Find your calling. Find your purpose. Find the meaning of your life.
These messages are everywhere. We hear them from well-meaning people, organizations, books, podcasts, and speakers. And there is real value in thinking about purpose and meaning. Understanding what matters to you can have a significant impact on how you approach your work and your life.
However, I think the way we sometimes talk about finding purpose can make the whole process unnecessarily intimidating. We can turn it into a mysterious journey where we’re supposed to discover one perfect calling, one mission, or one thing we were put on this Earth to do. Somewhere out there, apparently, is the answer. We just need to find it.
That can leave people feeling like they’re behind. Maybe you’re 30, 40, or 50 years old and still don’t know exactly what your purpose is. You look around and assume everyone else has figured it out. You wonder whether you’ve missed something along the way.
I want to offer a different perspective: Purpose may be something you build and develop over time rather than something you discover all at once.
Purpose Doesn’t Have to Be a Mystical Discovery
I think we’ve made finding purpose feel like a much bigger and more intimidating undertaking than it needs to be. We imagine some grand experience, a lightning-bolt moment, or a life-changing realization where everything suddenly becomes clear. We expect to discover the one thing we’re meant to do, and once we find it, we’ll finally understand how everything fits together.
But I don’t believe purpose works that way.
When I wrote The Intentional Engineer, I didn’t have the next 30 years of my life mapped out. I didn’t know exactly what my work would look like or all the opportunities that would come from writing the book. What I did know was that there were engineers and technical professionals who were incredibly capable but often disconnected from what mattered most to them. I cared about that problem, and I wanted to help.
So I started writing.
By that point, I had already spent years coaching people around career development, leadership, personal growth, and finding greater alignment in their work. I’d had countless conversations, experimented with different concepts and ideas, and worked with people to help them gain clarity and make meaningful changes. Those experiences led to more opportunities to serve people, and they continued to shape my own understanding of the work I wanted to do.
Even now, that understanding continues to evolve.
For a long time, I described myself primarily as a career coach. That’s still part of what I do, and I enjoy helping people navigate job searches, networking, interviews, and career transitions. But sometimes the term career coach feels too small to describe what I’m really interested in.
I’m drawn to the deeper questions people ask when something feels off in their lives:
- I’m successful, but why don’t I feel fulfilled?
- I don’t know who I’m becoming personally, and how does that connect to my professional life?
- What actually matters to me at this stage of my life?
- How can I create greater alignment between who I am and how I spend my time?
Those questions go much deeper than finding a new job or improving a resume. They involve personal growth, identity, transformation, and understanding the kind of person you want to become.
I didn’t discover that direction written on a rock somewhere. It emerged through years of doing the work, talking with people, experimenting, learning, and paying attention to what mattered to me. Over time, I began to recognize a pattern in the things that energized me and the problems I wanted to help solve.
I had to live into that purpose before I could fully understand it.
Pay Attention to What Pulls You
If purpose develops over time, how do you begin figuring out what yours might look like?
Start by paying attention to your experiences. There are clues in the things you care about, the problems you enjoy solving, the work that energizes you, and the ways you naturally create value for other people. You may already have more information than you realize, but you haven’t taken the time to connect the dots.
Here are a few questions worth exploring:
What problems make you care?
Think about the challenges that naturally get your attention. What issues make you curious? What problems do you find yourself wanting to solve, even when nobody is asking you to? Sometimes the things that frustrate us or make us wish something were different point toward areas where we feel a strong desire to contribute.
What experiences have shaped you?
Consider the significant experiences in your personal and professional life. What have you learned? What challenges have changed how you see the world? What experiences have influenced the person you’ve become? Your history can provide valuable clues about the things that matter most to you.
Where do your gifts and strengths create value for others?
I sometimes refer to these as your genius zones. Think about the things you do particularly well, the abilities that come naturally to you, and the contributions other people consistently appreciate. Where do those strengths overlap with problems or needs that matter to you?
What feels significant about what you’ve learned and experienced?
You may have developed expertise, perspective, or insight that could benefit someone else. Perhaps you’ve navigated a difficult career transition, led a team through a challenging period, built something from the ground up, or learned how to solve a problem that others are struggling with. What could you do with that experience?
You don’t need to have perfect answers to these questions. The goal is to become more observant about your own life and recognize the patterns that might be pointing you toward something meaningful.
Purpose Becomes Clearer Through Action
Once you begin noticing those clues, the next step is to do something with them.
