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Women want to feel fulfilled in their job, especially if they are going to leave their baby to go do it. For many women, motherhood is a transition where the question “What is my purpose?” resurfaces as they manage the push and pull of work and motherhood. But there are a lot of misconceptions about defining your purpose. When you truly understand what your purpose is and what it is not, it becomes a tool that motivates you in what you already do and also becomes a guide to new opportunities.

Topics in this episode:

3 things you need to stop believing about your purpose
You do not have one purpose in life
Why your job is not your purpose
A more useful way to view your purpose so defining it becomes easy
A story on how my purpose helped me feel more motivated by my job while looking for another
3 truths that will change your entire view on what your purpose is

Show Notes:

Learn a framework for defining your purpose at my free workshop, Decide Your Purpose, on Thursday, February 17 @ 5:00 pm ET. You must sign up to attend or receive the replay. Here is a link: www.ambitiousandbalanced.com/purposeworkshop-register
Don’t forget to leave a rating and review to help spread this resource to other working moms!

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Transcript

Intro

Women want to feel fulfilled in their job. They want their work to feel purposeful and impactful, especially if they are going to leave their baby to go do it. For many women, motherhood is a transition where women start questioning what really motivates them and questions of “what is my purpose” start to resurface. There are a lot of misconceptions about your purpose, like…thinking your purpose and your job are one in the same. But when you truly understand what your purpose is and what it is not, it becomes a tool that helps you to feel more motivated by what you already do and becomes a guide to other jobs that might feel naturally more fulfilling. I will cover all the top 3 misconceptions and top 3 truths about your purpose here in this podcast, you ready?

Welcome to the ambitious and balanced working mom podcast, the place for women who want to balance their ambitious career goals with their life as a mom. If you’re looking to feel more confident, decisive, and productive at both work and home then this is the place for you. I’m your host Rebecca Olson, let’s get to it!

Around the age of five kids start to get asked what they want to be when they grow up. It’s not like we as adults think that kids know what type of career they want when they get older, but it’s just one of those questions we ask kids that makes us smile as they shout out train engineer, garbageman, tree climber (those are just a few from my kids). One time my daughter and I were sitting at the table and she told me that she was going to be a coach when she got older, and I smiled and I said I think you’d make a great coach, to which she replied well I’m gonna be a better coach than you. Attempting to not be offended, I smiled and said I bet you will.

When we ask our kids we interchange two questions that are completely different, but we ask them as if they are the same: Who do you want to be when you grow up? What do you want to do?

From the time we’re little kids, we are told that what we do and who we are – are both extremely important and intertwined. Like if you’re a teacher, that’s who you are. If you’re a doctor, that’s who you are. If you’re a mechanic, that’s who you are. We intermix the idea of what we do and who we are all of the time, when in reality what you do and who you are are very different.

The idea that your job is what defines you as a person puts a lot of pressure on figuring out the right job. You don’t wanna get that wrong, because it defines who you are.

I think this is the moment that the idea of purpose both begins to formulate and is misrepresented.

The message we begin to hear is, what you do is very important.

We start to understand that there is a “right” to what we choose to do.

We begin to understand that the more prestigious the career, the better.

These are the same 3 misconceptions we have about our purpose as well.

It’s important to know it.

There is a “rightness” to your purpose.

And it’s connected to your career – to what you do.

I want to take some time and break down each of these misconceptions and then we will spend some time talking about the truth of your purpose.

Misconception #1:

Knowing your purpose is important. The misconception here is really in the weight that we give purpose. Like it’s a really important thing for you to know and understand and that not knowing it is bad.

And this has a lot of connection to misconception #2, which is that there is a “rightness” to your purpose.

Like, purpose is something you have to go out and find or figure out and you will know it’s right when it FEELS right. When there is that magical gut feeling that feels settled and good.

Doesn’t that just feel weighty? If purpose is connected to this deep down knowing that you are doing the right thing, at the right time, in the right way, and that it’s connected to feeling good and useful and regret-free…if that were true, you better stop everything you’re doing to go figure it out because it sounds like the most important thing you could ever know.

