Create Your Purpose

Why Ask Why?

Your career is not who you are – it is what to do, hopefully based on who you are. We look to the cornerstone elements of self-knowledge – our skills, interests, and strengths – when searching for fulfilling work. But those are the literary devices in a story that still needs a theme. Telling your best, most satisfying story begs for a through-line. To help craft the authentic story of you and inspire you to take center stage as the star of that story, start with purpose.

Purpose [ˈpərpəs] NOUN

1. the reason for which something is done or created or for which something exists

‘Purpose’ is defined differently by different authors. Many have a prophetic undertone, speaking to a belief that there is a reason for our individual existence and that life is about reaching our potential and fulfilling that purpose. There are just as many paths to purpose as there are definitions, all with their own angle as to why we should ask ‘why’.

Simon Sinek’s The Power of Why is an excellent example of a formula that is aimed at upping your business or personal game. Career advisors reference the Japanese philosophy of Ikigai as a means to seek purpose to help with career choices.

We actors have a different language and process. Ours is the tool of action. It is the basis of motivation that will tap into your heart and make you get up and do what you want to do, choose actions that are true to your character, and make choices that write a story that you are proud of. I live by this process because it is born from intrinsic needs and wants and results in action. It is the process that has helped me to be brave. It’s worth a look, seeing as actors have the corner of the market on forging ahead in the wake of nerves, reaching ‘goals’ despite fears, and telling authentic story. Our process is a doable path to walk as you begin your purpose journey.

To clarify: having a purpose and living a purposeful life are different.

Having any work/life role can give you purpose and this comes with benefits. If you are satisfied with your work and proud of what you do, that is a gift! Be honoured of this treasure! Being a daughter, a friend, a coach, or a volunteer are all treasured roles. But finding your unique purpose can help if you want to craft a story different from the one you are living, if you want to ground your life by adding more meaning, or if you would like to articulate a focused career purpose to help you make decisions. 

That’s not too scary, is it? Or does the daunting task of discovery make you want to sweep purpose under the carpet, get another cup of coffee, and put on Netflix. It may be less intimidating to seek purpose with a long history to reflect on but what if you are under 20? How can you figure out your purpose when you’ve been alive for a fifth of your lifetime, a lifetime that has been dominated by other people’s opinions??

Why ask why?

Short answer: it’s worth it (see reasons below) and there’s no harm in it because you can’t get it wrong (you can only journey towards making it feel more right).

Advantages of Colouring Your Career Journey with the Broader Stroke of Purpose:

• Purpose makes choices easier. Doesn’t everyone want to simplify this complex life? Having boundaries and guidelines for choices eliminates those that fall outside. The bonus here is that while creating clarity with purpose narrows your options, it still allows for flexibility. Choosing a destination (I want to be a doctor) in career may feel comforting but rarely does this allow for the happy mistakes, lucky opportunities, and learning moments (I don’t have the grades for med school and I can’t stomach the sight of blood) that ask you to pivot. If you have a compass to point you in the ‘right’ direction (I am a healer that wants to influence the advancement of medicine), you have more flexibility to choose how to get there without sacrificing your source of inspiration or passion (I am going to go into medical technology sales).
• You will be happier with your final choice. This is my most recent research obsession. The limitation of choices has the potential to increase our satisfaction in what we choose. Barry Schawrtz in the Paradox of Choice states the more choices we have, the more the subjective feeling of happiness in our final choice depreciates, regardless of how perfect the choice was. If we eliminate choices that don’t align with purpose, we can cull the numbers before they can affect our satisfaction.
• Purpose is good for your health. Having a purpose in life (with or without purpose in our career) is linked with better health and longevity.
• People make you happy. Measures of happiness have consistently shown that close social relationships are the strongest determinant of happiness. This actor’s process to finding purpose is always in relation to others. This doesn’t mean that we need to choose our purpose based on what others need and want. We choose independently. An integral component to this work, however, is having the test of your purpose in the other person. Investing in the relationships in your life will bring both meaning and happiness.

