Purpose isn’t something that you find

Like most people who have read it, 'Man's Search for Meaning' by Viktor Frankl left an unforgettable impression on me. If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it.

Ultimately the book is about human suffering, yet it's so much more than that. It's about finding hope, meaning and purpose in the most unlikely of situations.

There is, of course, an entire industry devoted to helping you find yours. Books, weekend retreats, online courses, a plethora of life coaches - all of them promising to help you locate your purpose, as if it were something you'd mislaid between the sofa cushions, or left in the drawer where you keep the batteries.

You can’t blame people for trying. Purpose sounds brilliant. Certainty, direction, drive, a reason to leap out of bed in the morning. Who wouldn't want one?

The aspiration isn’t actually the problem, however. It's the verb. Purpose isn’t something you find. It’s something you grow and discover from meaning.

Frankl describes it this way: 'What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of a person's life at a given moment.'

That's often what people get wrong. Meaning can't be prescribed, packaged or delivered in a workbook. It accumulates quietly, over time, from experience - the things you've overcome, the work that made you feel good, the moments when you looked up and thought: I love doing this.

Meaning is retrospective. It's the pattern you notice when you look back at what you've done and felt. Purpose, however, is what emerges when that pattern starts pointing forward.

When I was a manager, I consistently found meaning in bringing people together to form teams that could overcome obstacles and hit their targets. Every day presented a different challenge, reinforcing the meaning I felt. When I made the decision to work for myself, my purpose became to help others do likewise. It continues to wake me up in the night with motivations and ideas, and it is the lens through which I make decisions and absorb setbacks.

McKinsey found that 70% of employees say their sense of purpose is defined by their work, and people who live that purpose are more productive, more resilient and more likely to stay. Live. Not find or buy.

Purpose isn't a destination. It's more like a current that builds gradually, from the meaning you accumulate each day. At first you may not feel it at all, but learn to trust its direction and it becomes something you're genuinely happy to be carried by.

But, like I’ve said, don't look for it. Keep searching instead for meaning in your work. Find laughter in the darkness, be kind when all around are mean, be disciplined when others waste time, be humble in the face of success and focus on what brings genuine happiness to yourself and others.

Purpose is something you recognise, in the moments when you're most fully yourself.