Abstract:

“Find your passion and purpose!” You can read it all over the internet, including from me. However, most of these people equate a passion with a purpose, and that’s where I disagree strongly.

The narrative usually goes: Find your passion, which means your one, true “thing”. Then turn that thing into your source of income, and that’s your purpose. To which I say no, no, no.

Your mission today is to learn why your purpose can never equal a career or business, and what it is instead.

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Task 1: Learn about doing versus being

Let’s start with the obvious bit, the doing. Your passion will usually be something you do: A creative pursuit like an art or craft, a field of study or interest you research and read about, a sport… You can have more than one passion, and passions can change, too.

Purpose, in contrast, is not an activity and you can never lose it. It’s part of who you are and nobody can ever take it away from you.

Task 2: What purpose is and how to find it

Simply put, your purpose is the Why behind the things you do. The Why behind what’s important in your life.

This may sound vague, but it isn’t. It’s simply impossible to put it into more tangible terms because there’s no shortcut to finding purpose. You need to be willing to make yourself a priority and create lots of space in your life for you and the things you love.

It’s this prioritising, and the pursuit of passions that light up your soul, that will reveal your purpose. It requires looking at and adjusting or downsizing every other area of your life.

My clients do just that in my program, and there’s a reason it’s six months long. They invariably arrive at their purpose. Once you’ve got your purpose, you can align all your life with it. However, you need to be patient and do the work.