Does every career choice have to fulfill your Purpose? No. Of course not.

A career choice will not be an obvious expression of your purpose when:

• When making strategic choices while laddering to the place you want to be. There are plenty of times when we need to get a job that doesn’t overtly align with purpose. ie taking work because of financial necessity or working our way towards opportunity in a company
• When you are exploring. Life’s adventures may ask you to walk off the ‘path’ to discover parts of yourself. Self-knowledge requires some risks. If by exploring you turn on all the lights in the room, see your options clearly, then make an informed decision, you will be more confident in your direction and can learn transferable lessons.
• Your life story can express your purpose meanwhile your work can just plain old be something you love to DO. And this is OK!! There is always room to expand purpose in your job if you desire. Job crafting is a technique that helps you bring more fulfillment into your work by consciously choosing to bring meaning into your routine.

So let there be no judgement about where you are. Know only that you have choice in how to move forward. Allowing career and purpose to join forces becomes a fountain of energy to help sustain a long career and leads to better fulfillment in your life. So why haven’t we all done this already?

Why Don’t we Find our Purpose?

• Hard to articulate. I am a writer. I love words. Finding the right words to reduce my passions, values, interests, and meaning for my life into one sentence is hella-hard.
• Purpose can feel like a burden. Life is hard enough. Will creating a lofty goal for my life become something of a weight on my shoulders? This can manifest in two ways.
  • Fear of failure. ‘If I know my purpose, I risk not living up to it.’
  • Not good enough. ‘What if I seek out my purpose and I realize there is no good reason for me.’

If any of these thoughts have crossed your heart or your mind, be calm and reassured. This process we are going to go through need not entertain these demons (and they are demons – you are enough and you definitely are important). The actor’s way to purpose is about tapping into what energizes you, using it as a compass, and allowing it to create a do-able focus for your actions.

Looking to the Past to Help Clarify the Future:

Why you have done what you have done can become why you will successfully accomplish things in the future. The motivation behind your past behavior can be used to form a reason to act. Why follow this path to purpose? Because we are tapping into the fountain of inspiration in your life. We are looking for not what your ideals are but what your reality is. Finding the power in you can be then harnessed to begin an action or persevere. Career is a long-term life role. We can all use help to

• light the inspirational spark that creates a decision
• fan the motivation to act on the decision
• feed the energy to sustain you on the journey

Inspiration, motivation, perseverance: these are AOS’s core hopes for you.

Objectives – the Actor’s Process to Finding Purpose:

Simply put, your objective is what you want. This process of discovery can be credited to the famous Stanislavski Method of acting. Not that I want to get caught up in semantics, but the words Why, Objective, and Purpose need to be distinguished between and not used interchangeably. Objectives are what we want born from our why (our needs). We are going to use this concept and take it a step further. By discovering what motivates us, we will tap into that and shape it using your values and strengths to consciously guide your future actions (purpose) in order to maximize your success in acting out future goals.

Drum roll please. Enter Objectives stage left.

There are several levels.

1. A Super Objective (SO) is what a character (you) wants most in life, the motivating force that thematically binds your actions to the pursuit of related goals. This is the through-line of your story.

ie. I want to feel needed by others.

• A Scene Objective is situation related.

ie. During an interview, my super objective is wanting to help the employer and clients who need my skills. Therefore, I need to land the job. My objective (what I want most in this situation) is to convince the interviewer I am the best person for the job. This feels very different than walking into the interview with the intention to get the job because I need the money or I want experience in my field.

• A beat objective is moment (beat) -to-moment goals that will help you attain your objective.

ie. In order to convince the interviewer that I am the best for the job, I will endear the interviewer to me first, educate the interviewer of my talents next, interest the interviewer in my unique value-adds the next, etc. (the verbs are key here).

• These beat objectives then determine our actions.

ie. To endear: I smile, I open my body language, I answer with energy, I reply with manners, and return pleasant questions. To educate: I tell excellent career history stories, I list my skills clearly, I discuss my strengths that relate to the posting. To pique interest: I ask questions, I offer solutions to problems that the company has, and discuss my unique values and goals as they relate to the company’s vision.

