You’re all tucked in, trying to get to bed early for that elusive eight hours of sleep, and your eyes pop open.
“What’s my purpose?”
It’s a question we would all like to answer because knowing that answer could truly change your life. Yet often the enormity of it can overwhelm us to the point of inaction.
What if you could break down the question of “what’s my purpose?” into a workable process that helps you integrate your whole life, combining career goals, your individual purpose, and values?
At Pathwise we have pulled insights from great thinkers and resources from our experienced career coaches to help you do just that. Our goal? Help you create a more meaningful and fulfilling career path and live a happy life. Here’s how to find purpose in your work.
What is the Purpose?
Before answering the question, it’s critical to know what we mean by purpose. Your life purpose consists of the central motivating aims of your life, the reasons you get up in the morning.
A workable definition was proposed by Chris Myers in Forbes after exploring the Japanese philosophy of life purpose called Ikigai. “It is a lifestyle that strives to balance the spiritual… and the practical, and the balance is found at the intersection where your passions and talents converge with the things that the world needs and is willing to pay for.
Your personal purpose can guide your life decisions, influence your behavior and mental health, and shape your life and career goals. It builds a sense of direction and leaves you feeling fulfilled in your everyday endeavors. Often, people find they return to this question of “What is my purpose?” when they are feeling stuck in a position, relationship, or career field, or they realize there is a lack of simple joy in their lives.
Purpose-at-Work Audit for Career Meaning
Career meaning becomes clearer when you measure it, not when you debate it. Use this 20-minute purpose-at-work audit to pinpoint what to keep, tweak, or leave behind.
- List your “energizers” (10 minutes). Write 10 tasks from the past 2 weeks. Next to each, mark:
- Energy: +2 (energizing), +1, 0, -1, -2 (draining)
- Impact: 0–2 (who benefits and how much)
- Growth: 0–2 (are you building a skill you want long-term?)
- Name your drivers (5 minutes). Pick your top 3 needs: autonomy, competence, relatedness. If one is consistently missing, your career motivation will fade even in a “good” role.
- Define your “purpose signal”. Choose one sentence:
- “I feel purpose-driven work when I’m improving systems for others.”
- “I feel purpose at work when I’m teaching, coaching, or simplifying.”
- “I feel job fulfillment when I’m solving hard problems with visible results.”
If your highest-scoring tasks don’t match your role title, don’t panic. That gap is useful data for self-discovery in career. For more on sustaining motivation, see Pathwise’s guide on workplace motivation.
Why is purpose important?
For some of you who prefer very practical decision making and shy away from incorporating your “whole self” into your profession, it is easy to ignore the idea of life purpose when making career decisions. However, there is research that validates the importance of honoring life purpose.
One 2008 study found that when people feel meaning and true purpose in their lives, they are able to tell a story of change and growth. A second study conducted by the Institute of Coaching indicated that feeling connected to purpose in life was positively associated with self-image and negatively associated with delinquency.
In addition, many anecdotal stories and articles highlight the benefit of having a tuning fork that lets you know you are on the right track. It provides us with clarity and builds your personal power to own your choices and take back control of your decisions. PathWise’s Career Coaches agree, most clients report a higher level of joy when identifying a clear life purpose.
What if you ignore it?
Many people ignore feelings of restlessness, aimlessness. What’s the big deal? It’s just a job right?
However, without this exploration process life often feels like a struggle. A career lacking connection to values, motivators, and strengths has proven to be “de-energizing” and can lead to depression. In extreme cases, people experience feelings of victimhood and sometimes sabotage their current careers.
The bottom line indicates that uncovering and connecting with life purpose not only leads to more joy but that it is the underpinnings of a satisfying career. Whether looking for a career to provide you with the complete fulfillment of your life purpose or to provide the means for achieving success, a sense of purpose helps you choose an environment congruent with your values, where you can find your true passion and tap into your natural strengths.
How to find your purpose
What do I really want in life? What makes me happy? What makes me fulfilled?
These big questions can be broken into some practical steps and combined with experiential learning.
Exercises and Tools
In an interview with Brene Brown, Maya Shankar, the once child prodigy violinist and current cognitive psychologist, shared her view on uncovering your real motivators.
“It’s much more sustainable to attach my identity to the features of pursuits that light me up and make me tick, rather than a very specific activity or thing.” Uncovering your motivators, values, and joy-providing skills open up worlds of career possibilities. There are several exercises you can use to help shine a light on these hidden gems.
Start with visualizing a few scenarios. Here are a few examples:
- What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail? When was a time you had your best day? What were you doing? Experiencing? In these scenarios, notice what is important to you.
- What do people appreciate about you? What are you known for? What are your strong points? What does that tell you about what you do want?
Storytelling:
There are several ways to use storytelling to work towards discovering your purpose.
- Use everyday occurrences to find meaning in the changes you are going through. Noticing what resonates with the story, the everyday events will hone your tuning fork and over time, it will provide more clarity.
- Think about your ideal career and write your story of what you want the future to hold, not what you are afraid it will hold.
- Tell your past from the lens of all the signs that point towards your strengths, your successes. Take advantage of whatever life sends your way to revise, or at least reconsider, your story.
This is the beginning of clarifying your values, your motivators, and eventually your purpose. For a deeper dive into your values, uncovering your motivators and vision check out the assessment section in Pathwise.
