You Don’t Discover Your Purpose

Many of us good girls like to believe that we discover our purpose. There are a few reasons for this.

The first is that a lot of successful people tell us their stories looking back, and so they’ll often share one definitive epiphany that led them to where they are today. No one’s trying to be deceptive! The mind simply likes to create order from chaos, plus it makes a more digestible and exciting story. So you grow up listening to these stories and think I probably need one of these epiphany moments to discover my purpose, but you and I both know that life is way more complex and nuanced than being struck by lightning on one fine day, right?

The second reason we like to believe we discover our purpose is that it’s easier! It’s easier to believe your purpose will somehow come to you (instead of you to it), and suddenly you’ll know, and everything will be effortless flow from there. 

And third, believing we discover our purpose gives us the perfect excuse to hide. We can basically refuse to take action and stay stuck because we’re still waiting to discover our purpose. And we’ll probably wait forever.

But it’s not your fault because you don’t discover your purpose. 

THAT’S NOT HOW IT WORKS. 

You don’t discover your purpose, you design it.

I repeat: we don’t discover your purpose, we design it. We design our purpose by engaging with the world and taking action in a direction we choose. 

As poet Poet Antonio Machado once wrote, “By walking one makes the road, and upon glancing behind one sees the path that never will be trod again. Wanderer, there is no road — Only wakes upon the sea.” 

What he said: By walking one makes the road. One designs it. One creates it. Purpose is an act of creation, which is why I will use the words “creative purpose” from now on.

Your creative purpose and expertise is the culmination and intersections of multiple things that you choose to thread together. Connections that you see and forge. It’s about trying a bunch of stuff out, learning, and course correcting as you go. It involves a whole lot of choice, effort, and deliberate, free will. Certainly not waiting.

So, again, you don’t discover your creative purpose. You design it. And many of us just need to learn how.

So how about you? Have you been waiting to discover or find your purpose? Could you hit “REPLY” right now and let me know if you’re open to believing you design and not discover your creative purpose.

This mental reframe has been super key for me. Once I realized that I can shape my creative purpose, I was no longer waiting around and being passive, but paving my own course and destiny, which is why I feel it’s so important to share this with you!

Hope you’re well, sister. Until next time <3