032: A Simple Definition of Purpose
I think that having a purpose can be really useful.
Your own purpose may seem different to everyone else’s. You may think that your purpose is ‘too simplistic’ if you were to ever compare yourself to others. But in truth, whatever your purpose is, it is the most important thing to you in your life - and that really matters.
If you have a purpose that feels right and good for you, it can give you direction and focus when you might otherwise feel lost.
However, purpose is loaded with so much hype and business hyperbole that we can get lost in a never-ending loop of needing to have the grandest vision and the boldest impact. There’s also a lot of hot air when it comes to this sort of thing, with people defining things that they don’t actually mean (or saying things that are at odds with what they really do).
Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been really enjoying Sara Blakely’s Masterclass on self-made entrepreneurship. Sara started Spanx with $5000 and turned it into a multi-billion dollar business. You might think that she must be from another planet to have achieved this, but her Masterclass provides a disarmingly human insight into how she thinks and how she works.
In episode 1, Sara speaks about her own challenges of wrestling with the idea of defining her purpose. The breakthrough came for her when she thought about it, quite simply, as the intersection between:
What do I really love?
What am I really good at?
What does the world need?
And yes, you're absolutely right, the definition of your world doesn’t need to be the entire planet.
James
