3 Ways To Bring Purpose To Your Days
You don't have to completely overhaul your life in order to live with purpose. Here are 3 ideas for inviting more purpose into your every day, starting where you are.
If someone asked you what your purpose is, how easily could you answer?
For ten years now, I’ve had the honor of partnering with Lead DSM to facilitate a program called Community Connect. This unique, robust program begins by helping participants write their personal purpose statements, then supporting them as they decide - purposefully and with intention - how they can engage their purpose to make their difference in the community and beyond. We are in the midst of our 2025 session and I am continually impressed, amazed, and inspired by the participants, mentors, committee members, and leaders involved in this program!
One of the things I love about this program is how ‘doable’ it makes purpose feel. Many of us, upon hearing a word like purpose, immediately think of a big, unknown, Capital-P word that only a select few people will ever uncover. Maybe you thought that with my opening question above?
I used to think that, too. But now - nearly three decades after first writing my purpose statement, and supporting others in the process for many of the years since - those thoughts have definitely changed. I believe, and have seen time and time again, that uncovering our purpose is open to us all - not just a select few.
Not only that, but we can also actively bring greater purpose into our every day.
And we don’t need to sell all of our material belongings and move to a remote location or otherwise completely overhaul our lives to do so! Here are three practical ways you can start bringing purpose to life each and every day, starting right where you are.
1. Activate Your Values.
Our core values make up an important part of our purpose. But, much like with purpose, we can hear ‘core values’ and feel like they’re just too deep and will take forever to figure out. In reality, many of my clients actually discern theirs within a coaching session or two.
I’ve written abundantly about values (this article offers helpful starting points, for example) and I’ll happily write more, but for now I just want to reiterate that it doesn’t have to take years to discover and activate yours.
I love how Katherine Morgan Schafler writes about this in The Perfectionist’s Guide To Losing Control1:
“If kindness is a value, you’re not just kind when people are watching, you’re kind all the time. You’re not kind because you get credit, and you don’t need external validation to tell you whether you’re being kind or not; you already know.”
Your core values are already a part of you. Acknowledging how you live them out can bring a wonderful sense of purpose to your day!
2. Connect In Your Unique, Strengths-Based Way.
Oprah Winfrey can recommend a book and thousands (millions?) of people will then want to read it. Mother Teresa focused much of her attention on helping one person at a time, often caring for the person right in front of her in the moment.
Maybe your reach is similar to one of theirs, or perhaps you land somewhere in between. Regardless, consider the various ways you connect with people and how you can feel purposeful in those interactions.
One way might be to decide, with intention, what kind of ‘legacy’ you want to leave - even within a single interaction, since we essentially create our legacies all the time by the way we live our lives. Speaking of Mother Teresa, one of my favorite quotes attributed to her is, “Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier.” While we can’t necessarily control others’ feelings, we can consider how we would love for an interaction to go, then do what we can to raise that likelihood.
Whether you lead a team of forty, are raising two children, write articles for 600,000 readers, or offer counseling to one person per session, reflect on what will help bring meaning and purpose to those connections.
3. Honor The Moment.
You are one whole, incredible person. While you may speak or dress differently for different occasions, such as whether you’re presenting at a professional conference or enjoying a Saturday dinner with friends, you carry the same values and strengths and purpose with you. This is exciting because it means you can invite a sense of purposefulness no matter where you are or what you’re doing - in any moment.
Part of my purpose statement, for example, involves ‘creating respectful learning environments.’ At first glance, this may sound like something I could only fulfill in a classroom setting. In reality, however, I strive to create such environments whether I am facilitating a coaching group, enjoying dinner with my family, or chatting with the clerk at the grocery store. The learning component may mean learning about a topic, learning another’s point of view, or simply learning how someone else’s day is going. I aim to make any and all of those interactions respectful and with a sense of curiosity and learning involved.
As you go about your day, consider how you can invite purpose into the moment. Even mundane tasks can transform into purposeful opportunities! You may be surprised how fulfilling even the seemingly small moments can become.
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Richard Leider and David Shapiro have written extensively on the topic of purpose, and one way they describe it is like this:
“Purpose is a direction, like ‘west.’ No matter how far west you go, there’s still more west to travel. And like directions, purpose helps you choose where to go along the route.”2
I love that reminder that purpose isn’t a destination to reach or a box to check, but rather an ever-present part of life.
As basic as this may sound, you can bring more purpose into your every day simply by deciding to. Check in with yourself periodically throughout your day and ask yourself a question, perhaps something like, ‘What could make this feel purposeful?’ Maybe your response will match one of the ideas above, or maybe a new idea will come to mind. There can be such magic in a purposeful pause like that!
I’d love to know other ways you bring purpose into your days. Feel free to share your ideas in the comments below!
Questions? Comments? Books or topics you’d like me to discuss here? Feel free to email me at readingandpurpose (at) gmail (dot) com or comment on this post directly in the app/website. I love hearing from you and I appreciate your support!
If you haven’t read my recent article, Reviewing My Top Book of 2024, be sure to check it out - The Perfectionist’s Guide To Losing Control has made quite an impact on me!
From Repacking Your Bags by Leider & Shapiro.