As a coach, the topic of purpose is always lurking around the conversation.
How could it not be?
When we’re talking about careers, goals, relationships, fitness, and holding it all together, purpose is the elusive subtext to all of it.
What am I doing here? Shouldn’t I be doing something bigger? Is this it?
These are the questions we begin to wrestle with as our career and life progress.
I’ve noticed a curious trend in a lot of my coaching conversations when it comes to the topic of purpose.
Many of us view purpose as something that will come later. After we’ve made all the money. After we’ve climbed the ladder to its highest rung. After we’ve earned all the recognition. Then we will be able to find our purpose. Whatever our purpose is, it is distinctly out there, living in a yet-to-be-seen future.
I am no different. In my last leadership role, the work was the means to a purpose-filled future and I had two and a half million reasons to believe that to be true.
Until it wasn’t.
Play a game with me.
Erase any notion or definition you have about purpose for a moment. In fact, set the entire word aside.
What would leading an intentional life look like for you?
If you approached your work each and every day with intention, what would change?
If you approached your relationships each and every day with intention, what would change?
If you created a clear vision for the person you’re becoming, and intentionally brought that vision to life each day, what would change?
Intention is defined as doing something deliberately and voluntarily.
Let me offer a simpler definition.
Intention is on purpose.
Intention is taking the idea of purpose, and making it active. It’s putting it to use in the here and now, not in some unseen future.
Forget purpose.
We’ve culturally butchered the word to the point of making it unhelpful. It’s too lofty. Too ambitious. Too unattainable.
But intention?
That’s where real life changes. When you live your life with intention, the default outcome is alignment, clarity, and being at peace with the path.
And who knows.
When we live our life with intention, we might just find that our purpose was waiting for us all along.
We were just looking toward our future to find it, when it was waiting here in the present moment the entire time.
Want to become a leader worth following?
Let’s chat.
✌️ and ❤️,
I love how succinct and to the point this is. But also how. insightfully different it is from the main thought in our culture.
My new favorite FWD