You're free to choose what you do (and change as often as you want)

I hired a coach in 2019 to help me figure out my purpose. Within weeks I was able to articulate my purpose: I give people a safe space to think things through (quite the mouthful).

I had no idea what to do with that so I decided that the answer was to try a bunch of things and see what I liked. 

And in order to try all the things I wanted, the easiest and most fun way was to take a sabbatical and travel for a year. In that year, I was going to help manage a B&B somewhere warm, help manage a coffee shop, and keep an open mind for any opportunities to try something new and unexpected.

I decided I was going to do all that in 2020.

We all know how that year turned out.

Except what also happened is that I had my spiritual moment of waking up one morning in May 2020 and knowing that I was going to be a coach. It had never crossed my mind before and nobody had ever suggested it. But my path was crystal clear and not even three months later, I was in training and got my first clients.

They say you only connect the dots looking back (was it Steve Jobs who said it? Or someone else before him?). So with hindsight my purpose makes complete sense. As a coach, I do give people a safe space to think things through.

But here’s the twist: firstly, a purpose gives you freedom to fulfil its calling in any way you want. I could have opened a B&B or a coffee shop like initially planned. I could have become a therapist; I could have gone back to my fist career, journalism. I could have chosen to work in HR, work behind a bar, lead a community centre. Anything that involved making space for people to come, think, talk. It so happened that my calling was to be a coach.

And here’s the second twist: my purpose changed too, since I became a coach. Having delved deeper into my spiritual side, I have chosen to be led by a different purpose, which is to be love. This includes love of the body, of humanity, of behaviour. To be universally loving to all people and things.

I fulfil this all the time, both through my work and how I look after myself and others.

And if something were to happen and I wasn’t a coach anymore, this purpose would lead me towards something else, just as important, impactful and fulfilling. 

I am sharing all this so you don’t get too hung up on finding one purpose, and one thing to do, for the rest of your life. So that you know that you can be many things, that you are free to choose, and to change as many times as you want. You don’t have to specialise in anything if you don’t want to. Or you can specialise in something and use that in many different ways throughout your career.

The whole point is that the options are endless and they will evolve just as you do.

All you need is to heed the call to create a purpose and do work in alignment with it. 

And when you get that call, you’ll know it. Will you answer it?

The path to happiness, impact, and fulfilment is by doing so.