It feels like an idea has crept into the world that to find one’s purpose means helping people. I don’t know when this happened. The pandemic certainly accelerated this notion. While it’s great that more people want to make a difference, be cautious. Your ego may have just dressed up in a new outfit.
What happens if those people don’t need your help anymore? What happens if your company lets you go? What happens when you retire? You’re left with an identity crisis. Instead, be selfish. Make growing and evolving your purpose. Here’s the paradox: the more you focus on your own growth and evolution, the more capable you become of helping others. It’s the natural by-product.
Growth and evolution mean different things for different people at various stages of life. We each are on our journeys. We each need to take responsibility for our lives and meet ourselves where we’re at with courage and kindness. Let go of comparisons to others who seem further along in their growth journey. We are all going through something. For one person, this could mean doing the work to finally break a bad habit for improved mental health, for someone else it’s working through a career change that’s more aligned or for someone else, it’s learning to control their stress response.
Whatever the case, it’s uncomfortable. Agitation arises because you’re engaging your brain to create new neural connections. That’s what the learning process looks like. It can take multiple tries and even a course correction based on the data you receive from failing. It requires seeing your failures as feedback and detaching from failures as a mark of who you are. You are not your failures. You are a human being experiencing a range of emotions in life. A client once told me “The pain of not trying was greater than the pain of trying”. Either way is pain, you choose.
The attempts you make are you experiencing life. Experience fear, experience frustration, experience self-doubt but also experience excitement, passion and peace. Growing isn't all about relentless effort either. Sometimes the best place to receive your guidance is in silence so give yourself space, it’s not a race.
Richie Kyriacou
Mindset, Career & Life Coach
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