Career Identity Mapping with Narrative Threads
Career identity isn’t a personality test result. It’s the story you can explain in 30 seconds that makes your career direction feel consistent and intentional.
Use the 3–2–1 Career Story exercise:
- 3 moments (10 minutes): Write three short “scenes” from work or life when you felt alive and useful. Keep each to 5–6 lines.
- 2 themes (5 minutes): Underline repeated patterns: “building,” “helping,” “leading,” “creating,” “analyzing,” “calming chaos,” “advocating,” “teaching.” Circle only two.
- 1 headline (5 minutes): Combine your themes into a single sentence:
- “I translate complex ideas into decisions people trust.”
- “I build teams and systems that make work easier for others.”
Now turn that headline into long-term career goals using a simple time ladder:
- 12 months: one role change, project, or skill that proves the headline
- 3 years: a job scope that uses your themes weekly
- 10 years: the kind of problems you want your name attached to
This creates a stable “through-line” for career exploration and reduces anxious career decision making. You stop chasing random roles and start testing roles that match your identity.
Make it Real and Actionable
Create your personal branding narrative based on your new self-awareness. What are the strengths you want to capitalize on, values you need to honor?
Then set short-term actionable goals by testing out some scenarios. Herminia Ibarra in her book Working Identity says “We rarely think our way into a new way of acting. Rather, we act our way into new ways of thinking and being.”
Start with goals that allow you to explore the future. Create a list of possible career steps that give you a chance to move in the right direction.
With these short-term goals in mind, start making small changes. James Clear in Atomic Habits suggests it is better to start with small incremental steps instead of making a huge change. This allows you to test the waters.
Instead of dumping your whole career can you start a side gig? Can you join a committee that is more in line with your values or your possible new career? Is there a hobby you can explore that is closer to this role?
It is hard to know if as an accountant we would be happy switching to a career in physical therapy. No amount of thinking about it will really help you know. But what if you take a day and shadow a PT, interview several PT’s or volunteer for a sports team?
“Almost no one gets change right on the first try. Forget about moving in a straight line. You will probably have to cycle through a few times, letting what you learn inform the next cycle.”
Intentional Career Planning with Small Experiments
You don’t need a dramatic leap to find purpose-driven work. You need experiments that produce evidence.
Try a 30-day intentional career planning cycle:
Week 1: Choose one hypothesis.
Example: “If I do more customer discovery, I’ll feel more work fulfillment.”
Or: “If I mentor juniors, I’ll increase career meaning.”
Week 2: Run one micro-test (2–5 hours total). Pick one:
- Shadow someone for 60 minutes
- Conduct 3 informational interviews
- Volunteer for a cross-functional task
- Teach a 15-minute skill session
- Build a one-page portfolio sample
Week 3: Craft the job you have. Identify one task to add, one to reduce, and one relationship to strengthen. This is the simplest path to job fulfillment inside your current role. If you want examples, start with Pathwise’s overview of job crafting.
Week 4: Review results with a scoreboard. Track three numbers:
- Energy average (from -2 to +2)
- Meaning rating (1–10)
- Progress (one visible output per week)
After 30 days, you’ll have proof of what builds professional purpose and a cleaner next step for career exploration.
Career Values Alignment Decision Matrix
When two options look “fine,” values decide. Use this quick decision matrix to force clarity and reduce regret.
Step 1: Pick 5 career values (3 minutes). Examples: learning, stability, service, autonomy, creativity, teamwork, recognition, flexibility, leadership, craftsmanship.
Step 2: Weight the top 3 (2 minutes). Assign points that total 10:
- Value #1 = 5 points
- Value #2 = 3 points
- Value #3 = 2 points
Step 3: Score each option (10 minutes). For each value, score 0–2:
- 0 = conflicts with the value
- 1 = neutral
- 2 = strongly supports it
Multiply score × weight, then total. The highest total is usually the best career values alignment.
Step 4: Add a “deal-breaker” check (2 minutes). Write one non-negotiable (example: “no weekend work more than 2x/month”). If an option fails, it’s out, even if the total score is high.
This method improves career satisfaction because it turns vague preferences into a repeatable process you can use for promotions, pivots, and career transitions.
How to Find Your Purpose in Your Work
Connecting to a life purpose provides some clarity for making hard career and life choices. Following the direction you’ve identified, even if it is a hard choice, will be easier if it resonates with your values, motivators, and life vision.
Aligning your career with your life purpose may also require advocating for yourself in order to honor who you are and your vision. Use the information you’ve gathered about your life purpose to craft ideal positions, volunteer for committees that have a positive impact on your new path, and hone your innate strengths into strong skills that support your success. Advocating for yourself may not come easily, but it’s a necessary step to make a change.
Ikigai reminds us that everything is connected life and work. By focusing on your purpose you have an avenue to find joy and fulfillment in the everyday, including your career. Exploring life’s purpose and intertwining it within all aspects of your life is not a small endeavor. If you want to explore more in-depth and take a deeper dive into uncovering your values and strengths, defining your life purpose, and writing a new career story, reach out to us at PathWise.
By Becca Carnahan and Heather Wilkerson
Resources
Berkeley University. How to Find Your Purpose in Life
Chris Meyers. How To Find Your Ikigai And Transform Your Outlook On Life And Business. Forbes.
Herminia Ibarra. Working Identity: Unconventional Strategies for Reinventing Your Career
James Clear. Atomic Habits
Greg Levoy. Callings