The SO is less measurable. It is more related to the heart, the theme, the driving force behind your actions – your ‘why’. To fill this need, your situational objectives should be concrete, attainable, and/or measurable – your ‘how’. The BO is measurable, attained by actions – your ‘what’.

Super Objective determines Objectives which shapes Actions

Ask yourself now, what do you need most in life? What drives you? No judging what comes up. ie. I need to feel needed. I need to be safe. I need to feel included. I need to be in a relationship. I need to be the center of attention. No need to psychoanalyze here. There are just as many positive actions you can take based on needs that may or may not have positive origins. We are looking for what pulls you into action.

Now for the integral ingredient. Ask how this need translates into a want that can only be fulfilled in relation to others. This will get you engaged with the world. It is a personal journey. We are looking for your motivation.

ie. I need to be needed. Therefore, I want to help people who need me.

• If you find you are phrasing this in a negative (I don’t want…), how can you rephrase in a positive (I want…)?
• If you have a want that you are critical of (I want to prove I am better than others…) how can you rephrase that using your values (I want to show the world I can be my most authentic successful self – this requires the same other-focus but with less judgment).

The search for your SO need only go so far as to finding what will pulls you into action. But what if it is a negative need? For example, ‘I want to prove to my parents they were wrong and that I can be a pilot’ sounds motivating alright. It can get you off the couch but can this SO sustain you, will it hurt you, is it speaking about the person you know you truly are?

I encourage reframing this. If this is reduced to wanting approval, well, wanting approval is something we can give ourselves. Wanting approval is about being needed. If after some digging you realize that wanting to be needed has nothing to do with being a pilot and that flying a plane has nothing to do with your actual skills and interests, well that is a discovery, isn’t it? I don’t doubt you could have done the work and become a pilot. But would you have been satisfied once you got there?

If you are not proud of the SO born from your needs perhaps you can reframe and still find a way to tap into that renewable energy source.

Trouble-Shooting:

Having trouble? Remember the point is to find what grabs you and pulls you into action. All you need is something that motivates you to act. Here are some tips to looking for your SO.

• Look to your stories
  • A time when you made a decision that surprised you
  • A time when you did something against your beliefs (looking for a motivation that was stronger than an ideal)
  • A time when you stood up for your beliefs despite conflict
  • A time when you felt successful
  • A time when you felt you were being “you”
  • A time when you failed but felt resilient
• Lead ins
  • I need to be
  • I need to feel
  • I love to be
  • I love to feel
  • I want
  • I can’t help but
  • I always … even if I …. Which surprises me because
  • If I don’t do … in life I will feel incomplete. Why?
• The Toddler Technique. Ask yourself why until you can’t reduce your motivation any more.
• Ask others. Ask a trusted parent, partner, or friend what they think is your motivating need or want. Often they can make clear to you what you can’t see yourself. Or perhaps, they will have a way of saying it that never occurred to you. The famous Johari Window is a visual reminder that we have ‘blind spots’. We are not always the experts in knowing ourselves.
  

Turning Your Why into Your Purpose

Here’s where we take one part acting training, two parts career advising, and shake up the cocktail with some creativity. Remember, this is only one formula, one means of creating a purpose statement. There is no right or wrong, only what works to pull you into action, helps you make decisions, and aligns you with authenticity and meaning.

We will need to:

• Discover SO
• Articulate your passion related to SO
• Ensure the test in another (to make it active, pull you into action)
• Use a language of values
• Discover strengths

Formula for career/life purpose:

Values + Strengths + SO Test + Cause = Purpose

Imagine your life is a car. Your strengths are the vehicle, your values are the gas and the ignition, a cause and the test are the direction. Purpose, the act of putting it all together and applying it to your life, is what turns the key and makes it go. As a statement your purpose can look like this.

In order to (how make this world a better place (passions/cause that motivates you) I will express (my values) using (my strengths) to (act out my SO with test in other).