The misconception is that knowing it promises happiness and contentment and this feeling of rightness. Feelings every human being desires.

And yet, there are many happy and successful people in the world that couldn’t rattle off their purpose in life. It’s not something most people memorize and think about daily.

Along with this idea that there is a “right” answer to your purpose is also a belief that there is one thing. There is one singular thing you are meant to do. It has some similarities to the idea that there is one human being in this world you are meant to be partnered with. Now I don’t wanna knock anyone that believes that there is one person out there for that or that their particular partner is the one person for them, you are welcome to believe that, I don’t think there’s a right or wrong, I’m simply suggesting it’s not a useful thought to you. When you are thinking there’s one person in this world for you and that’s it, when you are thinking there’s one single purpose for you in this world you have to go find it, it feels pretty overwhelming, doesn’t it? It’s simply just not a useful way to view purpose.

When you’re thinking – I have to figure out my purpose or what is the one thing I’m supposed to do that feels heavy and hard, right? And your purpose is not supposed to be heavy and hard – it is supposed to feel light and easy.

Knowing your purpose doesn't create happiness.

And thinking you need to figure out your purpose in order to be happy, that strips away ownership over happiness…and puts it in figuring it out. It’s delegating out your happiness to this one thing. Knowing your purpose doesn’t create happiness….you create happiness for yourself. You get to decide what makes you happy.

Ok, so misconception #1 is that figuring out your purpose is really important. Misconception #2 is that there is a singular right answer, we can even put in here a misconception #2.5 is that knowing your purpose will make you happy.

The last misconception I want to talk about is that your purpose and your career are connected. A lot of times the need to figure out your purpose comes with the desire for a job change. You’re unhappy doing whatever it is you are doing or it’s not as fulfilling as you’d like and so, your brain wanders to “if I only knew what I was meant to do” - “If I only knew my purpose”.

But what happens when you retire? If your career and your purpose are interconnected, are you purposeless once you retire? I know a lot of people that feel that way, because they saw their purpose and their career as interchangeable.

And then how about people that can’t work? People who have a disability or are injured or even think about a child, is their life purposeless?

Of course not! There is no question that your career needs to feel meaningful to you. Whether that is because it’s connected to something deeper within you or because it meets your financial or family goals, your job needs to feel purposeful but it in and of itself is not your purpose.

Thinking about your purpose in a useful way.

I want you to start thinking about your purpose in a useful way. A way that is actually going to help you and propel you and guide you.

Ok, so let’s talk about the truth about your purpose.

I want to get the caveat to these truths that these are the way I like to think about purpose and I choose them because they are useful and empowering. You could read probably thousands of books on purpose and get a different view from everyone around what your purpose is and how to find it, and the right way to think about your purpose. But there are useful ways to think about it and not useful ways to think about it.

Ok, so here are the three truths I want to talk about here today - and I’m gonna talk about this at the very end of the podcast but I wanna let you know that I’m going to be giving a workshop on naming your purpose this upcoming Thursday, February 17 @ 5pm ET. If you want to start thinking about your purpose in a different way, I invite you to join me at that workshop. I will share more about that later including how you can sign up.

Ok, so the three truths:

Purpose is not about what you do, but why you do it
You don’t find your purpose you decide it
Purpose transcends all areas of life – so it can be found at work, at home, in your community, in family…everywhere

Truth # 1 - Purpose is not about what you do but why you do it

What does purpose mean? Purpose is the reason behind something. The dictionary says purpose as a noun means: the reason for which something is done or created or for which something exists.

So when we talk about our personal purpose we are speaking about putting words to WHY you do what you do, the reasoning behind it…not WHAT you do.

When you reframe purpose in this way, different questions will surface:

Why am I energized by that? Why does that motivate me? What about that makes me excited?

