What Type of Purpose-Seeker Are You? (and why it's not working...)
Many years ago, I saw an old boyfriend who’d moved away – who I hadn’t seen for years. It was really fun to catch up with him. He told me that he’d seen my website. My reaction surprised me. I felt my cheeks get hot and that familiar feeling of exposure that I tried to avoid when I was younger. He said to me, “Bev, I didn’t realize you were so deep.”
OMG. I was no longer hiding.
He said that because for years, I hid my deep need for purpose and meaning – even from people who were really close to me. Nobody else talked about it, so I tried really hard to do what everyone else did. But I always felt like something wasn’t quite right in my life and my work, something was off. I read obsessively about purpose and meaning but kept it all to myself, because I thought other people weren’t interested.
What a relief to be out in the open now.
What a relief to claim that I’m part of what I call, the Purpose Tribe – people who need to do personally meaningful work or else they suffer.
If you’re part of the Purpose Tribe, you were born with a great desire to make a meaningful contribution to the world.
You’re usually really bright - both intellectual and artistic. Creative and strategic. Pragmatic and intuitive. And usually highly empathic.
Because you learn easily, you’ve been successful doing almost any career you chose. You’ve created original programs, had impact and helped others.
Therein lies the problem.
You’re successful, but unfulfilled. And so it’s hard for you to admit that you aren’t satisfied, that something’s off, that something doesn’t feel right.
So, you keep it to yourself. It’s just easier to fit in, to hide your deep discontent and to hide your deep, deep need for meaning and purpose.
**(if you're part of the Purpose Tribe and are suffering because you haven't found your purpose, your soul's niche, your personally meaningful work - then we created Unlock Your Soul's Calling just for you.
So What Type Of Purpose Seeker Are You?
Over the last 20 years I’ve met lots of people who are in the Purpose Tribe – trying to uncover their purpose & fix what’s off, but focusing on the wrong solution.
Here are a few examples:
1. THE JOB HOPPER: You’ve always been looking for your purpose. And you think your problem is that you just haven’t found the right job yet. So you keep changing jobs, hoping that when you find the right job, the right fit, the right vocation, you’ll find your purpose.
But you never find it. And you start wondering if you’re the only person in the world who doesn’t have a purpose.
2. THE DO-GOODER: You think that your purpose needs to be something “good” and noble, something that everyone else deems important. So you find work where you help people, or support a noble cause. But you’re drained - and feel guilty because you’re doing work that everyone else thinks is important & meaningful.
You end up thinking that something is wrong with you because you “should” feel fulfilled and you don’t.
3. THE SELF-IMPROVEMENT JUNKIE: You’ve decided that the reason you can’t find your purpose or find fulfilling work is because something is wrong with you – and once you fix yourself, you’ll be whole and more fulfilled. So you decide to heal childhood wounds, be better, do better and look better. You are your own self-improvement project, reading endless self-help books & magazines, taking courses, getting more structured, creating goals, getting fitter, eating cleaner, dealing with co-dependence or anxiety and so much more.
You keep focusing on what is “wrong” with you and never claim what is right with you, and so never find your purpose.
4. THE PURPOSE IS IMPOSSIBLE PERSON: You have a pretty strong hunch around your purpose, but you’ve convinced yourself that you can’t make your purpose possible – without sacrificing other areas of your life. You tell yourself that you’ll never be able to make “enough” money in a job related to your purpose, or that it’s “too late” to have your purpose because you’d have to go back to school, or start over.
So you tell yourself to suck it up, that the job you have is “good enough” – and endlessly try to figure out ways to make your purpose possible without having to sacrifice anything else – and it never happens.
5. THE COPER. You know you’re in a job that’s not related to your purpose, and you know that this job is slowly sucking the life out of you. But you can’t leave because you have no clue what your purpose is, or how to figure it out, so…. what’s the point? If you quit your job, you tell yourself that not only will not know your purpose, but now you won’t be making money either. So, you decide to quit complaining and cope, hoping that you can be satisfied with what you have, rather than what you don’t have. You secretly hope to get downsized.
Coping with what you don’t want leads to an unrelenting discontent and possibly physical illnesses, and you never stop thinking about what your purpose might be.
