In a leadership consultation with my team last year, the speaker talked to us about the things that keep us from finding our purpose, creativity, and experiencing all life has to offer. Among those distractions, he listed drive and performance. I nearly gasp out loud—how could those traits be a bad thing?
I dared to ask the question in my next one to one session with our leadership consultant—I should have asked it in front of the room, but I was not at that place as a leader and someone emerging into my purpose.
“You keep saying ‘drive,’ like it is a bad thing,” I said, “I don’t understand. That is me. I wake up and I have the drive to get things done.”
He smiled. In hindsight, I know that he knew that I struggle with being a perfectionist and seeking validation for my work from people and things in my environment. He shared that drive is a negative trait when you are bending your will to drive toward perfection and performance for the world. By doing things because I want to please a person or thing in my environment—like winning at my career and impressing my boss and colleagues.
But what if my purpose is not to impress people or climb the corporate ladder? Am I using my strength to drive toward the wrong things?
This question was purposed to me in September 2023. One year later, I understand. Yes, yes, I am.
Leveraging Your Gifts for the Right Purpose
If you have read my About page, you know that one month before I wrote this blog post that same leadership consultant asked a very important question during a group session, “Who are you and what are you doing here?”
And, by that, he meant, what is your true identity (who are you really versus who you try to be) and what is your purpose on earth (why were you born)? Interesting enough for me, I had been asking myself that some question when my eyes cracked open every morning.
For all of my life (so it seems), I had been channeling my drive toward selfish goals. I was climbing the corporate ladder—I wanted my spot at the top. I wanted the corner office and the title. When we did an exercise looking back at the wake of our lives, I realized that I had actually accomplished this multiple times across my career, but every time, you could see the point where I realized this isn’t where I was supposed to be, and I would give it up.
Now “giving it up,” wasn’t always a conscious choice. As I dive into my recent studies of psychoneuroimmunology, I realize that my body pulled me away to seek comfort and safety. And, until recently, I looked back on those choices with massive regret.
However, as 40+ year old woman with a husband, a mortgage, and a child, I can’t torch everything in my past and runaway to an exotic destination (which is quite literally what I did every time the stress became overwhelming). So, waking up and asking, “what am I doing with my life?” coupled with incredible mentorship, has led me here.
Odds are, you know your gifts—you just can’t see them as gifts. You have been using them for much of your life—subconsciously perhaps—because well you’re damn good at it. And, gifts don’t have to be this stage-ready talent. You don’t have to be a dancer, singer, trapeze artist or the like. Your gift could be listening. Your gift could be meal prep. Your gift could be cooking. Your gift could be mentoring. Your gift could be teaching.
Rethinking how you apply that gift is how you find your purpose.
The Path to Change Toward Purpose
I’m actively in the midst of my journey toward my purpose.
It’s hard. OMG. It is soooooo hard.
Don’t let that scare you. Because unlike all the days before this adventure, I don’t wake up asking myself “what am I doing with my life?”
My intention is clear. My creativity is buzzing in ways that I haven’t seen in more than a decade. I wake up and I know that there is greatness in my day pulling me one step closer to my true destiny. The reason God gave me this life.
If you are ready to find your purpose—buckle up. It’s a rocky ride—there’s this thing called the gap and the resistance—that will try to pull you backward. Stay strong.
How do you start to discover your purpose?
If you ask me today, it’s a million conversations with the right people and an open mind.
For me, the first step was having a conversation with someone that helped me open my heart and my mind. I was very, very closed off. My whole family is, actually. The environment you grow up in can cause you to be and act and do and say a lot of things—for your whole life—that might not be quite right for unleashing your gifts and using them for your purpose. But, hey, we’re all human—no one is perfect. Perfection—as it is classically defined doesn’t really exist.
Opening your heart and your mind begins with recognizing that you don’t know it all and you can learn so much from surrounding yourself my insightful people who challenge you to think differently about life and who you are—leading to the truest, best version of yourself—the real you!
