Ditch ‘purpose’ and find your joy and medicine instead.

Purpose is a heavy word. It's weighty and full of expectation. We chase it constantly, trying to understand our place in a capitalist world.

What's your purpose? we ask each other.

Why are we here? What do we do here?

You must have a purpose. Heaven help you if you’re here without one. Gods forbid you simply are.

On an individual level, that’s heavy enough. Amplify it to a collective (or a business) and the pressure multiplies.

We must have a reason, a direction, a meaning… or so we’re told.

Lacking purpose can make us feel aimless, rudderless, and ungrounded. We often mistaken a lack of purpose for a lack of direction.

After 30 years of hunting for my purpose, however, I finally jettisoned the idea that a meaningful life depends on it and replaced it with joy and medicine instead.

It changed everything and here’s why:

• Joy and medicine are life-affirming. They are alive, adaptable, playful. They exist already within you. Purpose, by contrast, can be rigid and brittle, something you must find, as if it exists outside yourself.

• Joy can appear anywhere. It moves with circumstance. Your medicine can flow from it naturally, in a way that is nurturing and blossoming. Purpose on the other hand demands seriousness. It strains your muscles and can bring grief when the world doesn’t bend to meet it.

• Joy is a ride. Purpose is a whip.

So today don’t ask, what is my purpose in life? Try asking instead, where is my joy most active?

Then, dig deeper and ask: What is the medicine my joy points to?

Then you’ll know what you are here to bring to the tribe.

If you need help to connect to your joy, name the medicine and bring it to life, I’ve got your back.
Book in a free 20-minute breakthrough call and let’s open the door together.