge of making meaning in your life.”
-Bruce Feiler, Life Is in the Transitions

My purpose should come to me in a revelation.

The notion that our purpose will come to us fully formed and crystal clear is unrealistic. Our sense of purpose can be messy and take time to unfold. We get a sense of purpose as we live our lives and make mistakes, observing over time periods when we feel “on-purpose” or “off-purpose.”

“We don’t receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us.”
-Marcel Proust

Purpose is all about me and what I need and want for my life.

To some, the notion of discovering our purpose sounds like navel-gazing. To know our purpose, we must “monk out” and become a hermit in a cave thinking deep thoughts. And then when we figure it out, we’ll be happy and successful. But all this is backwards. We look inside to uncover our purpose so that we can look outside and actualize it in the world, with contributions to others based on real connections and a heart to serve. Purpose always comes back to others and to something larger than ourselves.

“You have to build meaning into your life, and you build it through your commitments—whether to your religion, to an ethical order as you conceive it, to your life’s work, to loved ones, to your fellow humans.”
-John W. Gardner, public official and political reformer

Purpose is “out there” for us to go find.

Yes and no. We discover a sense of purpose within by bumping up against the world and getting a sense of what feels empty to us versus what fills us up with energy and meaning. And as we begin to discover it, and to feel it deep in our bones, the whole point is to take it out into the world, to actualize it. In truth, purpose is discovered with and realized through both reflection and action in the world.

When we go looking to find our purpose, it can elude us. Purpose is less something that we find and more something that we uncover by peeling off layers of expectation and obligation until we get to the root of who we are and what (or who) calls to us. Also, the point isn’t finding our purpose. It’s living it. The point is living a life that lights us up and beings good things to those around us.

“Purpose is that deepest dimension within us—our central core. It is the quality we choose to shape our lives around. Purpose is already within us waiting to be discovered.”
–Richard Leider, author and expert on purpose

I have just one purpose—or a purpose can only be manifested in one way.

Oh, the pressure. What’s my one purpose that will answer everything? The poet Walt Whitman once wrote, “I am large. I contain multitudes.” And so it can be with purpose. While some may find purpose in ONE THING, others may find it in many different things, from family and relationships to work and hobbies. There are likely to be patterns and themes connecting them, but purpose doesn’t have to be one dimensional.

Purpose has to be big and bold (e.g., saving the world).

This isn’t a competition. Purpose is measured less in size and boldness and more in depth, truth, and commitment. Author Richard Leider distinguishes between a “BIG P” Purpose (a noble cause or something you can dedicate your life to) and a “little p” purpose (the day-to-day choices of how you can contribute to others). For example, his own BIG P purpose is to help others unlock the power of purpose, and his little p purpose is to make a difference in one person’s life every single day. Note that little p purposeful actions are just as worthy and valuable, but on a smaller scale, and they can compound over time into something remarkable.

My purpose will never change.

Some people may have the experience of an unchanging purpose that remains consistent over time. But many of us go through chapters and seasons in life, and new layers of purpose get revealed in that flow of time. We change in our circumstances and outlook, so our experience with purpose can evolve, for example, becoming clearer, deeper, and richer. It may be there was a deeper underlying purpose there all along, but we change in our ability to see and experience it.

My purpose will manifest in the one “perfect job” that I must find.

For most of us mere mortals, there is no one perfect job. We can have a great job, but change is inevitable. The key is continually infusing our work with meaning and contribution and making adjustments along the way. We can infuse any job with purpose, excellence, and contribution.

Once I find my purpose, I’ll be done and can move on.

Even if we’ve done the hard work of discovering our purpose (which few people take the time to do), there’s still further richness ahead of us. Most importantly, we must diligently infuse our life and work with that purpose. And we’re wise to continue revisiting that purpose through different chapters and seasons of life, such as school, early career, marriage, children, midlife, etc.

My purpose can be revealed to me by a wise elder, mentor, or friend.

There’s no doubt that a wise elder, mentor, or friend can help us discover our purpose. For example, they can ask probing questions that help us shatter our illusions. Or they can help us acknowledge when we’ve lost our way or are in a trap. They can help us see things about ourselves that we’re missing. But in the end, our purpose is our own, and it’s up to us to realize and experience it in its authentic depth as only we can.

Take the Traps Test

We all fall into traps in life. Sometimes we’re not even aware of it, and we can’t get out of traps we don’t know we’re in. Evaluate yourself with our Traps Test.

Only some types of work are capable of being purposeful.

Some people self-select out of purpose on the assumption that only some types of work are purposeful. Purpose, they reason, is only the domain of activists, changemakers, and healers and not the domain, for example, of bankers, plumbers, and technicians. Extensive research from Yale School of Management Professor Amy Wrzesniewski and her colleagues has demonstrated otherwise. They’ve found three main ways people relate to their work:

Job orientation, with work as a means to an end
Career orientation, with a focus on advancement, success, and prestige
Calling orientation, with work as integral to our life and identity

According to their research, any job can become a career or calling, any calling can become a job or career, and any career can become a job or calling. Much depends on how we craft our tasks, relationships, and thinking about our work—what Professor Wrzesniewski calls “job crafting.”

“You can find purpose in any job. It is all in how you approach it.”
-Aaron Hurst, The Purpose Economy

Conclusion

As we’ve seen, there are many myths about purpose. Discovering purpose is hard enough on its own without having to break through these myths and misconceptions.

While purpose is powerful, of course it’s not enough in and of itself to bring us a happy, successful, and fulfilling life. We also need other critical foundational elements, such as values, vision, strengths, passions, relationships, and more.

But purpose is one of the essential elements of crafting a good life with good work. We’re wise to uncover our purpose and build our lives around it.

Personal Values Exercise

“Meaning is not something you stumble across, like the answer to a riddle or the prize in a treasure hunt. Meaning is something you build into your life. You build it out of your own past, out of your affections and loyalties, out of the experience of humankind as it is passed on to you, out of your own talent and understanding, out of the things you believe in, out of the things and people you love, out of the values for which you are willing to sacrifice something. The ingredients are there. You are the only one who can put them together into that unique pattern that will be your life. Let it be a life that has dignity and meaning for you. If it does, then the particular balance of success or failure is of less account.”
-John W. Gardner, public official and political reformer

Reflection Questions

Have any of these myths inhibited you from exploring or committing to your purpose?
Which myths are the most common obstacles to purpose?
What will you do to further explore or actualize your purpose?

