Have You Lost Your Job Purpose?

What’s your biggest motivation for working?

Is it the salary? The status? The perks?

Maybe you think that’s the only reason anyone works (apart from a lucky few who seem to love their job).

But here’s the thing…

Working only for the money is going to leave you directionless, demoralised and even depressed. Maybe you’re already there. Life feels like one big struggle and you’re wondering what it’s all about.

It can’t go on like this.

Think about how many more working years you have ahead of you. If you think you’re struggling to get through your days now, how do you think you’re going to feel in five, 10 or even 20 years?

Are you hoping by some miracle that it’ll be different by then?

Or is it time to shift your focus from simply bringing in the bacon to finding a greater sense of purpose in your work?

The truth is that if you’re only working for the money, you’re no more than a cog in a machine. That’s not very fulfilling.

But it’s not your fault…

You’ve probably never thought about having a purpose before, so you’ve fallen into a career or job for practical reasons. And now you probably feel trapped by your salary, company car, bonuses and status. In fact, you’re so busy holding onto what you’ve got you’re afraid to look for something better.

However, it doesn’t have to be that way.

When you know your purpose in life and that your work is aligned with it, your life will change dramatically.  You’ll wake up every morning feeling excited to work. You’ll feel passionate about what you do,. You’ll thrive in your career.  In fact, you move from struggle and lack to ease and abundance. Sounds great – there’s only one problem…

You don’t know what you want

Like most people, you probably don’t know your life purpose. And what’s more, you probably have no idea how to work it out.

And everyone around you is having a hard time getting through the day or doesn’t have enough money too. So it’s easy to think that struggle and lack is normal.

There’s also the fact that if you believe the available options are more of the same, then change will feel pointless.

But there is hope.

You’re probably where you are because you lack a sense of purpose. You haven’t lost your way because you never knew what it was in the first place. Now that you know having a purpose in life is the answer, you can start to do something about the problem while understanding why everything has felt so hard.

You may not be aware of it, but you already have a sense of purpose: it’s what gets you up in the morning. But this is just survival-level motivation, not your higher purpose. When you have that higher level in place, your outlook on life will change. You’ll not only feel more energised, you’ll be more resilient in the face of setbacks and stress.

What happens when you live without purpose?

When you have no sense of purpose in your life, you’ll amble through each day and week feeling demotivated and under-valued. You’ll keep going, but it just won’t be any fun.

Even when work becomes a source of pain, you’re likely to carry on because of your need to survive. But this is an unsustainable way to live and work. You’ll eventually become unhappy and demotivated. You’ll also fail to fulfill your potential.

The ideal is to discover you own purpose and then look for a company or organization whose mission and values mirror yours.

How to discover an organisation’s mission and values

Sometimes it’s easy to get an instant sense of an organisation’s purpose. It plays out in the way individuals engage with each other, how they perform their tasks and how they treat their customers. When a company has values its people share, there is alignment and harmony.

This comes from the staff having a sense of purpose that goes beyond their salary. They enjoy their work, are aligned with the employer’s goals and share the company’s values, and feel their work is contributing to a broader purpose that is meaningful to them.

Working like this may sound like a fantasy, but it’s a reality for many people.

Of course if you haven’t experienced it for yourself, you may doubt you can have it too.

Are you addicted?

When things sound too good to be true, it’s easy to get cynical and negative. But this attitude is what’s keeping you stuck where you are now.

If you’re unhappy but you feel safe, you’re probably firmly rooted in your comfort zone. The problem is that your comfort zone is very addictive. It makes it hard to let go of what you have so you can reach out for something better.

Maybe you feel comfortable because your job is familiar even if it’s soul-destroying and boring. Perhaps you’re comfortable with the people around you or your journey to work? It could be that you feel your status is all you have to hang onto at the moment. However, you’re not your job description or qualifications. You’re more than that, so it’s important to see yourself as a whole person, not just what’s in your shop window.

Of course, it might not only be safety that you’re addicted to. There are other more obvious addictions you use to numb the pain of an unfulfilled life: alcohol, drugs, gambling, food, spending on treats or highlights or even work itself… But this stops you from being, doing and having more of what you want.

You can let go.

Once you see that what you’re holding onto is simply holding you back, you can look at it differently. You’ll begin to wonder whether you could actually have more if only you let go of the status quo.

