Find Your Purpose At Work – The Reality

How do you find your purpose at work?

Nearly everyone I talk to wants to find their reason for doing what they do or their ultimate “why” in their life and their work.

And they should!

A big part of finding a job, career, or work that you really love involves finding what is meaningful to YOU.

The WHAT, WHERE and WHO you do this “work” with is also important but the WHY is a crucial but often times harder piece of the puzzle to fit into place.

One of the things that I have realized in helping people find meaningful work and on my own journey to figure out my “why” is that it finding your purpose isn’t an event.

Rarely if ever has someone just popped out of bed in the morning and had, what we call, their “WHY EPIPHANY”. 

Lightning doesn’t strike them as they are walking down the street and they finally now know WHY they were put on this earth.

You see in order to find your purpose you need to understand a few things.

First of all finding your purpose is a journey…not an event!

Many people think that one day their big revelation will come…that their epiphany will finally hit them.

They think that because they are “thinking a lot about it” that the magic will happen or the genie will appear and grant them their wish.

This is usually NOT the case.

In fact if you have talked to or read about someone having that eureka moment when they figured out their purpose it has usually come after months or even years of intentional discovery.

Which brings us to a very important point…

You have to be purposeful in order to find your purpose.

One of the things you need to do in order to find your purpose is to have different experiences.

You need to experience as much as possible in order to start to figure out what really matters to you.

How do you know what will light you up if you haven’t experienced it yet?

Often times the struggle to find the thing that we are looking for comes from not being exposed to it yet.

This goes for both PASSION and PURPOSE.

Get out there and experience things…experience anything and everything that sounds like fun or is interesting to you.

But here is the key…

You need to do it with INTENT.

Do it with the intent to figure out how this experience makes you feel.

Do it with the intent to see what, if anything, about that experience fires you up in some way.

Do it with the intent to see if this is something you would like be become a bigger part of your life.

Be fully aware and take notice of the things around you.

Take note of how you are feeling during your interactions with the people and things related to these experiences.

Think of yourself as a detective looking for clues.

Look for the clues that tell you down deep in your heart that this is truly meaningful for YOU.

• Do you like the people involved?
• Does the location excite you?
• Does the theme of the event light you up?
• Does the companies mission resonate with you?
• Do you see yourself doing something similar but on a bigger (more impactful) scale?
• Etc, Etc -( The are tons of things to look for but the point is to be fully aware of how you feel)

**Great exercise to help you find your purpose**

I always do this with my coaching clients so hopefully it will help you too.

During your experiences take detailed notes and pictures so you can document each one.

Use a notebook or scrapbook (or even Evernote) and create your “experience notebook”.

Place all your notes, pictures and things pertaining to this experience in the notebook.

The key is to be as detailed as possible because in a few months you may not remember all the little details.

As you travel on the journey to find your purpose you put all of these experiences in your notebook.

Every 3 months or so you can then make it a point to review your notebook to see what stands out.

Have your coach, mentor or even friend look over the data with you to help you spot some patterns.

The goal is to synthesize all that information and to look for the “common themes” that matter to you.

What stands out most when you look back at your notebook?

What kind of things were your most excited about as you look back through your notebook?

What were your most meaningful events over the last few months?

Now look for the common denominator amongst the things that made you the most excited.

Was it the people? The place? The mission? The impact?

Now what are the ways you can put those things into your job, career or “work”?

Reviewing your “experience notebook” in this way can be a fun and very insightful exercise to help you find your purpose.

I know personally that finding your purpose can be an extremely frustrating endeavor but it is a journey that you need to take.

Because once you find your “why” it is like pouring gas on the fire.

Purpose is usually that thing that brings your passion, strengths and skills together and takes the work that you do all to a higher level.

So where are you on your journey? Have you found your purpose at work yet?

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