Truth # 2 - You don’t find your purpose you decide it

This might sound like semantics but this is a very important distinction. You do not go and find your purpose. It’s not out there. It’s not something you have to go looking for. It is something you decide. It’s not magical or mystical or a singular path, it’s a decision that you get to control. I want you to notice how different that feels. The thought I have to find my purpose versus I get to decide my purpose. Thinking you have to find your purpose feels urgent and overwhelming while the thought I get to decide, feels empowering and settling. (That’s why it is more useful to you.)

The other thing that the shift does is it takes the emphasis off of your purpose being out there as if it’s something to be discovered outside of you and instead it opens up the possibility that your purpose is right here. It’s inside of you. You don’t need any more information than what you already know. The data is within, now it’s time to simply decide.

Truth #3 - Purpose transcends all areas of life

Because purpose is not about what you do it’s about why you do it, and because it has nothing to do with your job/career – your why in life, your purpose will transcend all areas of life.

When I do this work with my clients, I have them come up with examples of how they live out their purpose in their jobs, and their home life, and their marriage and their friendships and community. They should see it everywhere. Because it is the fuel behind what you do.

As I said before, most people start thinking about their purpose when they wanna make a career change. They want something more fulfilling and meaningful. And they want a path forward…something to guide them. And so they start asking, what is my purpose?

Reframing your purpose has been your why instead of your what, it becomes a different tool. I still think putting words to why you do what you do is a useful exercise but not because it’s going to magically spit out the perfect job for you, it’s useful because it opens up more doors.

What my clients realize when they reframe their purpose in this way is that there isn’t a single path forward, they could choose to stay in their job or they can go looking for another and all of them could feel purposeful…all of them would allow for them to live deeper into their why.

How does your current job connect to your purpose?

I have all of my clients find ways that their current job connects with their purpose because it always does. And when you start viewing your current job duties through the lens of why you do what you do, you feel more motivated by it.

And then the urgency to leave that job lessens and then leaving simply feels like a choice, not a desperation.

The goal behind naming your purpose is not to figure out what you should be doing but understanding why you feel motivated or unmotivated by certain things so that you can use that information either to recommit back into your current job or go find another job that allows more opportunity to easily tap into that motivation.

Here's an example from my own life. Before I was a coach I was a high-level event manager and the job was mostly about operations and logistics and communications. I had to be highly organized and structured and I was really good at that. But I didn’t find it very fulfilling.

My journey with purpose.

When I went through a process of putting some words to my purpose, what I discovered was that my purpose was really all about people. I was a lighthouse that helped shine a light on people’s greater potential. Literal words that I came up with to describe what my purpose was. And I did that at my job. I was a confidant for my coworkers, I was a safe space that people opened up to cry to. People were vulnerable and honest with me. I was a natural mentor to new staff…I already did all those things in my job and those were the parts of my job that really connected to my purpose.

As I named those parts of my job that really resonated with my purpose, and rekindled a passion for what I did. Every day didn’t feel like drudgery. I started to cultivate more of those moments with my staff and with my coworkers and create space for it.

However, this was not really the bulk of my job. My job is to handle logistics and communications for events. So although I could live out my purpose and I was living out my purpose in that job, what I wanted next was another job where the emphasis was on that, where my job was to help people discover their higher potential.

Can you see how that led me to coaching? Being a coach is not my purpose. Being a mom is not a purpose. I get to live out my purpose in my work as a coach and in my role as a mom and ultimately I get to do that wherever I go.

Your purpose is a tool to help you get to know yourself better, what naturally motivates you, and is something YOU get to decide.

Now as I mentioned before I’m hosting a workshop on deciding your purpose, coming up in just a few days on Thursday, February 17 at 5 PM Eastern. And in that workshop, I’m actually going to walk you through the process of naming your purpose. We’re gonna spend time talking more deeply about what your purpose is and what it is not, you are going to spend some time naming it (or at least getting a framework for that), I am going to leave some time to answer questions and coach on the subject of purpose…if you’ve been asking yourself this question: What do I want to be when I grow up? And actually want some answers…you won’t want to miss this. You can register for the training at www.ambitiousandbalanced.com/purposeworkshop-register