You’ll see that your bonuses, company car, holiday entitlement and other perks are simply keeping you tied to a place that isn’t working for you, just like a balloon tethered to the ground by a piece of string. When you cut that string, you’ll fly higher.

The expectations of others

It could be that other people are holding you back. Maybe you feel hemmed in by the expectations placed upon you, by your financial commitments or by your family circumstances. These can be hard to fight against, especially if you don’t believe you can have something better.

But if you’re not happy at work, your misery will impact every other part of your life: relationships, social life, not to mention your mental and physical health. You’ll also limit your earnings too, because you won’t be able to fulfil your potential.

So how do you step away from selling your soul for money and getting more aligned with what you want from your life?

Ending struggle and lack

Struggle and lack: these are big, heavy words. But they define how you feel right now. If you’re struggling with your work, every day will feel dark and difficult. If you’re experiencing lack, you’ll see the world in terms of what you don’t have (and believe you can’t get) rather than what you want (and believe you can achieve).

So, struggle and lack don’t just make you leave you feeling low, they also reduce your energy and enthusiasm for life. And that makes it incredibly hard to change anything for yourself.

All in all, you end up feeling helpless. It’s a bit like driving down the motorway with one foot on the accelerator and the other on the brake. You want more but you don’t have the energy to go out and get it so you end up going nowhere.

Why purposeful work works

When you do work that’s meaningful to you, life will become less of a struggle and more of a joy. Hardship and lack turn into flow and fulfilment. Your days are filled with achievement rather than emptiness. And your wealth grows too.

Once you discover and acknowledge your purpose, you’ll start working in flow rather than fighting with life. But that’s just one of the reasons why you need a life purpose.

5 reasons you need a life purpose

1. It gives you direction

Having a clear life purpose will help you live your life consciously, rather than sleepwalking through it. As Stephen Covey said, “If the ladder is not leaning against the right wall, every step we take just gets us to the wrong place faster.”

2. It helps you figure out what’s important and what’s not

You can immediately see which goals are important and which aren’t. You can cut through the noise and get to what matters fast. Instead of wasting your time on the inconsequential stuff, you can focus on what’s going to make a real difference.

3. Your life gains direction and meaning

Your life becomes filled with direction and meaning. You can work toward a career that fits your purpose and spend your time with people who share the same values as you.

4. You rediscover your drive and passion

You get an incredible surge of energy, so you feel completely engaged with what you’re doing. You wake up feeling excited every day rather than living for the weekends.

5. You achieve success on your own terms

Life flows better. When you do something you love, you’ll succeed simply because you want to do the work and because you care about doing your best.

So, why aren’t you living your life on purpose and doing work that is in alignment with what’s meaningful to you already? Very simply,  it’s because you’ve probably never really thought about it before.

So, how do you discover what you really want so you can live your life ‘on purpose’.

How do you discover your life purpose?

Discovering your life purpose isn’t something you learn at school. Even if you think about what you enjoy or what you want do on a daily basis, it doesn’t get you any closer to figuring out what matters to you.

And if you’re going to live your life purposefully, it’s crucial that you discover this.

The thing is…

It’s not just that you don’t know what you want from life, you probably don’t know how to figure it out in the first place.

You could try different jobs or different companies. Or learn more stuff and even change your career. But unless you’re very lucky, no matter how deep you dig, you still might not hit gold.

In fact, you could spend years (and possibly decades) trying to find what you’re looking for, and still fail.

You need a structured approach that gets can get beneath the surface to reveal your true purpose.

Aligning with your true purpose programme

When you have a defined programme to follow, you’ll get further faster. You’ll know what you need to do and even more important, how to use your new knowledge to help you find meaningful, purposeful work. That means understanding your value, making a plan and implementing it.

Do it right and your life will become less of a struggle and more of a joy. The old sense of hardship and lack will transform into fulfilment, excitement and wealth.

We can help you to find your career purpose and feel more fulfilled at work. That’s because purpose is the first step to a happier, healthier and more enjoyable life. When you express your values through your work, you express who you are as an individual – you’re no longer a robot doing meaningless work, you’re a fully-expressed individual having an impact on the world.

Do reach out by filling in the form on this page to gain our input and help about how to discover your real job purpose