Tools for You

Traps Test (Common Traps of Living) to help you identify what’s getting in the way of your happiness and quality of life
Quality of Life Assessment to help you discover your strongest areas and the areas that need work and then act accordingly
Personal Values Exercise to help you clarify what’s most important to you

“How to Discover Your Purpose“
“Purpose Demystified“

Gregg Vanourek’s Newsletter

Join our rapidly growing community. Sign up now and get monthly inspirations (new articles, opportunities, and resources). Welcome!

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What Leads to Happiness?

09/20/202401/12/2022 by Gregg Vanourek

What leads to happiness? We all want to be happy—and for those we care about to be happy.

Here’s the problem: we’re unclear and often badly mistaken about what will bring us happiness.

We’re inundated with messages from family, friends, ads, and social media about what will make us happy. Most of these messages are wrong.

The result:

What we think will make us happy is different from what actually makes us happy.

What Is Happiness?

To understand what’s going on here, we should back up and clarify what we’re talking about. What is happiness?

Turns out it’s not so simple to define. Why? It’s complex, and there are many related factors: wellbeing (a good condition of existence with health, happiness, and prosperity), life satisfaction (how we feel about our lives overall and our future), pleasure, and more.

There are even different types of happiness:

Hedonic happiness: happiness achieved through experiences of pleasure and enjoyment
Eudaimonic happiness: happiness through virtuous action, habits of moral excellence, and a full flourishing of self in the world.

My favorite definition of happiness (because it’s so comprehensive) comes from University of California, Riverside psychologist and happiness researcher Sonja Lyubomirsky:

Happiness: “the experience of joy, contentment, or positive well-being, combined with a sense that one’s life is good, meaningful, and worthwhile.”

Don’t stop there, though. Decide for yourself what happiness is for you. And then turn your attention to the next step: what leads to it?

Take the Traps Test

We all fall into traps in life. Sometimes we’re not even aware of it, and we can’t get out of traps we don’t know we’re in. Evaluate yourself with our Traps Test.

Determinants of Happiness: What Leads to Happiness

The question of what leads to happiness presumes that we have agency over it. That’s actually the source of some debate.

Enter “happiness set-point theory,” the notion that our happiness level is determined primarily by our genes and personality traits. According to this theory, our happiness remains relatively constant throughout our lives. We inevitably return to a relatively stable “happiness set point,” regardless of circumstances. (Note also the related notion of hedonic adaptation, in which we become rapidly accustomed to changes in our circumstances and then settle into that new baseline as if nothing had occurred.)

Many researchers have questioned this happiness set-point theory. Some have noted that it really speaks to a fixed range of potential happiness and wellbeing, not a single set point.

Sustainable Happiness Model

In their prominent article, researchers Sonja Lyubomirsky, Kennon Sheldon, and David Schkade developed the “sustainable happiness model” (SHM), which posits that we have more agency over our happiness levels. They noted that happiness is “governed by three major factors: a genetically determined set point for happiness, happiness-relevant circumstantial factors, and happiness-relevant activities and practices.”

They went on to give preliminary estimates for the “approximate percentage of the variance that each of the three factors accounts for in cross-sectional well-being, as suggested by past research”:

genetics account for about 50% of the population variance in happiness
circumstances account for about 10%
activities and practices account for about 40%

This “happiness pie chart,” as it was dubbed, had important implications:

“Thus the key to happiness lies not in changing our genetic makeup (which is impossible) and not in changing our circumstances (i.e., seeking wealth or attractiveness or better colleagues, which is usually impractical), but in our daily intentional activities.” -Sonja Lyubomirsky, Professor of Psychology, University of California, Riverside

This was encouraging for those of us seeking to influence our happiness (which is, well, all of us).

Revisiting the Data

But then the plot thickened. Some researchers critiqued the paper. In response, two of the original researchers, Lyubomirsky and Sheldon, revisited the “happiness pie chart” in a response via a 2019 follow-up paper. (1)

They stood by their main findings but recognized that the 40% estimate for activities may have been an overestimate and noted some important nuances. First, the three factors mentioned (genes, circumstances, and activities) aren’t isolated factors. Clearly, they influence each other. For example, our genes can influence our tendency to engage in certain activities, like exercise, that influence our happiness. And our circumstances and activities can influence whether genes are expressed, depending on the context of our lives.

Also, the percentages given were preliminary estimates—never meant to represent precise numbers for individuals but rather how much of the differences in happiness among people generally come from different sources. Individual results and factors will vary. “Like all pie charts,” Lyubomirsky noted, “ours was a gross oversimplification.”

But let’s not lose the forest for the trees. Here’s the bottom line:

“Although the pie chart part may have outlived its usefulness, we stand behind the central premise of the SHM, and the supportive research it spawned. Happiness can be successfully pursued, but it is not ‘easy.’”
-Kennon Sheldon and Sonja Lyubomirsky in their 2019 follow-up article

It shouldn’t surprise us that there are nuances, given the complexity of happiness and all its influences. So how does this speak to how we should live?

Quality of Life Assessment

Evaluate your quality of life in ten key areas by taking our assessment. Discover your strongest areas, and the areas that need work, then act accordingly.

Different Types of Lives

In his book, Authentic Happiness, influential psychologist Dr. Martin Seligman notes different types of lives we can aspire to:

The pleasant life: the successful pursuit of positive feelings
The good life: using our “signature strengths”—those character strengths (like courage, diligence, and teamwork, with each person having their own unique set) that are most essential to who we are—to obtain “abundant and authentic gratification,” which comes when we invoke our strengths and virtues, as when we achieve “flow.”
The meaningful life: using our strengths to serve a larger purpose, such as raising our children, contributing to our community, or fighting for an important cause.

Most of Western society is organized around pursuing the pleasant life. But of the three, Seligman reports, pleasure is the most fleeting.