Find someone you can serve. Create something. Try an idea you’ve been thinking about. Have a conversation with someone who works in an industry or field you’ve never seriously considered. Explore an opportunity that connects with something you’re curious about.
You might discover that you enjoy helping people develop their skills, solving a particular kind of technical problem, teaching others, building a business, or contributing to a cause that matters to you. You won’t necessarily know how meaningful something will be until you give yourself the opportunity to experience it.
This is where people sometimes get stuck. They want to know exactly what their purpose is before they take action. They want certainty that the next step will lead somewhere worthwhile. But that certainty often comes from the very experiences they’re waiting to have.
Consider someone who has spent 15 years working as an engineer. They’re good at their job, but lately they’ve been feeling disconnected. They wonder whether they should move into management, start consulting, teach, or explore something entirely different. They spend months trying to think their way toward the perfect answer.
What if they started experimenting instead? They could mentor a junior engineer, volunteer to lead a new initiative, have conversations with people who have made similar transitions, or explore opportunities to teach. Each experience would provide new information about what energizes them, what feels meaningful, and where they might want to contribute more.
Some experiments might confirm an interest. Others might help them eliminate possibilities. Either way, they’re learning something useful.
Purpose often becomes clearer through movement. Taking action gives you experiences to reflect on, and those experiences help you understand yourself and your direction more fully.
Your Purpose Can Change as You Grow
Another important part of this conversation is recognizing that purpose can evolve throughout your life.
Who you’re called to become during this period of life may be different from who you’re called to become 10 or 20 years from now. The work that feels meaningful today may change as your interests, responsibilities, relationships, and priorities develop.
Think about how much you’ve changed over the past decade. You’ve probably gained new skills, experienced different challenges, met people who influenced you, and developed a different understanding of what matters. Why would you expect your purpose to remain exactly the same through all of that?
For example, someone might spend the first part of their career developing technical expertise and solving complex engineering problems. Later, they may discover that mentoring others and developing future leaders has become more meaningful. Eventually, they might feel drawn toward teaching, consulting, or contributing to their community in a different way.
Each season can build on what came before while opening the door to something new.
That’s perfectly okay. In fact, I would argue that it’s expected. You don’t need to force yourself to hold onto an old definition of purpose simply because it once made sense. Give yourself room to grow and recognize when your interests and priorities are changing.
Focus on Living Intentionally Right Now
If you spend all your time trying to predict your life’s ultimate purpose, you can miss the opportunities and experiences available to you today.
You don’t need to know exactly where you’ll be in 10 years to make a meaningful decision right now. You can pay attention to what matters, use your strengths, serve others, and take steps toward work and experiences that feel significant.
As you do that, you’ll begin to recognize alignment. You may find yourself in a situation where you think, “This feels right. This is something I care about. This is how I want to spend my time.”
Those moments are valuable. Pay attention to them. They can help you understand what you want more of and where you might want to direct your energy.
I also want to encourage you to stop waiting for a lightning-bolt moment when everything suddenly makes sense. I’ve done that myself, and I can tell you that waiting around for some perfect realization isn’t a particularly effective strategy.
Start moving. Start serving. Connect with other people. Explore ideas and opportunities. Pay attention to the experiences you enjoy and the contributions that feel meaningful.
Along the way, you may discover that you already know a whole lot more about your purpose in this season of life than you initially thought. You just needed to pay attention to the clues and give yourself opportunities to act on them.
You Don’t Have to Figure It Out Alone
If you’re asking yourself, “What is my purpose? How do I find it?” I’d encourage you to start exploring those questions with some curiosity and patience.
Also, get some help!
This is also the kind of work I love helping people do. Through coaching, I work with people who want to understand themselves more deeply, connect with what matters to them, and create greater alignment between their personal and professional lives.
Sometimes that starts with a career question. As we explore their experiences, strengths, values, and aspirations, we often uncover a much bigger conversation about who they want to become and how they want to contribute.
If you’re ready to explore that for yourself, I’d love to have a conversation. Reach out to me through email or LinkedIn. You can find my contact information, along with other free resources and my book, in the description below.
Please ask for help, connect with people who can support you, and take action. I’ve had the opportunity to work with hundreds of people through these kinds of conversations, and I’d welcome the opportunity to help you, too.
Your purpose may become clearer as you live, learn, serve, and grow. Start with what matters to you today, and see where that takes you.
Watch more in the video below:
