This week, I taught the Design Your Next Decade™ workshop to a room filled with women who were willing to step away from the demands of everyday life and think more intentionally about what they want the next chapter of their lives to look and feel like.
By the time it was over, I was completely exhausted. I had barely slept the night before, and after the excitement and adrenaline of leading the workshop, my energy had fallen somewhere below zero.
But emotionally, I was still flying.
During the workshop—and especially while answering questions afterward—I felt completely connected. I was not overthinking my answers or searching for the right words. I was simply in the flow, fully present, and deeply myself.
Even though I was physically drained, something inside me felt completely full.
And it made me think about a question many of us wrestle with:
How do you know your purpose?
I know the word purpose can make some people roll their eyes. It can sound vague, overly spiritual, or like something we are all supposed to discover while meditating on a mountaintop.
It can also feel like an enormous assignment.
We imagine that finding our purpose requires a lightning-bolt moment, a dramatic career change, or one perfectly clear calling that suddenly explains our entire life. And when that moment does not arrive, we assume we must not have found it yet.
But maybe purpose is much more practical than that.
What Does Purpose Actually Feel Like?
Perhaps purpose is the place where your gifts, your joy, and your contribution meet.
It is where something that comes naturally to you is used in a way that helps someone else. It is where you feel most like yourself, lose track of time, and become completely present in what you are doing.
And strangely, even when it requires energy from you, it often fills you up at the same time.
Now, I can also lose track of time scrolling through beautiful homes on Zillow, but I am fairly certain that is not my purpose.
I do think purpose includes some form of contribution. It is not only about what feels good to us. It is also about what we naturally bring to other people.
Your Purpose May Be Hiding in Plain Sight
Maybe you are the person others call when they need perspective. Perhaps you have a way of making people feel safe, understood, encouraged, or hopeful. Or maybe you can walk into a complicated situation and immediately see what needs to happen next.
These gifts may not feel especially remarkable to you because they have always been there. What comes naturally to you can be easy to overlook, but it may be exactly what someone else needs.
My experience in that room helped me recognize what purpose feels like for me. But your purpose may look completely different.
It does not have to become a business, a title, or a public platform. It does not have to impress anyone or look important from the outside. It may show up in the way you raise your family, support a friend, lead a team, mentor someone, solve problems, create beauty, teach, listen, or help others see possibilities they cannot yet see for themselves.
Your Purpose Can Evolve With You
And the way you express your purpose may change throughout your life.
The way you expressed your purpose at 30 may not look the same at 50, 60, or 70. Your roles, circumstances, and interests may evolve, but there may be a deeper thread that has been running through your life all along.
Maybe you have always been the one who brings calm to chaos. Perhaps you naturally help others see their own worth. Maybe you have always been drawn to guiding, creating, teaching, connecting, or making life better in some meaningful way.
The form may change, but the deeper thread often remains.
So perhaps your purpose is not hiding from you. Perhaps it has already been revealing itself through small moments throughout your life.
It may be found in the conversations that leave you energized, the work that makes time disappear, or the moments when you feel completely present and deeply yourself. It may be found in the things people naturally seek you out for, or in the contribution that somehow leaves you feeling fuller rather than depleted.
Three Questions to Help You Recognize Your Purpose
So instead of putting pressure on yourself to come up with one perfect answer, begin by answering these three questions:
When do you feel most alive and most like yourself?
What do you do naturally that seems to help other people?
Where might your gifts, your joy, and your contribution already be meeting?
So perhaps the better question is not: “What is my purpose?”
Maybe it’s: “When have I already felt it?”
You Can Emerge Positive!
Positively,
Deanne
P.S. If this week’s message stirred something in you, Beyond by Emerge Positive™ is a place to continue exploring your purpose, growth, and what you want to create next—alongside a supportive community of women doing the same. [Click here to learn more about Beyond.]