“For centuries, traditional wisdom has been that simply seeking pleasure for its own sake
doesn’t really make you happy in the long run.”
-Roy Baumeister, Professor of Psychology, Florida State University

Seligman notes that to live all three types of lives—pleasant, good, and meaningful—is to lead a “full life,” which he describes as “experiencing positive emotions about the past and future, savoring positive feelings from the pleasures, deriving abundant gratification from your signature strengths, and using these strengths in the service of something larger to obtain meaning.”

Helpful stuff. But we’re still back to the question: What leads to happiness (and a full life)?

What Leads to Happiness? Actions that Boost Happiness

According to an ever-growing body of research, there are many things we can do to bring happiness to our lives—and to increase our sense of life satisfaction. Here are 20 effective ones:

Regular exercise and physical activity: moving our bodies regularly, ideally with some vigor. Since our mind and body are connected, our physical activity can have powerful effects on our moods. Exercise has several spillover benefits:

- helping us unplug from our devices
- getting us outside more
- helping us sleep better, which is essential for everything we do
- releasing endorphins, which give us pleasure
- reducing anxiety and stress
- giving us feelings of mastery or motivation, and sometimes getting us into a state of flow

Acts of kindness, caring, service, and generosity: caring for others can help us be happier and healthier, as long as we also engage in self-care and don’t overcommit, burn ourselves out, or care so much that we get lost in the problems or despair of others.
Purpose and meaning: having a sense of why we’re here and what gives us a sense of deeper significance and connection with something larger than ourselves. This doesn’t have to be grand or complicated. It can begin with worthy activities: engaging in activities that feel meaningful and based on virtues like character and generosity. When we show up as a good person living purposefully—serving others, forgiving people, giving back, being grateful for what we have, and contributing to something larger than ourselves—we end up feeling happier and more fulfilled. It can be parenting or grandparenting—or volunteering, mentoring, or day-to-day acts of service. And it can entail meaningful work, community building, religious worship, or spiritual connection and growth.
Relationships with others: connecting with others helps us feel love. It gives us a sense of meaning, self-worth, significance, and belonging. It also means we’re more likely to receive support when we need it most. And to provide it when others need it most. According to many researchers, strong social relationships are the most important contributor to enduring happiness for most people. Those who are happiest generally devote a great amount of time to their family and friends. They nurture and enjoy those relationships.
Goals and Aspirations: having a deep commitment to lifelong goals and ambitions (like parents teaching children their values), ideally “self-concordant goals” (ones that are intrinsically interesting and congruent with our identity). This gives us things to work toward and look forward to. It’s highly motivating, especially with intrinsic aspirations, not extrinsic ones (where the motivation is to seek rewards or avoid punishments). Note: Goals should be challenging, but not too challenging (lest we get deflated for failing to achieve unrealistic goals).
Authentic expression of self: being true to who we really are and avoiding the traps of wearing a mask, people pleasing, or caring too much about what others think.

Anticipation: having something to look forward to (e.g., a vacation, date nights, wedding).

“We need the sweet pain of anticipation to tell us we are really alive.”
-Albert Camus, French philosopher

Gratitude: being thankful for what we have can have powerful effects on our quality of life, including improved wellbeing, life satisfaction, sense of connectedness, and health. Activities such as daily gratitude journaling or writing gratitude letters to those who’ve helped us can have surprisingly strong and lasting effects.
Experiences: enjoying encounters and activities that are engaging and fun. Tip: consider spending money more on activities (e.g., live shows or social dinners), not so much on things (clothes or gadgets).
Learning and developing: learning new things and boosting our skills and capacities engages our curiosity, challenges us, helps our brains make connections across domains, and gives us a sense of confidence and accomplishment.
Meditation and mindfulness practices: activities that help us experience focused attention and achieve a heightened state of awareness can contribute significantly to our happiness and wellbeing. This includes stopping and noticing what’s going on around and within us. It helps us get in touch with our feelings and experience them (which is much better than avoiding or suppressing them, which can be toxic). And it helps us focus on the present instead of dwelling on the past or worrying about the future.
“Person-activity fit”: engaging in activities that feel enjoyable and natural to us, and that are aligned with our personality, goals, interests, and values. It also means not doing things out of guilt or due to outside pressures or expectations.
Seeing the positive and reframing the negative: look for the good in things and practice optimism when imagining our future. According to researchers, humans have a negativity bias—over-focusing on negatives and underappreciating positives. It’s important to reframe things from setbacks or defeats to challenges or opportunities (e.g., for learning and growth).
Journaling: Research has shown that writing about stressful experiences can help us create meaning from them. (The same can be true for talking through our feelings with others.)
Resilience in the face of adversity: invoking our ability to withstand challenges and bounce back from difficult events, showing poise and strength in the process. Since suffering is part of life, we must learn how to deal with it—and ideally grow and learn in the process.
Savoring: fully feeling and enjoying positive experiences, thereby extending them. Living in the present moment and appreciating what we have.
Self-care: taking actions to preserve or improve our health and wellbeing, including during periods of stress. We neglect this at our peril, as it’s foundational to the other things.
Strengths: knowing and doing the things that we’re good at, including knowledge, talents, and skills. Ideally, we design our lives and work around them, as opposed to harping on our weaknesses. And we work with others who have different strengths.
Intentional and effective use of time: intentional planning and deployment of our time, such that our actual use of time approaches our ideal use of time. How much of our precious time are we wasting?

“Unless a person takes charge of them, both work and free time are likely to be disappointing.”
-Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Hungarian-American psychologist

Variety: mixing things up and breaking old patterns. Even with good things that we enjoy, we can fall into ruts and lose motivation. Our brains enjoy new stimuli. As the saying goes, “Variety is the spice of life.”

“…the pursuit of happiness requires selecting self-appropriate and eudaimonic-type activities (rather than chasing after positive emotions directly); investing sustained (rather than desultory) effort in those activities; and also, practicing them in a varied and changing manner (rather than doing them the same way each time). By such means, people can create for themselves a steady inflow of engaging, satisfying, connecting, and uplifting positive experiences, thereby increasing the likelihood that they remain in the upper range of their happiness potentials.”
-Kennon Sheldon and Sonja Lyubomirsky

Here’s the good news: there’s much we can do to boost our happiness and wellbeing. The point isn’t that we have to do all of these happiness-generating activities. Why not try some new ones? And why not design your days more intentionally?

In the end, our happiness is up to us. What leads to happiness for you?

