You Don’t Need a Purpose for a Purposeful Life

At times in life, disillusion hits. A change in career track doesn’t really bring the satisfaction that you were looking for. Job searches can feel like an endless tunnel, with no light in sight. You start to question your path as a whole.

What am I actually supposed to do, really? This is also known as the quest for purpose. And it goes like this: when I’ll find that one thing that’s right for me, I’ll be satisfied. So now let me find it.

But… searching for purpose can be a rabbit hole. It gets us stuck.

As children, or at least when we were less moulded by societal norms, we used to naturally pursue interests and be in the flow of what energised us. This gets lost later on, when we try to intellectualise what brings us meaning and joy within the constraints of professional tracks.

Instead of figuring out your purpose, here’s a tool to tap back into your natural flow: an energy audit.

List 5 things that energise you: these can include both leisure activities (painting, meditation) and things that you may associate with work (solving complex problems, writing policies, helping people).
List 5 things that drain you of energy: again, these can be both things outside of work (talking to a toxic ‘friend’, running errands) and work-related (difficult discussions with…