Purpose is not passion

Purpose is often talked about as though it should arrive with a string section.

You discover your purpose. You follow your passion. You wake up one morning and the clouds part and suddenly your LinkedIn headline makes sense.

I do not think purpose usually works that way.

In 2009, Todd Kashdan and Patrick McKnight described purpose as a “central, self-organising life aim.” That is a much more useful definition. Purpose is not a mood. It is not enthusiasm. It is not a brand identity. It is the thing that begins to organise your choices over time.

That means purpose may start quietly.

It may begin as a question you cannot stop asking. It may begin as a fury you cannot put down. It may begin with something that happened to you, or near you, or to someone you love, and the sudden knowledge that the world is not arranged as it should be.

My own purpose did not arrive as inspiration. It arrived as horror.

After I became the victim of a crime, I saw the way a public system could fail someone who had education, language, money, and privilege. And then I could not stop thinking: what happens to the person without those protections?

That question began to organise my life.

Not all at once. Not cleanly. Not romantically. But insistently.

Purpose is not the same as wanting to be impressive. In fact, wanting to be impressive can get in the way of purpose. Purpose asks a different question: what needs doing that I am somehow placed to do?

That is less glamorous than passion.

It is also much more durable.

Emily Hunt-Adiletta OBE is a bestselling author and keynote speaker.

Booking: booking@anthroadvisory.com