What exactly is “purpose”? What does it mean to say “This is my purpose?” and how do you know someone is living their purpose? These are some of the questions that keep me up at night. It started years ago when I was outwardly successful according to society’s model of success, yet felt unfulfilled and unhappy. I had the job, the house, the car, the international holidays, but I wasn’t able to satiate the feelings that I thought should be satisfied with the things and people around me. While I was surrounded by friends and was respected at work, there was an emptiness inside.
I didn’t want to admit it at first, but eventually I couldn’t ignore that I was deeply depressed. All the earthly successes amplified the more profound unmet need of community and purpose I longed for. I couldn’t understand why I wasn’t happy. I did everything right according to society’s recipe of happiness. Yet, each time I got a better job, car, or house, the hole in my soul seemed to expand. What I was yearning for was purpose; I just didn’t realise it.
The Energy Test: Does Your Work Inspire or Drain You?
The problem with knowing your purpose is that no two people have the same purpose. Each person is as unique as a fingerprint. They have unique desires and different ways to achieve those desires. One person might be fulfilled by building a large company, while another might feel trapped and uninspired doing the same thing. One person might find meaning in their profession as a doctor or engineer, while another might loathe it. So how do you know you’re living a life aligned to your purpose?
Does what you do add or take away energy and inspiration?
Answering this question honestly will tell you whether your activities and choices are aligned with your purpose or not. If you dread going to work on Monday, you lack purpose. If you look forward to overcoming a challenge that seems insurmountable, you’re aligned with your purpose. Purpose isn’t about how difficult or big a goal is; it’s an internal drive that keeps you going, even when things get hard.
Depression and burnout are symptoms, not problems. They indicate that you are out of alignment with your purpose. Doing something aligned with your purpose is like an in-flow of energy into your system. It leaves you inspired, excited, and motivated. It doesn’t feel like work, even when you have to do grind work or tackle a difficult problem. Even the boring parts of what you’re doing have meaning, and it’s meaning that you’re after. Ultimately, everyone wants to feel they have an impact with what they are doing. This is what motivates you – when you can see how what you do matters.
The Structure of Purpose
Purpose is hard to navigate because it’s an abstract concept. It’s not something you can point to and say ‘that is purpose’. It’s rather more like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. To understand the structure of purpose, you need to change your relationship to it. Stop chasing things to achieve or have. Rather, see it as a light tower that tells you in which direction to go.
The structure of purpose can simply be described according to the following equation:
Desires (outputs) lead to outcomes (behaviours), which result in impact (purpose).
The ego-driven path
As an example, an ego-driven path may look as follows. You might desire to have a profitable company (nothing wrong with that!). You hope this will lead to more time to relax with your loved ones and more choices (outcomes). However, soon you start feeling trapped and overwhelmed with the responsibility of having a successful company. You realise you now have even less time than before, which negatively affects your ability to have the loving relationship you want (impact). Your quality of life has decreased as a result of your actions and choices, even though you might have a very healthy bank account and the freedom to do or have what you want, when you want. You can’t buy loving relationships, which is what you wanted in the first place.
The purpose-driven path
Another example, this time more purpose-driven, might also start with a desire for a profitable company and the ability to enjoy a fulfilling relationship where you can provide and enjoy your time together. The difference is that you’re focused on the outcome rather than the output. You know that your why is to have a fulfilling relationship where you can enjoy your life together; the profitable company is merely a means to an end. You’re not fixed on the how to achieve this goal, but rather the why. This now in turn allows you to shift your goal from making money to making your partner (and you) happy so that you can have a fulfilling relationship. She, or he, might find joy in creating art, so maybe your business idea shifts to support the arts, which makes both of you happy.
Connection Is the Currency of a Purpose
The key difference between an ego- and purpose-driven life or business is related to how connected your goals are to the impact on the wider system. An ego-driven desire often results in loneliness and depression as it focuses on your goals only, disconnecting you from the bigger system. A purpose-driven desire, on the other hand, results in joy and happiness as it focuses on the intersection of your goals and those of the people in your circle, connecting you to the wider system around you. The more connected you are to the wider system, the higher the quality of your life.
On an organisational level, this is no different. An ego-driven business prioritises profit and self-gain, often at the expense of others. This might yield short-term results, but will hurt and push away others and in the long term, leave you depressed and lonely. A purpose-driven organisation, on the other hand, are deeply connected to the wider ecosystem, and thus better able to sense and respond to changes in the needs of its users, which in turn increases the value and worth of the business. Win-win goals define purpose-driven organisations.
Referencing Frederic Laloux’s Reinventing Organisations, Ego uses orange-paradigm machine thinking. Purpose uses the teal-paradigm systems thinking.
But practically, how do you align with your purpose in work and life? How do you turn these insights into actionable steps?
Aligning Goals with Purpose: The Logical Levels Framework
Discovering and living your purpose can feel overwhelming, but there’s a gentle, highly effective framework that can guide you, called the Logical Levels of Alignment. Developed in the 1980s by Robert Dilts, the model provides a practical application to explore all the layers of your experience and align them with your goals. When each level is in harmony, lasting transformation becomes not only possible but natural.
Dilts built this framework on the theoretical foundations laid by Gregory Bateson, a pioneer in systems thinking and cybernetics. Bateson explored how organisms and systems learn and adapt, identifying different levels of learning and change. His work was rooted in communication, epistemology, and understanding how shifts at one level influence other levels.
Where Bateson’s model remained largely theoretical, Dilts translated it into an actionable coaching tool. By looking at your life or organisation through the lens of Logical Levels alignment, you can identify where misalignment may be occurring and address it. The result is a clearer path to living with purpose, greater energy, and deeper impact.
This process takes about an hour, and at the end, you will have shifted how you view your goals and start taking actions towards this outcome without requiring any action as such. Because the secret to lasting motivation is to align your goals – whether in your personal or business life – with your life’s purpose.
If you’ve been yearning for more meaning in your life or business, consider giving yourself the gift of clarity and alignment. Book a one-on-one coaching session designed to help you align your goals with your deeper purpose, so that energy, motivation, and meaning can flow more naturally.
Your purpose is already within you. Sometimes you just need a little guidance to bring it into focus.