Personal Values Exercise

Tools for You

Traps Test (Common Traps of Living) to help you identify what’s getting in the way of your happiness and quality of life
Quality of Life Assessment so you can discover your strongest areas and the areas that need work, then act accordingly
Personal Values Exercise to help you clarify what’s most important to you

Postscript: Relevant Theories

Eudaimonic Activity Model: suggests that engaging in growth-promoting (eudaimonic) goals and intentional behaviors helps people satisfy their basic psychological needs, which results in elevated happiness and wellbeing.
Hedonic Adaptation Prevention (HAP) Model: describes the different ways we tend to become rapidly accustomed to changes in our circumstances and settle into our happiness baseline as if nothing had occurred. (Sheldon & Lyubomirsky, 2012)
Sustainable Happiness Model (SHM): a framework for research on how to boost and maintain happiness over time via intentional behaviors and other interventions.

(1) Kennon M. Sheldon & Sonja Lyubomirsky (2019): Revisiting the Sustainable Happiness Model and Pie Chart: Can Happiness Be Successfully Pursued?, The Journal of Positive Psychology.

Gregg Vanourek’s Newsletter

Join our rapidly growing community. Sign up now and get monthly inspirations (new articles, opportunities, and resources). Welcome!

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Gregg Vanourek is a writer, teacher, TEDx speaker, and coach on personal development and leadership. He is co-author of three books, including LIFE Entrepreneurs: Ordinary People Creating Extraordinary Lives (a manifesto for living with purpose and passion) and Triple Crown Leadership: Building Excellent, Ethical, and Enduring Organizations (a winner of the International Book Awards). Check out his Best Articles or get his monthly newsletter. If you found value in this article, please forward it to a friend. Every little bit helps!

Is Your Identity Wrapped Up Too Much in Your Work?

12/29/202308/05/2021 by Gregg Vanourek

Work is a big part of our lives. It’s essential to our income and security, and it can be a source of meaning and satisfaction. But there are dangers with having our identity too wrapped up in our work.

What happens if we’re laid off? Or in-between jobs? No longer able to do that kind of work? Retired? We’re vulnerable to an identity crisis and a downward spiral when the work that animates our identity disappears or changes.

“Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it.”
-Colin Powell, U.S. Army officer, statesman, and diplomat

For sure, there are many different types of workers out there: nine to fivers working for the weekend, side hustlers, part-timers, hybrid professionals, unemployed, underemployed, and more. Some like or love what they do. Others despise or endure it.

Some toil away in a workaholic organizational culture. Others are trying to live up to parental expectations. Some are trapped in golden handcuffs. Others can’t stop ruminating about work situations and scenarios.

Quality of Life Assessment

Evaluate your quality of life in ten key areas by taking our assessment. Discover your strongest areas, and the areas that need work, then act accordingly.

The Traps of Overidentification with Work

There’s nothing wrong with working hard. Or with loving or liking what we do. Or with identifying with our work.

The problem comes when we identify too much with our work, losing other important aspects of ourselves and our lives in the process.

“You are not your job, you’re not how much money you have in the bank. You are not the car you drive.
You’re not the contents of your wallet. You are not your f**king khakis.”
-Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

Problems come when we bury ourselves in busyness and overwork—when we glorify being busy and can’t slow down and shut if off (or can’t feel good when we’re not working). According to a meta-analysis of 89 studies, workaholism is related to lower physical and mental health and lower job, family, and life satisfaction. Sometimes we use overwork to avoid dealing with difficulties, disconnections, rejections, or wounds.

We get into trouble when work is all about trying to please or impress others. When we reject who we really are—abandoning our true nature and avoiding our calling.

Problems pop up when we bury ourselves in someone else’s priorities so much so that we never get to our own.

It’s nice when we get recognition, praise, or even prestige from our work, but it’s dangerous when we become dependent on those, addicted to our next hit.

It’s a problem if we feel terrible when work is going poorly, clouding everything in disappointment.

It becomes a trap when our relationship with work becomes an obsession in which we’re constantly striving and can’t switch it off—when we’re never satisfied with things as they are.

It’s trouble when our attachment to work disconnects us from meaningful relationships—from the people we love and who need us.

“…the work I’ve put between us, you know it doesn’t keep me warm.”
-Don Henley in “The Heart of the Matter”

It’s limiting when our current work keeps us from moving forward and trying new things, because we feel safer in the current iteration of our work and wary of venturing forth. So we avoid the uncertainty and awkwardness of the in-between periods of our lives—the ones that tend to lead to the biggest breakthroughs in growth and fulfillment after we ride out the storms of fear and doubt and stare down the unknown.

The problem is when our identity is wrapped up too much in our work, with too much emotional investment (and time). It leads to stress, anxiety, burnout, or depression—and a sense of emptiness, disappointment, or regret.

Who are we? Are we only our title? Only the person who gains income or accolades? Yes, we are those, and we’re wise if we’re intentional as possible about infusing those activities with as much heart and soul and fun as we can. It’s great if we can integrate our life and work into a cohesive whole that suits us. It’s powerful if we can integrate our values, passions, and authenticity across all the domains of our lives, bridging them with an overarching sense of purpose.

“A happy life is one which is in accordance with its own nature.”
-Seneca, Roman Stoic philosopher

But aren’t we also husbands or wives, fathers or mothers, sons or daughters, friends and neighbors, lovers and dreamers, community members, citizens, and humans bound together on spaceship Earth?

Take the Traps Test

We all fall into traps in life. Sometimes we’re not even aware of it, and we can’t get out of traps we don’t know we’re in. Evaluate yourself with our Traps Test.

What to Do If Your Identity Is Wrapped Up in Work

What to do when we’re identifying too much with our work and not honoring other important areas of our lives?

Return to what’s important: who and what do we love? What do we long for? What are we missing in our life?

Do we have enough vitality, connection, and contribution in our lives, as Jonathan Fields recommends? Do we have a strong sense of our “core identity,” and are we living with “authentic integrity” (integration of all aspects of our lives in a way that coheres with our true nature)?

We all get off-kilter sometimes. We need to cut ourselves some slack. But we also need to stop lying to ourselves. We must take our lives back when we’ve given them away. We must honor the fullness of our nature and the marvelous range and depth of our lives, both in and out of the work we do. If we do, we can learn to be well regardless of the events and circumstances of the day, grounded in a deeper presence and appreciation for all that we’ve been given.