6. THE SOLO ENTREPRENEUR. You decide that the reason you don’t feel happy or fulfilled in your work is because you don’t fit into the corporate world. So you start your own small business or consulting service, believing that being self-employed will give you more fulfillment. You are good at the work, and successful at making money. But it still feels empty. It doesn’t feel right in the same way that having a job didn’t feel right.
Your successful solo business begins to feel like a prison and you still don’t know your purpose.
7. THE UNFULFILLED LIFE COACH. You train as a Life Coach believing that being a coach is your purpose and will be more fulfilling than your job. But it turns out that coaching is a skill, and not a purpose. And when you can’t get going as a coach, you spend most of your time wondering how to get clients, learning more coaching tools, and obsessing about marketing techniques.
You think that you’re miserable because you don’t have clients, or don’t know enough about marketing or sales, but it’s really because your coaching business is misaligned with your purpose.
Do any of these people sound like you?
All of these people are members of the Purpose Tribe, people who MUST do meaningful work or else they’ll suffer. And they’re all trying to figure out how to find their purpose, and how to feel meaningful and fulfilled in their work - but nothing’s working.
And there are two main reasons that none of their strategies are working:
- Because they think their purpose is a “thing” that can be found in the external world, if they just look hard enough. But it isn’t.
- Because they believe they need to fit themselves & their purpose into the current world view & framework they’re living in – what their society, culture, or family has “decided” careers, work & success should look like, and the rules around what you can and cannot do. But you & your purpose likely don’t fit into this world view, this framework, these rules – because this was all decided by people who aren’t part of the Purpose Tribe.
The reality is that if you’re part of the Purpose Tribe, you probably operate a little differently than the majority of the population. And you’ve been trying to function in a world that is set up and structured around career or business in a way that fits how other people think and work……not how YOU think and work – with your deep desire for purpose as your biggest motivator.
So you’ll never be able to find your purpose in that world, following those rules.
People who are part of the Purpose Tribe are stuck not being able to find or see their purpose because they’re drowning under ALL THE LAYERS OF OTHER PEOPLE’S PROGRAMMING (deeply set beliefs and rules around what you should and should not do) that has been put on them.
This programming can be beliefs about money, about what work is supposed to be, about how you’re supposed to work, about business, about the roles you’re supposed to have in the world, about anything that you believe to be true, just because that’s what you’ve always been told.
So much of this programming is around stuff that might work or be true for OTHER PEOPLE. But not for you.
And until you excavate and uncover all of these layers of programming, you’ll never be able to really see yourself, see what’s true for you. And you can’t ever know your purpose if you don’t really see the truth of who you are.
And until then, you’ll stay buried under layers of programming that will lead you off your purpose track. You’ll keep staying purpose adjacent, whether you have your own business, are becoming a life coach or looking for a new vocation or job. And you’ll keep suffering.
Because if you’re part of the purpose tribe you will continue to suffer until you find your meaningful thing.
In our Purpose Week free training series, we talk more about what it means to be part of the purpose tribe (video 1), the different types of purpose seekers (and why none of these methods are working for you (video 1), and what you need to do instead to connect to your purpose & uncover your soul's niche and personally meaningful work. You can access the recordings RIGHT HERE.
Are YOU Part of the Purpose Tribe?
Are you tired of not being able to find your purpose after trying to do that all your life? Are you suffering because you're not doing work that feels deeply meaningful?
If so, then we created our Unlock Your Soul's Calling course & community just for you. You'll unravel all the programming that doesn't fit you & keeps you from seeing yourself. You'll unlock your unique genius. You'll claim your soul's purpose & message. And you'll finally unmask your soul's niche and create your personally meaningful work.
We’re going to dive deep into what it means to be part of the Purpose Tribe and what you truly need to do to get aligned with your purpose.
Get My Guide to Your Meaningful Next Act
I've created a free resource guide where you'll learn about The Soul's Calling® Roadmap S.O.U.L. process, a blueprint for heart-centered, empathic women who ache to create a meaningful third act - and access important resources to help you shift from living a life following your programming to living a life following your purpose. This profound shift is the key to creating a fulfilling, meaningful and joy-filled third act. So if you're in the middle of a transition and aren't sure where to start, I created this guide for YOU.