I’ll go first.

ie. Using my values of authenticity and sustainability and my strengths of communication, care-giving, and creativity I want to empower youth to make this world a better place by using their voices, discovering their authentic, powerful role in the world, and finding the bravery to live their best story.

Can you tell my SO is needing to be needed therefore I want to be helpful? I could have gone so many directions with this, but to find the purpose to act I needed to include my values, my strengths, and the cause that wakes me up at night. I eventually condensed this purpose statement into the catchy little phrase that has paragraphs of meaning to me:

Help people be the star of their own life.

Move your words around, partner different values, rewrite your purpose to fit the cause. There is nothing judging this process. Your cause typically transcends career and is personal to you. It gets you in the gut. Who are you most invested in? What problem can you help solve that will make your outside world align with your values? This formula is capable of inspiring courage, helping you to show up and follow through. It can also help you when you stumble along the journey.

If you feel a little stumped, there are two paths:

1. Look to your stories. Your secrets lie in your stories. Even stories that you may be less than proud of can still be positive. This process is not about being pretty and perfect, it is about being truthful. It is the only way it will work. Write backwards from your stories to find purpose so you can act. Your teenage rebellion stories that you may have swept under the carpet may speak of a girl who is fiercely independent, wants to brave the world in her own authentic way, and has a passion for proving that you don’t need to consume the world’s superficial message of beauty to feel beautiful?
   1. Look at your actions in a key event in your life.
   2. What did they achieve? (test in the other)
   3. What did you get from this? (from other)
   4. What does that tell you about yourself?
2. Create your ideal story. If looking to the past has given you the clues of SO, yet leave you without cause, start writing.
   1. What story do I want to tell at the end of my life?
   2. What do I want to feel proud of creating, changing, growing?
   3. How do I express this in this moment?
   4. What do I do in this moment to achieve this? (test in the other)
   5. What specific actions must I take?

When You Need Help:

There are times along the journey when you may need help from someone with the capacity to help you see your needs, actions, and reactions objectively. Please seek help of a counsellor:

• If your purpose hurts another. You need to take a hard look at the story you want to tell. It is not an excuse to claim your needs or your objectives where of good intention. The test is in others. If anyone is being hurt physically or emotionally by your actions, get support. You are important in the one story we all share.
• If your actions don’t get you your objective (ie. instead of drawing people to you, you push people away). There is a disconnect between what you want and knowing how to get it or you are not being honest about what you want most. Talking with a counsellor can help you find the connection.

When Values Shift:

Any expression of your purpose can shift when your priorities change. Your SO is a source of passion and a path to purpose. Your objectives as expressions of your SO can pivot while your SO remains the same. It is only your given circumstances that have shifted. What’s the most important factor? That your purpose tells the story you want to tell and it pulls you into action. So play around with it! Don’t be afraid to…

• Break your own rules. As you journey with purpose there may come a time when you want to break away from purpose to explore. Your life is a process of discovery. Finding your character early in ‘rehearsal’ sometimes needs you to figure out what doesn’t work before you can understand what does. Then ask, what was that like for you?
• Surprise yourself. Something doesn’t sound like you but is enough to get  you moving? You must allow yourself to shine. You are braver than you know. You have skills you have yet to discover. You have loves that your heart hasn’t sunk it’s teeth into yet.
• Seek to support your SO not prove it. From the world of science, you never prove the hypothesis with evidence, you support it or reject it. Why? Because your thoughts aren’t fact. Just because you feel something doesn’t prove it about yourself. This process should always leave you room to pivot and rewrite your story to reflect your growth. There isn’t any good story that doesn’t have a plot twist.

The last question you need ask yourself before a big decision should be, “What story do I want to tell at the end of the day?” After all, the best stories are not only about events. No matter what the cataclysmic, world-changing, curious event is, the real story is about the character. A story that tells your truth, with or without the events, is the story that will hold you in the end. And there are no small parts to play in the one story we all share.

What is yours?