Reflection Questions

Is your identity wrapped up in work?
What important areas of your life are you neglecting?
What will you do start doing to make yourself whole again?

Tools for You

Traps Test (Common Traps of Living) to help you identify what’s getting in the way of your happiness and quality of life
Quality of Life Assessment so you can discover your strongest areas and the areas that need work, then act accordingly.
Personal Values Exercise to help you clarify what’s most important to you

Personal Values Exercise

Postscript: Inspirations on Life, Work, and Identity

“Know, first, who you are, and then adorn yourself accordingly.” -Epictetus
“‘Can I be comfortable in my own skin regardless of what’s going on around me?’ And that to me is the definition of true success.” -Peter Crone
“People who can tolerate the painful discrepancies of the between-identities period, which reflect underlying ambivalence about letting go of the old or embracing the new, end up in a better position to make informed choices. With the benefit of time between selves, we are more likely to make the deep change necessary to discover satisfying lives and work and to eventually restore a sense of community to our lives.” -Herminia Ibarra

Gregg Vanourek’s Newsletter

Join our rapidly growing community. Sign up now and get monthly inspirations (new articles, opportunities, and resources). Welcome!

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Gregg Vanourek is a writer, teacher, TEDx speaker, and coach on leadership and personal development. He is co-author of three books, including LIFE Entrepreneurs: Ordinary People Creating Extraordinary Lives (a manifesto for integrating our life and work with purpose, passion, and contribution) and Triple Crown Leadership: Building Excellent, Ethical, and Enduring Organizations (a winner of the International Book Awards). Check out his Best Articles or get his monthly newsletter. If you found value in this article, please forward it to a friend. Every little bit helps!

The Trap of Deferring Dreams and Postponing Happiness

11/09/202307/06/2021 by Gregg Vanourek

One of the most common—and costly—traps of living is the trap of deferring dreams and postponing happiness. We do it, we tell ourselves, because it’s not practical or “the right time.”

So what happens in the meantime? We endure work without enjoying it. Or we suffer through the days. We become resigned to the dysfunctions of our work, and habituated to its anxiety and stress. Or we sacrifice health, family, and dreams for the job. We neglect precious relationships with family and friends with the rationalization that we’ll make up for it later.

We wait. Hmmm….

Deferring Dreams: Waiting for that “Perfect Time”

“People wait. They wait for the elusive day when they’ll finally have enough time (guess what? — you never will), enough education (there’s always more to know), enough money (no matter how much you make, someone will always have more)…. People wait until that fateful day when they wake up and realize that while they were sitting around paying dues, earning their keep, waiting for that elusive ‘perfect time’ their entire life has passed them by.”
-Richie Norton, The Power of Starting Something Stupid

For some, this means enduring a mediocre or even miserable, stress-filled present on the bet that if we keep grinding it out today (this year… this decade…), we’ll magically arrive in happiness heaven at some point.

Don’t misunderstand: hard work is good. Paying dues can be valuable. We’re not all blessed with options.

But here’s the reality: If we spend our days deferring our dreams and postponing our happiness, then our life will be, well, one of deferred dreams and postponed happiness. Too often, the dreams and happiness never materialize. We put them off until it’s too late, or we burn up too much time in deferral mode.

Life is too precious and short to wait.
It comes with unknown contents and duration.
Is it really worth the wait?

According to Emma Seppäla of the Yale School of Management, “This theory of success, the idea that in order to be successful you have to postpone or sacrifice your happiness, is simply false.”

Quality of Life Assessment

Evaluate your quality of life in ten key areas by taking our assessment. Discover your strongest areas, and the areas that need work, then act accordingly.

Deferring Dreams: Why Is This So Hard?

Of course, we understand the dangers here conceptually, yet we still end up falling into this trap of waiting, deferring, and postponing. Why?

First, we undervalue ourselves, subconsciously believing we’re so flawed that we’re not yet worthy of happiness. Sometimes, we learn these self-beliefs or worldviews from our family, born in a different time or with a different outlook.

Second, we fear failure. Our brains are wired for it. We submit to our risk aversion. As we mull our decision whether to wait or go for it, we overweight the cost of potential failure while underweighting the value of failure (from what we’ll learn and the pride we’ll feel for having tried) and neglecting altogether the cost of regret (the anguish associated with looking back and wondering about missed chances).

Third, we’re paralyzed by uncertainty about how to venture forth into the murky territory of our hopes and dreams. There are a couple factors at work here:

The “paradox of choice” (with anxiety coming from choice overload, causing “analysis paralysis”), as noted by psychologist Barry Schwartz
The belief that we have to find the one “perfect idea” and make the one “right choice,” with advance certainty that all will work and that it will go according to plan. (The reality is that it almost never does.)

An important note: postponing happiness also means postponing purpose—one of the most important drivers of a fulfilling life. True happiness comes not just from savoring the simple pleasures but also from connecting with others in deep, reciprocal relationships and contributing to something larger than ourselves, whether a family, neighborhood, organization, community, nation, cause, or planet.

Reflection Questions

Are you deferring dreams?
Are you postponing happiness?
What can you do, starting today, to begin pursuing your aspirations?
What are you waiting for?

Tools for You

Traps Test (Common Traps of Living) to help you identify what’s getting in the way of your happiness and quality of life
Quality of Life Assessment so you can discover your strongest areas and the areas that need work, then act accordingly.
Personal Values Exercise to help you clarify what’s most important to you

Personal Values Exercise

“Taking Stock of Your Quality of Life“
“Time to Check the Path You’re On?“
“How to Craft a Vision of the Good Life“

