Original purpose

Recovering what you are meant to do

Have you ever seen a toddler doing a squat? Perfect form.

Children know what they’re doing.

They are flexible, fearless, and endlessly energetic. All things we tend to lose with age.

While we are swept up in our daily grind, looking up from our cubicles, commutes, and calendars, we envy them. Walking around with seemingly effortless purpose.

And we should. Envy them, I mean.

Because the purpose they portray is one we could get back to as well.

And we should.

Nurture

We are born and raised.

On one hand, we have a set of intrinsic characteristics. We have natural talents, tendencies, and limitations. How we’re built physically, what we like or don’t like, whether we’re left or right handed.

On the other hand, we’re impacted by our upbringing, community, and culture. We’re social animals that follow each other 's example, we have role models, and we naturally trust and imitate others.

How we feel, what we believe, and how we behave is heavily impacted by our environment.

This becomes apparent when we move away or get older (a form of moving away from our younger selves). When the context changes we can suddenly see how much we were influenced by our surroundings before.

What we end up pursuing in life, our purpose, mirrors this duality.

Besides what we are drawn to, what we’re good at, and our natural ‘gifts’, there are things we’re culturally expected and influenced to do.

The classic example is the championing of the ‘safe profession', where the parents or culture expect and encourage their children to be a doctor, engineer, or lawyer, even when the child couldn’t be less interested or suited for the job.

Because of persuasion, pressure, or simply not knowing what else to do, these kids might still go for this path. Even if in their core they feel they’re meant to be doing something else.

We can’t escape this. Everybody who lives in a culture has a certain amount of this ‘cultivated purpose’ on top of our ‘original purpose’ (the thing we are meant to do).

And it’s not always a problem. If you’re coincidentally perfectly in line with the expected path, you might be alright.

But if you’re not, over time, some issues might arise.

Play-back

Working too hard, having low energy, and being overwhelmed are common concerns clients bring to my coaching sessions.

We work on recovering their original purpose. Going back to the root and finding out what they loved when they were younger. And when, where, and why they diverted.

When your pursuits are in line with your original purpose, they fit, they flow, and they feel easy. When they’re not, and you’re working on the wrong things, it makes sense that you’re overworked and unfulfilled.

An idea that captures this perfectly is Naval Ravikant’s ‘Do what feels like play to you but looks like work to others’.

Even though they usually excel at their job, are monetarily successful, and are often praised for their efforts, not being in the right place is mentally and physically draining.

Many times, when we start looking for the areas in life where they experience the most ‘play’-like feeling, they discover that they’re unconsciously hanging onto an external image of what they ‘should’ do that isn’t serving them at all.

They feel unfulfilled because their original purpose is still calling. And the coaching conversation lets them hear it loud and clear.

Easy and relaxed

I’ve had the same thing happen some years ago, when my coach helped me snap out of it in an instant. By simply asking what I had enjoyed in the past.

A tiny question with a profound effect.

Answers started to flow naturally, I suddenly saw that I had been discounting things I was already doing (and enjoying) and doubling down on them actually made sense, felt good, and was easy. Things started to flow from there.

Forcing it, working hard (against myself) was actually the thing that was inhibiting me from moving forward.

Instead of letting the daily grind keep leading me, making time for a session with my coach and actually sitting down to think, sort, and go through my experiences shifted me out of the belief that everything had to be hard work.

I discovered that if I leaned into my original purpose, things could feel like play and would work out better.

There’s an interesting relaxedness about fulfilling our purpose. Almost childlike.