Figuring Out Your Purpose for the Year

One of my favorite questions to ask friends this time of year is “what do you think next year is for?” To be fair, it's a tough question to answer, rude of me to ask it. But just because it can feel like an impossible question to answer, doesn't mean it wouldn't be amazing to find out!

How do we know what this new year is for?

Are we even sure that it has a unique purpose?

Whether we’re foggy on our own desires, disconnected from our personal passion, or feel dragged in competing directions constantly to deal with urgencies and problems; it can be hard to know our purpose for the year. Harder still if we don't feel we're clear on our own purpose in life.

From Start With Why to The Purpose Driven Life, mega bestselling authors have shared their blueprints for finding that engaged life. So why is it that when we pick up one of those books we often start with such hope and excitement, only to fizzle out with fogginess and shame? 

Are the great books you’re reading not changing things for you lately?

Maybe you haven’t always had this problem, but for whatever reason you’re finding it hard to follow the blueprint of others to discover your purpose in life. 

Though I’m just another writer (and not even a bestselling one at that), I’d like to offer some Wild + Brave tips for How to Let Someone Help You Find Your Purpose. Whether that someone is a book from the library or a professional coach you hire. Getting help can be tricky.

1. Free Up Emotional Bandwidth: If you don’t accord space to the pursuit of your purpose – just wedging it in between appointments and your workload – the best blueprint in the world will fail to resonate with your soul. You won’t find the answers you’re looking for if you’re not emotionally present and open.
2. Anticipate an Unfolding of Understanding: It will take consecutive periods of ongoing attention to discover your purpose. You’ll have to keep looking at what you discover, and watch the answers develop fully. Even if you’re brave, and willing to be brutally honest with yourself, no one can dig deep enough on the first swing to unearth a full picture of their purpose. Impatience will not simply delay finding the answers; it can sometimes create false answers that take time to debunk. The answer you tease out today will mature and expand with continued engagement, so expect to continue engaging it.
3. Seek a Guide You Won’t Try to Impress: If you’re reading a book, great; there’s no risk your guide will spark self-consciousness. But if you’re working with a coach, beware the urge toward reputation maintenance; this will send your search for purpose on false trails. There are many kinds of coaches you may work with in your life. For this, be conscious to choose one who doesn’t set off your insecurities, but rather makes you feel comfortable in “not knowing” and even changing your mind. A probing question does not have to be delivered by a sharp tongue.
4. Expect to Learn Through Experience: On paper, pathways toward your purpose sound super reasonable…but many plausible paths will crumble in the reality of your actual life. As you’re walking through the process, try to find ways to experience or test what you’re learning about your purpose. Don’t wait until you’ve formed a complete picture of who you’re trying to be; try on bits of what you think you love and should be doing immediately, and in small ways. 

This last tip (learning through experience) may be the biggest key. Even with a coach sitting in front of you, it’s easy to fall into patterns of theorizing. True insight comes from testing the theories!

If you’re reading a book, use this question to self-coach as you go:

“What’s a small way I could try this idea out in my life right now?” 

If the chapter you’re reading tells you you need to accept and value who you are rather than trying to be like everyone else, ask yourself how you could try that out today. Would it mean actually voicing your preference next time someone asks? Would it mean trying to find a way to express your personality with your living space, or asking questions at work when you’re curious? What part of yourself are you suppressing, and how could you explore that part of you in some small way?

Maybe you’re making big progress with your search, and think you’ve identified what you’d love to do. As an example, let’s pretend you’ve sensed your calling is involves helping people become financially independent. 

Instead of waiting to discover the perfect career for you for that (which will take time and multiple steps), ask yourself: 

“This week, what’s a small thing I could do to help someone I know become a bit more financially independent?” 

This could involve a caring conversation with a family member to share insights you have. It could look like being more mindful of encouraging spending when you’re with friends to interrupt the overspending cycle you have together. Or it may actually mean doing a little research to start learning the answers yourself! 

Don’t do what so many of us, who spend sometimes years, financial resources, and relational strain to make tough transitions to untried new pursuits…only to arrive and realize it isn’t feeding your soul like you thought it would. Early experiments help you refine and deepen your understanding of of your purpose before expending massive effort to chase it.

The bottom line is that the truth about who you are isn’t created by you and imposed into your life; it’s discovered through experience and strengthened through reflection. With discipline you can get stronger at who you already are…but only when that discipline is authentically applied in the direction of your purpose will you truly flourish and find meaning in that effort.

If you were able to answer, and didn’t have to be right the first time…how would you answer my tough-to-answer question today? 

What is next year for?

Start your answer with words like…

“I think it could be…”

“Maybe it is…”

“I wonder if…”

…and you’re closer than you think.

Take those maybes, those possibilities, and apply your self-coaching question to them:

“How could I take some tiny action to test that right now?”

If I think that maybe this year is the year I figure out what I want to do when I grow up, the tiny action I could take this week could be sitting with a journal and spitballing some ideas to explore. Maybe I take the tiny action of texting a friend to see if they’ll have a “dreaming dinner” with me, to help me reflect on possibilities. Or perhaps the tiny action is visiting a library to see if a book on the shelf speaks to this new readiness I’m feeling.

Whatever it is that next year is “for” for you, I hope you reach for it. I think we’ve all had plenty of years flash by where we’re not quite sure what happened. But maybe this year doesn’t have to be one of those years.