Postscript: Inspirations to Help You Avoid Deferring Dreams

“There are people who put their dreams in a little box and say, ‘Yes, I’ve got dreams, of course. I’ve got dreams.’ Then they put the box away and bring it out once in a while to look in it, and yep, they’re still there. These are great dreams, but they never even get out of the box.” -Erma Bombeck, columnist and humorist
“Am I doing things that allow me to live the way I want, serve the way I want, and be the parent I want to be? The last thing we wanted to do was live in a way that was talking about tomorrow instead of living it today.” -Stacey Boyd, entrepreneur
“There comes a time when you ought to start doing what you want. Take a job that you love. You will jump out of bed in the morning. I think you are out of your mind if you keep taking jobs that you don’t like because you think it will look good on your resume. Isn’t that a little like saving up sex for your old age?” -Warren Buffett, investor
“Life is short, and it is sinful to waste one’s time.” -Albert Camus
“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.” -Chinese proverb
“People are capable, at any time in their lives, of doing what they dream of.” -Paolo Coelho, Brazilian novelist
“The price of inaction is far greater than the cost of making a mistake.” -Meister Eckhart, German theologian, philosopher, and mystic
“I think the fiercest question of all is this one: What would you do even if you knew that you might very well fail? What do you love doing so much that the words failure and success essentially become irrelevant? …. You might demand of it, ‘Why should I go through all the trouble to make something if the outcome might be nothing?’ The answer will usually come with a wicked trickster grin: ‘Because it’s fun, isn’t it?’ Anyhow, what else are you going to do with your time here on earth—not make things? Not do interesting stuff? Not follow your love and your curiosity?” -Elizabeth Gilbert, author and journalist
“The way to live our vision on a daily basis is to understand that right now is the only time we have.” -John Hanley
“Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable.” -Sydney J. Harris, journalist and author
“Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.” -Steve Jobs, entrepreneur
“During the first period of a man’s life the greatest danger is: not to take the risk.” -Soren Kierkegaard, Danish philosopher
“A lot of times we’re driven and limited by perceived risk. But perceived risk is unrelated to actual risk. Real risk is not starting a business you are passionate about. Real risk is staying at a job that isn’t fulfilling; wasting your life.” -Jim Koch, founder, Boston Beer Company
“The most dangerous risk of all—the risk of spending your life not doing what you want on the bet you can buy yourself the freedom to do it later.” -Randy Komisar, tech executive, entrepreneur, and author
“If you truly love life, don’t waste time because time is what life is made of.” -Bruce Lee, martial artist, actor, and director
“Instead of your heart beats faster, why not you just act faster a bit; instead of just thinking about it, why not do something about it? Poor people fail because of one common behavior: their whole life is about waiting.” -Jack Ma, entrepreneur
“Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.” -Carl Sandburg, poet and biographer
“In the time of your life, live.” -William Saroyan, novelist and playwright
“It’s not at all that we have too short a time to live, but that we squander a great deal of it. Life is long enough, and it’s given in sufficient measure to do many great things if we spend it well. But when it’s poured down the drain of luxury and neglect, when it’s employed to no good end, we’re finally driven to see that it has passed by before we even recognized it passing. And so it is—we don’t receive a short life, we make it so.” -Seneca, On the Brevity of Life
“I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.” -William Shakespeare
“I must change my life, so that I can live it, not wait for it.” -Susan Sontag, writer, philosopher, and teacher
“Do not wait till the iron is hot; but make it hot by striking.” -William B. Sprague, clergyman
“All we have to do is decide what to do with the time that is given us.” -J.R.R. Tolkien, English writer, poet, and academic

Gregg Vanourek’s Newsletter

Join our rapidly growing community. Sign up now and get monthly inspirations (new articles, opportunities, and resources). Welcome!

Tired of Settling? How to Light Your Life and Work on Fire

11/14/202406/24/2021 by Gregg Vanourek

Settling for “good enough” instead of what you really want? Getting comfortable with the ordinary? Letting others treat you poorly? Suffering through a poor work situation? Tired of working with people who don’t want to excel or don’t share your values? Playing small, even though you know there’s something bigger possible for you?

Time out. This is your life. Your one and only life, with an uncertain duration and no guarantees. Time to take it back.

“There is no passion to be found playing small—in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.”
-Nelson Mandela, former president of South Africa

Tired of Settling? Why Do We Settle?

If you’re settling, you’re not alone. It’s a common trap. There are many reasons we settle:

1. Fear

We’re afraid of looking bad, of not living up to expectations, of failing. We fear what other people will think or say. So we let these fears box our choices, keeping us squarely in the safe and conventional spaces even though we long for something more. The kicker is that we’re often misreading people and conjuring scenarios of their disappointment and rejection when in fact they’re not even thinking of us, or they have a wildly different take. Too often, we’re just listening to phantom voices in our head whispering about unlikely worst cases.

“So many of us choose our paths in life out of fear disguised as practicality.”
-Jim Carrey, actor, comedian, writer, producer

2. Self-Deception

We’re brilliant at hiding the truth from ourselves. We rationalize: It’s only for a while. What choice do I have? In these excuses, we hide from the distressing realization that we’re settling for something less than desirable.

“The worst of all deceptions is self-deception.”
-Plato, classical Greek philosopher

3. Conformity

We yield to parental expectations, social norms, and conventional paths instead of blazing our own path. We worry about the harsh judgment we think may come if we stand up or stand out, so we shrink back into the facelessness of the crowd. Sure, there’s safety in the crowd. But also boredom—and regret.

4. Inertia

Change is hard. We get stuck in the quicksand of questions: What to do instead? How to decide? How to make it work? Can I really give up the safety of what I have now? The “switching costs” (of changing jobs, careers, degrees, locations, etc.) can be high—especially in the short term, with no way to know the long-term payoff. So we stick with a lesser path because it’s easier to stay the course. But at what cost in terms of lost opportunities and sense of pride and satisfaction for testing our mettle and venturing forth into the terrifying beauty of possibility?

“Never be passive about your life… ever, ever.”
–Robert Egger, social entrepreneur, activist, and author

5. Not tending to the fire

We’re all born with a zest for life (see how babies and children experience the world) and a capacity for dreaming big (go back and visit your childhood dreams). These aspirations require energy, but too often we’ve let that energy fizzle out over time by burying ourselves in busywork, escaping into mindless distractions, numbing ourselves, and making excuses.

There are indeed big obstacles. Not all are fortunate enough to have choices, or a savings cushion, or the ability to escape poverty, financial insecurity, or other debilitating hardship. But these questions are relevant to all, regardless of circumstances, because even in the hardest circumstances we have agency and possibilities for change, whether by hard work, grit, adjusting our approach, or upgrading our skills and outlook.

