How to develop your purpose
“Nothing contributes so much to tranquilize the mind as a steady purpose.” - Mary Shelley
The quote above was in my 5 Minute Gratitude Journal the other day and it struck me because purpose has come up quite a bit with clients and in conversations with colleagues lately.
I had just been telling a colleague about how impressed I was with a saleswoman at a clothing store. It wasn’t a super fancy story by any means, but she was dressed to the nines and had her make up and hair done like she was headed to a gala. I had never seen that in a retail environment before. If I had to guess, she was in her late sixties, early seventies and while she was helping me, I was curious about her. Was she working again because of the recession and things have become harder to afford at home? Was she struggling to make ends meet? Then it dawned on me, perhaps she gets dolled up the way she does and happily serves clients because she has a strong sense of purpose!
My colleague and I got into a conversation about the sad reality of young men in particular who are statistically not engaged in work or even seeking employment. A recent podcast she heard said that they are high, playing video games and not interested in pursuing relationships outside of the metaverse. This is a recipe for a disastrous future!
We must have clarity and a compelling vision for the future to have hope, drive, and purpose. Often when I coach with clients, they believe that their purpose will be something grand and strike them like a bolt of lightening. In reality, most people develop their purpose and it changes over time.
The easiest way to develop purpose is to define who you want to be and how you want to show up in the world. In High Performance Coaching ™ we go through an exercise where we select three words that would describe our ideal selves. They may not be who we are today but who we’re striving to become, the best of who we could be. Once we have those words, we look at why they’re important to cement the meaning behind them. Lastly, we add those words to our phones and set a daily reminder so we can check in to see if we’re living them. It’s a great way to have clarity on who you want to be and how you want to show up. It serves as a check in to see how you’re doing.
The other way we can increase our sense of daily purpose is to develop success markers. Define three things that must happen that day, why they must happen and how to be intentional about completing them. At the end of the day, we can evaluate how we did, stack the wins, reflect on the losses, and develop a way to be even better tomorrow.
So if you’re feeling rudderless at the moment, remember that purpose can be as simple as defining how you want to show up in your next interaction. It doesn’t have to be about changing the world in a dramatic way but I promise if you do show up with more intentionality you’ll change yours!
