Quit focusing on your purpose
Get Back to Doing the Work
It’s tempting to make purpose the centrepiece of everything.
We’re told to “find our why,” to chase our calling, to never settle until we’re perfectly aligned with some greater mission. We hold this idea like a compass, believing it will guide us to fulfilment. And when we feel lost or stuck, we assume it’s because we haven’t figured out our purpose yet. So we pause. We search. We hesitate.
But too often, “purpose” becomes a delay tactic. A spiritual form of procrastination. A way to keep ourselves from doing the hard, uncertain, unglamorous work that might actually lead us somewhere.
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: most people don’t discover their purpose by thinking about it. They discover it by doing.
The chef doesn’t wait until she’s certain she was born to cook; she just starts cooking. The teacher doesn’t wait for the heavens to open and declare, “You were made for the classroom.” They just begin showing up. They lead a lesson. They stumble. They learn. They keep going.
Clarity is often the reward for action, not the prerequisite.
The longer you wait to move until everything makes perfect sense, the more likely you are to stay still. Purpose is not a lightning strike. It’s not a one-time epiphany. It’s more like a slow unfurling of something that reveals itself as you engage with real problems, real people, and real practice.
You don’t need to know your ultimate purpose to do good work.
You just need to begin where you are.
This idea isn’t comfortable. It doesn’t sparkle like a TED Talk quote. But it’s steady. And it’s true.
We often romanticise purpose as something clean and bright, a single, shining path laid out before us. But purpose, for most people, is a winding trail. It evolves as we do. The thing that feels deeply meaningful today might not be the same thing that moves you ten years from now, and that’s okay. You’re allowed to change. In fact, you’re supposed to. None of that change can happen unless you start.
The truth is, there’s something a little safer about obsessing over your life’s calling. It gives the illusion of momentum while keeping you in place. You can read books, attend webinars, build mood boards and vision maps, and still not move an inch closer to the actual work that matters.
Because thinking about your purpose is easier than writing the messy first draft.
Easier than making the cold call.
Easier than hearing feedback.
Easier than failing.
But purpose doesn’t protect you from failure. It doesn’t hand you a shortcut around discomfort. If anything, real purpose usually brings more friction, not less. Because once you care about something, you’ll have to fight for it. You’ll have to navigate doubt, rejection, fear, and fatigue.
So don’t wait for the perfect reason to start.
Start because the work is in front of you.
Start because you care, even just a little.
Start because there’s something about it that lights you up, or scares you, or feels just beyond your reach.
Start because movement creates momentum.
You don’t need a five-year plan to take the first step. You don’t need to know if it’s forever. You just need to do the thing that’s yours to do today and trust that the doing will shape you.
The purpose will come. Maybe not all at once, but piece by piece, as you follow the thread of curiosity, service, and courage.
So write the blog post.
Record the podcast.
Teach the class.
Send the application.
Make the thing.
Stop trying to solve your life like a puzzle and start living it like a story.
There is no perfect role waiting to be discovered, only roles waiting to be inhabited fully.
And you don’t need a grand vision to be useful.
You just need to be willing to work.
Purpose is not the starting line.
It’s the path you leave behind you after walking forward, day by day, with open hands and honest effort.
So quit focusing on your purpose.
And get back to doing the work.