Often the real issue is lack of clarity about what we want and how we can move forward in the face of uncertainty. Trepidation about being who we really are. Setting the bar low so we won’t be disappointed if we fail to reach it. We lack a clear and compelling why. We have no audacious aspiration to rekindle the fire.

That’s not all. More things contribute to settling:

We avoid difficult tasks or conflicts
We’re too busy reacting to events instead of driving them
We lack confidence about our abilities and prospects for success
We’re not seeing the big picture and get caught up in the moment
We put things off until later

Take the Traps Test

We all fall into traps in life. Sometimes we’re not even aware of it, and we can’t get out of traps we don’t know we’re in. Evaluate yourself with our Traps Test.

The Flip Side: Dangers of Not Settling?

Let’s pause here and note that there’s a danger of taking this line of thinking about not settling too far. We can get so focused on striving for something better that we lose our capacity to be grateful for what we have now. Also, we can get caught up in obsessively chasing success due to an unhealthy need for validation and recognition for achievements.

There’s a danger to some of swapping a life of settling for a life of anxiety and workaholism, detached from family, friends, health, and the simple pleasures: nature, hobbies, quiet time. We can risk losing our capacity for quiet reflection, mindfulness, and pausing for renewal. We should be wary of getting too caught up in “climbing mode.”

Ceaseless and obsessive striving can prevent us from living a full life with a healthy array of meaningful aspects, like marriage, family, career, health, friendships, community, and more. In his book, On Settling, social philosopher Robert E. Goodin notes that if we settle on some things, we’re better positioned to concentrate on others that are more important. Otherwise, our efforts may be too diffuse and never gain traction.

We can have bold aspirations for a better future but still be grateful for what we have and not too attached to a future outcome that’s unlikely to solve everything in our life and bring us unending joy. Life doesn’t work that way. Writer Chris Guillebeau creatively flips the script from the “pursuit of happiness” to what he calls the “happiness of pursuit.”

So yes, we mustn’t turn our striving into a compulsive crusade. But for many, the bigger danger is settling.

Quality of Life Assessment

Evaluate your quality of life in ten key areas by taking our assessment. Discover your strongest areas, and the areas that need work, then act accordingly.

The Icarus Deception

The myth of Icarus is relevant here. You may recall the warning Daedalus gave to his son, Icarus, after constructing wings from feathers and wax to escape Crete: “Don’t fly too close to the sun.”

The big danger is hubris, right? Of having the sun melt your wings of wax if you get too full of yourself and fly too high.

But author Seth Godin points out that Daedalus warned Icarus first of the danger of complacency—the danger of flying too low such that the damp sea affects his wings and causes him to crash into the water. The first danger is about flying too low. We must guard against that too.

So what to do?

Tired of Settling? How to Stop

Tired of settling? There are several things we can do to stop settling and reignite the flame in our life and work:

1. Take full responsibility.

Be a “LIFE Entrepreneur,” taking ownership of your life, and recognizing your agency. Take your life back. Stop making excuses. No one’s coming to the rescue. LIFE Entrepreneurs don’t just live: they lead a life. They don’t sit around waiting for a lucky break. LIFE Entrepreneurs create opportunities. They go after their dreams and bring them to life, and they develop a vision of the good life, devise a plan for how to attain it, go for it, and check their progress along the way. As with any great effort, their work is never done but ever-evolving and, often, inspiring to those around them.

2. Summon the courage to try.

Act in spite of your fears. That of course sounds easier than it is in practice. How to punch through the fear? It helps to realize that most fears are phantoms, unlikely to play out in real life like the nightmare in our head. Also, be sure to account for the cost of coming to the end of your life and looking back with regret for not trying. It also helps if you do what’s next on the list below, to give you a sense of drive and direction:

3. Develop a clear and compelling personal purpose, values, and vision.

This will ensure that you’re clear about where you want to go in your life and work, and how and why:

Purpose: why you’re here, and what gives you a sense of meaning and significance—including by serving others
Values: what’s most important? What are your core beliefs and principles that guide your decisions and behavior?
Vision: what you aspire to achieve in the future, and what success looks like for you

Personal Values Exercise

4. Start.

Get momentum by trying things. Learn what works (and what doesn’t) and notch small wins. Use this to build toward taking massive action.

5. Build vitality.

Develop physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health, wellness, energy, and strength. Be intentional about nourishing habits, rituals, and routines, with visual cues to remind you about what to do and where and when. Choose intentionally what you do, with whom, and what you consume. Eventually you become the kind of person who doesn’t settle without having to think about it so much.

6. Let go of limiting beliefs.

Change your mindset. Upgrade your mental operating system. How? Spend time with people you admire. Read books that challenge and inspire you. Take courses that help you develop new skills and abilities. Listen to uplifting podcasts. Work with a mentor, coach, or therapist to shed vestiges of the past that no longer serve you.

7. Set and maintain high standards for yourself.

As with our children, we tend to rise or fall to the standards we set. Set deadlines. Focus on results. Hold yourself accountable. Be systematic about learning, development, and continuous improvement. Be clear about the kind of life you seek and commit to it. Choose the life you want, and then get to work crafting it with a hopeful and determined heart.

Temperature Check: Tired of Settling?

How’s your fire? Is it burning hot, lukewarm, or flaming out? If you’re settling, resolve to do what you can with what you have to start turning up the heat.

Reflection Questions

Tired of settling? Are you settling in any important aspects of your life (family, health, career, etc.)?
If so, what will you do about it? When and how?
Who can you ask for help?
What works for you when it comes to reigniting the flame?
What are you waiting for?

