Suffering From Purpose Anxiety? Here’s What To Do
A conversation I’m in quite frequently with clients and friends is around purpose. For me personally, it’s become exacerbated since becoming a mother. What is my purpose? Is being a Mom my purpose? Is my work my purpose? Am I on purpose? What if I don’t find my purpose? Can I have multiple purposes? Am I wasting my time if I don’t currently feel on purpose? There are so many big questions we ask ourselves and it seems like everyone online is encouraging you to find your purpose, connect with your why, only work for a company that aligns with your purpose, so on and so forth. It’s a lot of searching and a lot of stress.
A study in 2019 conducted by the University of California San Diego found that understanding what your meaning is in life will improve your mental and physical well-being, so all this searching isn’t completely a waste of time, but it has certainly left many people with a whole lot of purpose anxiety. According to Organizational Psychology Researcher, Larissa Rainey, purpose anxiety can be defined as the negative emotions experienced in direct relation to the search for purpose. If you are currently, or have in the past, suffered from purpose anxiety, you’re certainly not alone. Rainey found that 91% of participants suffered from purpose anxiety at some point in their life and you can experience purpose anxiety at any age, it’s not just a condition of our younger years.
Contrary to what most people might say, the antidote to purpose anxiety isn’t more searching, it’s actually appreciating more of what you already have. The problem with the way mainstream coaches and thought leaders talk about purpose today, is that it makes you believe that there is something outside of yourself that you have to go find. Something that you don’t already have. Conversations around purpose, send you on an insatiable quest to find this thing called “purpose”. The truth is that purpose is not task driven, it’s not something outside of you, it lives inside of you. Purpose is not about what you can acquire, but what you and transform that is already in you. It’s about awakening to that which you already are. Carolyn Myss says, you don’t find purpose, you become it.
Knowing that purpose isn’t something you need to go out and find, here are some things that might be getting in the way of you noticing the purpose that already exists inside of you. According to bestselling author and psychologist, Robert Holden, Ph.d, the four main reasons we may experience purpose anxiety are:
You have a purpose but you might not have a clear awareness of your purpose
Don’t have an appreciation for your purpose
You’re not honoring the gifts you have
You’re avoiding your purpose
If you’re struggling with purpose anxiety, here is where to start:
Start a purpose journal. Begin tracking the moments in your day/week when you felt most on-purpose. Make five daily entries of the times you felt most on-purpose or when you experienced deep meaningfulness throughout your day
Create the perfect system for never living your purpose. This sounds counterintuitive but lean into the purpose anxiety. I want you to write out a whole vision of what would happen if you never lived your purpose, what things would you not have to do or acknowledge, what would have to go wrong, what steps would you never take, lean all the way into the worst case scenario. Surprise – now you have an entire map that tells you what not to do. Begin taking the tiniest steps in the opposite direction.
Do the inner work. Truly ask yourself what is the inner work you would need to do so that you can start saying YES to your purpose. Perhaps it’s forgiving judgments you’re carrying around, perhaps it's acknowledging all the gifts you already have. Start with the inner work and it will lead you to your next step
Go Easy. Go easy on yourself. It’s never too late to awaken the purpose that’s already living inside of you. Trust that the moment you’re in right now is exactly what you need to step more fully into your purpose and most of all be gentle with yourself.
Finally, you can always reach out to me for support!