FAQs
(extract from The Purpose Handbook)
WHAT HAPPENS IF MY PURPOSE CHANGES OVER TIME?
Congratulations: you’re human. Most (if not all) of us will experience changes in our purpose, mission and passions during the course of our lives. Very few people find a singular purpose at a very young age and carry it all the way through to the end. It’s possible, of course, but examples like this tend to reflect a high-level purpose – something broad, like ‘giving back’, or ‘helping others’, rather than a definition of purpose that focuses on specific details.
For the rest of us, we’ll find that life moves in seasons. There will be times when our purpose seems clear and attainable, and times when we feel totally off track. There will be times when we push forwards and learn about ourselves and see the path ahead, and times when we step back, listen carefully, and wait to figure out our next move. The consistent part about this whole process, though, is the intention to work towards your idea of purpose – however you conceptualize it, and whatever it means for you in your particular season of life. This sense of intention is the element that leads to a purpose-orientated existence.
WHAT HAPPENS IF I DON’T WANT TO DO THE WORK FOR A WHILE?
We don’t always have to be fully focused on self-development, and purpose-focused work can be tiring. Just like any other practice in your life, it’s fine to pause. A couple of thoughts, as you decide to take your break:
• Try to make any decision to step back with awareness. Deciding to step back from personal development deliberately is often a good choice, if you feel you need it. But stepping back through complacency, apathy or overwhelm can be a warning sign, rather than a self-care initiative. If you feel like you’re having to take a break from your life because it just seems too much to handle, it might be a good idea to re-evaluate, and / or speak to someone about it.
• Relatedly, stepping back from purpose-finding work is a great time to step up your foundational wellness practices. If you’re taking a break to slow down, you might find it helpful to check in with your body and mind – see where you’re at, and start to strengthen the foundations that will enable you to return, when you’re ready, with a sense of new energy.
• Sometimes, this kind of work – for example, mapping out your past experiences – can be difficult for other reasons. Perhaps it feels stressful to reflect on the past, or perhaps you just don’t want to address certain aspects of your life. There’s nothing in this work that compels you to do things a certain way – the benefit of the approach in this book is that you can pick and choose your favourite practices. You can also redesign the practices, using the frameworks suggested, to create something that works for you. (If there is something in your life that feels like a significant block to self-development, or an issue that you feel would benefit from some assistance, it might be a good idea to speak to someone about it.)
WHAT IF I CAN’T FIGURE OUT THE ANSWERS?
Luckily, there’s no way you can fail at this work. We’re entering a space where you’re free to create, without fear of accidentally picking the wrong path or making the wrong decision. This work responds to you and your life – you can always revisit, rewrite, and redesign. Test out your plans in reality, and check in with yourself to see whether they’re working for you. Think of yourself less as a performer, needing to get things perfect to please an external audience, and more as a choreographer – designing steps to see if they work, and redesigning if you don’t feel satisfied or comfortable with them.
These are big topics, and most of us haven’t ever encountered them before, unless we’ve been through therapy or engaged in other existential or spiritual training. It’s totally understandable if it feels overwhelming to really look at our lives. The key is to come at the work from a position of neutrality – not judging anything you learn about yourself or your life, and seeing it as an information-gathering exercise, rather than a test. It’s an unusual perspective to practice, especially in a society that generally focuses on external achievement to the exclusion of everything else – but there’s no grade at the end of this process, no presentation, and no certificate. Just you, your life, and your ever-evolving sense of purpose.
IS IT TOO LATE FOR ME TO DO THE WORK?
In my opinion, there’s no cut-off point to this work. Although these existential questions of meaning and purpose become more pronounced or urgent as we move through big life transitions (approaching adulthood, choosing our first careers, switching jobs, retirement and other significant life events), there’s no ‘end’ point at which it becomes irrelevant. You always have the opportunity to choose your path, within the context in which you find yourself. This applies whether you’re nine years old or ninety-nine years old. The biggest questions of life don’t ever get any less important.
And, remember – there’s no end goal. Even if you do start the work at nine years old, you’ll probably still be revisiting and reworking the same questions at ninety-nine. This is the real gift of being alive: the ability to discover ourselves again and again and again.
WHAT IF I DON’T HAVE THE ENERGY OR MOTIVATION FOR THE WORK?
The world can be exhausting. Between careers and families and relationships and socializing and exercising and posting on social media, we barely have a second to catch our breath, let alone delve into this kind of work. Right?
Well, yes – but this might be part of the problem. We’re encouraged to move fast through the world, constructing our lives according to predetermined plans and achieving things to impress others, and we rarely stop and question why we’re actually doing it. And, importantly, whether the choices we carry out on auto-pilot are actually the ones we’d design for ourselves, if we sat down with a blank piece of paper and a spare hour or two. The risk is, of course, that we wake up one Monday morning a decade later, and wonder how we ended up there, and where all the time went.
My intention with this book is to make purpose-finding work both accessible and practical. By splitting up the exercises separately, and giving you the ability to pick and choose from a selection of options, it might be easier to carve out time when you can find it. And by indicating how long each exercise might take, it might make it easier to pick the ones that work with your schedule. A word of caution, though – these exercises are most effective if you can bring a level of awareness and attention to them. 20 minutes spent in full concentration on an exercise is likely to be more effective than an hour multitasking your way through it.
One practical strategy is to see this work as an important part of your self-care routine. Realistically, this might mean replacing something else that you currently do, but it doesn’t have to be a dramatic investment of time. I’d also encourage you to enjoy working through the practices – design yourself a ritual that you look forward to (for example, making your favourite drink, turning your phone on silent and finding a quiet space to reflect – or whatever else works for you).
Remember, too, that this work will spill over and impact other areas of your life, so it’s never just a one-time input of energy. Instead, it’s more like an investment – make an initial payment of time, and you’ll find the benefits return to you, with regularity, over the following weeks and months.
WHAT HAPPENS IF I JUST WANT TO START AGAIN?
It can feel scary to start again. Sometimes it feels like time was wasted, or like you have to let go of everything that came before. There’s an element of grief in this process - of mourning the vision of a life you imagined, one that doesn’t really fit with the way your actual life is evolving. Sometimes starting again isn’t your choice, either. Whether it’s a break-up, or an unexpected loss, or a change of direction that was forced on you - sometimes, we’re faced with the bleak reality that our life isn’t headed the way we want.
I recognize this feeling, because I’ve been through it myself. And, in fact, the purpose-focused work from this book has often been my guide in those moments. It’s given me the ability to reclaim autonomy and control over the elements of my life that I’d given up to someone else, or to something else. It enabled me to reconnect with myself, in a way that was sometimes difficult and sad, and always ultimately rewarding. It gave me a vision for the path ahead, and it provided me the tools with which to design a life I wanted to live – even if it wasn’t the one I’d previously envisaged.
There are countless ways to create a life. Sometimes we have a vision and execute it; sometimes we’re handed a new blank page when we thought we were about to finish a masterpiece. But either way, we’re creators, choosing to respond to the circumstances of our lives with intention and integrity.
In the end, life presents itself to every single one of us, and asks, simply: what next?