Photo by patrickltr on Unsplash
On Monday, I facilitated a session for a local Toastmasters. The aim of it was to be motivational, and help people strive for their purpose. Or at least so I thought.
My instinct was that people could do with a bit of a pep-talk. A reminder that there is something bigger out there for them. This wasn’t necessarily bad, but it wasn’t actually what most people wanted.
It turns out, a lot of people are actually exhausted in being told that they need to chase their dreams and have a big purpose.
It’s why I love being in contact with people. It shows us the real challenges they are facing, rather than what we assume that they think or need. So many policies and programmes go awry because they don’t take the time to see what people actually want.
When I opened the floor up, it became apparent that the idea of having a big purpose was actually making some people feel more stressed rather than motivating them. We’re so bombarded with the idea that we all have to go out and change the world that it’s actually more giving feelings of inadequacy rather than actually helping us.
It reminds me of something I read around goals. The only reason to have a goal is for it to be a fun challenge. When it’s fun, we have a good drive to achieve them. Through this, we improve ourselves and gain a greater level of mastery. But the moment a goal stops being a motivator, it no longer is actually useful. If a goal is actually making us feel miserable, we’re better of just not having the goal at all. That doesn’t mean giving up at the first sign of trouble, but it does mean that holding on to a goal for 10 years which is only making us more depressed about our current state really isn’t worth it.
Perhaps we should forego the idea that we need a purpose. When we played with this idea during the workshop, the goal then could be simply living a happy and fulfilled life. I really enjoyed this idea – we can simply put ourselves wanting to be happy first. After that, everything else is simply a bonus.
Yet the idea of not having a purpose can quickly lend ourselves to some big existential questioning. Is it really true?
Well, in some senses it doesn’t really matter. It’s what we choose to believe. If believing in a purpose is helping you right now in your life, then great. If it’s putting pressure on you, then, well it’s not something you have to believe.
The thing with working around our mindset is to use the tools at our disposal to give ourselves greater clarity with the world. It doesn’t really matter what internal mental gymnastics we use, as long as we create the peace or motivation that we’re looking for.
I personally see it that there is some sort of life path for all of us. We’re going to end up where we’re going to end up one way or another, but the way that we get there is up to us. We can choose to take pleasure in it and enjoy the fruits along the way, or we can try to deny it. We can have great success in the things that we want to do, or we can shy away because we are held back by fear.
So my invitation for you this week is to play with some of these bigger ideas around purpose.
You may not realise it, but these beliefs can actually be playing a massive part in the way you’re living right now.