I’ve spent a lot of time with my kids lately and for the majority of the time, it’s been great but my teenage boys have been pushing a few buttons I didn’t know I had!! There’s no need to go into the details of it here as I’m sure you can relate to the not so subtle blend of arrogance and judgment neatly wrapped in a thick blanket of cynicism they exude. Funnily enough, I know why it triggers me so much….because I was pretty similar at their age!.

Observing how my boys are coping with their teens got me thinking about my teenage years, awkwardly navigating the surge of hormones, struggling to form my identity while clinging to any thread of belonging. Looking back on it now, I was deeply depressed. I’m not going to play the victim here, it’s not the point, but after years of studying psychology I now recognise what was going on and it explains why alignment with purpose is such a critical element of the work that I do with people and organisations.

There is more to the story

I can clearly articulate the process of how I landed on my purpose statement. If you’re interested, see my article on ‘how to align with your purpose’ here. However, this point in the process was more like the last mile of a parcel being delivered halfway around the world. Before you send a parcel you need to know where it’s going, who it’s going to, how it’s going to be wrapped, how much it’s going to cost you and that’s ignoring the decision of what you want to send in the first place! How I learned the importance of purpose was by first experiencing the complete absence of it; I was purposeless.

Touching the void

There was a time where my days were long, aimless and filled with isolation. I had very little contact with people and was left to my own devices. I lived in country NSW so I’d often be alone and spend whole days exploring the nearby bushland which would occupy me for a while, and then I’d get bored. It was in my boredom that I found art, juggling and making fireworks which were all interesting but still lacked an overarching purpose or direction. They were just ‘hobbies’ and didn’t seem to fit in ‘normal’ society. I recall a moment when I was sitting on the couch, staring out our living room window at the various cloud formations and was just noticing clouds as clouds…not as anything else (which is quite hard to do….our brains are amazingly good at coming up with a familiar pattern or shape to give the cloud meaning, a process called pareidolia). It was at this moment that it dawned on me that my constant quest to identify my purpose from external sources had indeed left me purposeless. I felt a deep sadness coupled with a sense of shame at how irresponsible I had been. I was not more than 15 or 16 at the time but felt like I had fallen into an abyss of meaningless existence, a dangerous crossroads that for many sadly ends in them taking their own life. For me, however, it was a decision point that pushed me to elevate my awareness.

Anti-purpose and the shadow you can’t see

What followed, is a stage that I now refer to as anti-purpose. At this time I’d done away with the desperate need to find my purpose and what I was meant to be doing, and focussed on what was right in front of me. Sounds pretty sensible right? Wrong. I began ‘applying myself’ and ‘working hard’, and ‘gritting my teeth’ to ‘give me options’. None of these things felt right or good but it seemed to be all of the advice I was getting from well-meaning adults in my life at the time. They weren’t wrong….in fact, everything they said was correct. The problem for me was that I had a really strong anti-purpose weighing me down. My anti-purpose sounded like ‘You’re not smart enough’, ‘you’re weak’, ‘you’re ugly’, and last but not least ‘you’re not good enough to [enter whatever goal, vision, or aspiration I had here]’. At the time, I thought I was living in the moment, doing what was asked of me and building my character. Don’t get me wrong, I still read books, had friends, enjoyed going to the movies etc. But there were some incredibly negative narratives running on repeat in what became the incessant soundtrack of my daily existence. This continued for about a decade.

Finding purpose isn’t enough

While I still wasn’t fully aware of the ‘soundtrack’ I had been playing on repeat all those years, I finally started to get clear on my purpose. After landing my first career job once I’d finished studying at Uni, I’d had the opportunity to work with some amazing people and organisations, seen purpose-filled workplaces and experienced what great leadership looks and feels like. I knew I was on the right path but still couldn’t articulate my purpose clearly. Long story short, I had some great mentoring and coaching that enabled me to finally spit out my purpose statement. I finally got to a point in my life where I felt a deep conviction about what I needed to do. It felt so good to have such clarity but it took me another decade or so before I really stepped into that purpose and aligned with it.

Once I’d identified my purpose and could call on it at-will to provide me with focus, guide my decisions and intrinsically motivate me, my anti-purpose and the accompanying narrative started to fade away. The new challenge I was facing came in the form of misalignment. The irony is that once you can state your purpose, you are constantly and quickly alerted to any misalignment that you feel. It’s simply not enough to know your purpose, you must align with it or suffer the consequences of following a path that isn’t true. There are many stories of this tragedy in people all around you and possibly within yourself. Everything might look OK from the outside and they’ll tell you as much. The truth is, a chasm often opens up between their purpose and what they actually do that sucks the life right out of them like a black-hole deep in space. When you align with your purpose, the ride isn’t over. I once thought that it would be an opportunity to bask in the glory of achievement but it’s more like a carefully monitored process that ensures that one is staying on track. It’s a bit like a commercial airliner. Once the pilot’s set the plane on course, there is a constant process of re-aligning the plane to the desired destination to account for the variable factors such as wind speed, rain, cargo, and altitude etc. It’s an active process of ensuring you stay on course.

So what’s the purpose of a purpose?

So one day, I had somebody ask me….”So you’re ‘aligned’ with your purpose. That’s awesome but so what?” They then said, “I don’t really need a purpose statement as long as I’ve got a goal to work toward and I’m happy”. There are plenty of people in that camp and that’s ok. The purpose of a purpose, however, is to give you that fuel to keep the fire burning bright, to give you energy when you need it most, and to propel you forward toward your destination wherever that might be. There is a minority of people on this planet that decide on what they want to do, set the direction and power through to the finish line without faltering. They are not human! Most of us decide what we want to do, know the direction we have to take and spend a whole bunch of time distracting ourselves with other priorities, issues, drama or simply just run out of steam and lose motivation. This is where being aligned with your purpose can be incredibly powerful to keep you moving forward.

If you’re still not convinced that knowing your purpose is critical, maybe life is just a bit safe and easy for you? Perhaps you haven’t been challenged enough yet? It is when you face your greatest tests that you’ll trip over that which is most important to you. If you’re looking for inspiration, look no further than Victor Frankl’s ‘Man’s search for meaning’. It was through his experiences in a concentration camp that he identified meaning and purpose through extreme suffering. Like Victor Frankl, and for all of us, it is in our darkest hour that knowing our purpose provides the light to show us the way forward.

References

Frankl, V. E. (1984). Man's search for meaning: An introduction to logotherapy. New York: Simon & Schuster.

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I’m fascinated with people, always have been and always will be. From a very early age, I keenly observed people, I was curious about what motivated them, what made them successful and why they made certain choices. This curiosity led me to study Psychology. After graduating with my Master of Organisational Psychology, I worked for Gallup, a global leader in engagement and strengths-based development. I became a strengths-based coach, engagement expert and worked with senior leaders all over the world.

If you’re curious about how I can help you personally or with the leadership of your team/organisation get in touch via my email: joe@joehart.com.au | website: joehart.com.au | Phone: +61425 224 825