Tools for You

Traps Test (Common Traps of Living) to help you identify what’s getting in the way of your happiness and quality of life
Quality of Life Assessment to help you discover your strongest areas and the areas that need work and then act accordingly
Personal Values Exercise to help you clarify what’s most important to you

Postscript: Quotes on Settling

“It is remarkable how easily and insensibly we fall into a particular route, and make a beaten-track for ourselves.” -Henry David Thoreau
“Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears.” -Les Brown
“If you decide to live in the arena, you will get your ass kicked. You can choose comfort, or you can choose courage, but you can’t have both.” -Brene Brown, researcher and author
“The secret of man’s being is not only to live but to have something to live for.” -Fyodor Dostoevsky, Russian novelist and philosopher
“There are people who put their dreams in a little box and say, ‘Yes, I’ve got dreams, of course. I’ve got dreams.’ Then they put the box away and bring it out once in a while to look in it, and yep, they’re still there. These are great dreams, but they never even get out of the box.” -Erma Bombeck, American writer
“We have been raised to fear the yes within ourselves, our deepest cravings. And the fear of our deepest cravings keeps them suspect, keeps us docile and loyal and obedient, and leads us to settle for… many facets of our own oppression.” -Audre Lorde, American writer, feminist, and civil rights activist
“We ask ourselves, ‘How am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us. It is not just in some of us. It is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” -Marianne Williamson, spiritual teacher and author

Gregg Vanourek’s Newsletter

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Gregg Vanourek is a writer, teacher, TEDx speaker, and coach on personal development and leadership. He is co-author of three books, including LIFE Entrepreneurs: Ordinary People Creating Extraordinary Lives (a manifesto for living with purpose and passion) and Triple Crown Leadership: Building Excellent, Ethical, and Enduring Organizations (a winner of the International Book Awards). Check out his Best Articles or get his monthly newsletter. If you found value in this article, please forward it to a friend. Every little bit helps!

Article Summary:

Gregg Vanourek:

Richard Leider:

Gregg:

Richard Leider:

Take the Traps Test

Gregg:

Richard:

“Is purpose spiritual? Yes! …. Purpose is spiritual wisdom embodied…. Unlocking our purpose is ultimately a spiritual path.” -Richard Leider and David Shapiro, The Power of Purpose, 4th edition

Gregg:

Richard:

Gregg’s Tools for You

Quality of Life Assessment

Related Articles & Books

Postscript: Inspirations on Purpose and Spirituality

Gregg Vanourek’s Newsletter

Article Summary:

Gregg Vanourek:

G + P + V = C

Richard Leider:

Gregg:

Richard:

Strengths Search

Gregg:

Richard:

Passion Probe

Gregg:

Richard:

Personal Values Exercise

Gregg’s Tools for You

Personal Values Exercise

Related Articles & Books

Postscript: Inspirations on Purpose

Gregg Vanourek’s Newsletter

Article Summary:

Gregg Vanourek:

Richard Leider:

Gregg:

Richard:

Take the Traps Test

Gregg:

Richard:

Gregg:

Richard:

Quality of Life Assessment

Gregg:

Richard:

“Purpose is age-agnostic. It can be young people, it can be mid-life people, it can be retired people.” -Richard Leider

Gregg:

Richard:

“I arise in the morning torn between a desire to save the world and a desire to savor the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.” -E.B. White

Purpose is always about serving others.

Personal Values Exercise

Gregg:

Richard:

Gregg:

Gregg’s Tools for You

Related Articles & Books

Postscript: Inspirations on Purpose

Gregg Vanourek’s Newsletter

Article Summary:

The Problem with Lacking Clarity about Purpose

Take the Traps Test

“When we are clear about our purpose, or at least working toward it, our lives come together in powerful ways.” -Christopher Gergen & Gregg Vanourek, LIFE Entrepreneurs

Conclusion

Personal Values Exercise

Related Articles

Tools for You

Postscript: Inspirations on Purpose

Appendix: Purpose and Health

References

Gregg Vanourek’s Newsletter

Article Summary:

“The drive to be more purposeful explains much of the momentum behind the massive exodus from mainstream corporate life.” -Aaron Hurst, writer

What Is Purpose?

Purpose vs. Passion

Purpose vs. Meaning

Purpose vs. Calling

“Everyone has a calling, which is the small, unsettling voice from deep within our souls, an inner urge, which hounds us to live out our purpose in a certain way. A calling is a concern of the spirit. Since a calling implies that someone calls, my belief is that the caller is God.” -Dave Wondra

The Benefits of Purpose

“Is purpose spiritual? Yes! …. Purpose is spiritual wisdom embodied….
Unlocking our purpose is ultimately a spiritual path.”
-Richard Leider and David Shapiro, The Power of Purpose, 4^th edition

“Purpose is age-agnostic. It can be young people, it can be mid-life people, it can be retired people.”
-Richard Leider

“I arise in the morning torn between a desire to save the world and a desire to savor the world.
This makes it hard to plan the day.”
-E.B. White

“The drive to be more purposeful explains much of the momentum
behind the massive exodus from mainstream corporate life.”
-Aaron Hurst, writer

“Everyone has a calling, which is the small, unsettling voice from deep within our souls, an inner urge, which hounds us to live out our purpose in a certain way. A calling is a concern of the spirit.
Since a calling implies that someone calls, my belief is that the caller is God.”
-Dave Wondra

“When we are clear about our purpose, or at least working toward it, our lives come together in powerful ways.”
-Christopher Gergen & Gregg Vanourek, LIFE Entrepreneurs: Ordinary People Creating Extraordinary Lives

“Purpose often arises from curiosity about your own life. What obstacles have you encountered? What strengths helped you to overcome them? How did other people help you? How did your strengths help make life better for others?”
-Jeremy Adam Smith, Greater Good Science Center

“Purpose reveals itself when we stop being afraid and start being ourselves.”
-Richard Leider, “An Incomplete Manifesto for Purpose”

“The universal purpose is to grow and give.”
-Richard Leider

“If there’s just one habit you can create to help you find your purpose, it would be helping others.”
-Amy Morin

“Man’s main concern is not to gain pleasure or to avoid pain, but rather to see a meaning in his life.”
-Viktor Frankl

“The difference between success and failure—between a life of fulfillment and a life of frustration—is how well you manage the challenge of making meaning in your life.”
-Bruce Feiler, Life Is in the Transitions

“We don’t receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us.”
-Marcel Proust

“You have to build meaning into your life, and you build it through your commitments—whether to your religion, to an ethical order as you conceive it, to your life’s work, to loved ones, to your fellow humans.”
-John W. Gardner, public official and political reformer

“Purpose is that deepest dimension within us—our central core. It is the quality we choose to shape our lives around. Purpose is already within us waiting to be discovered.”
–Richard Leider, author and expert on purpose

“You can find purpose in any job. It is all in how you approach it.”
-Aaron Hurst, The Purpose Economy