Working Towards Our Purpose

Welcome to episode 86 of Working Towards Our Purpose.

In today's episode, we are gonna talk about the question,

is it too late to find your purpose? But before we get into that,

I'm gonna take a moment and check in with ourselves, see how we're feeling.

All right, hopefully you got a second to see where you're at today.

Um, for me, feeling a little bit

self-critical, maybe like medium self-critical.

Um, feeling a little down, I

think. But yeah, feeling like I'm

not in a high enough energy level to

talk about my topic today, but that's okay because I think it's

part of the topic too. So yeah, with that,

let's get into it. Today

I want to talk about feeling like it's too late to find your purpose.

And then at the end of the episode, we'll get into two things that you

can do two actions that you can use to

find your own gifts and, you know, your own purpose.

So this episode idea came to me when I was

watching the Olympics. It's the first episode that I'm recording since the

Olympics are over, and I didn't watch too much of it, but I was really

into the hockey, and both men and women won gold.

So that was really cool. Excited about that. And

yeah, just watching like the players, the different players, like hearing some

of the backstory and, you know, the men's US

team had two sets of brothers, the Hughes brothers and the Kachuk brothers.

And yeah, just thinking like how specifically

the both of them like grew up playing hockey together and like devoting

their whole lives to hockey. And yeah,

I like, like knowing at such a young age that like, that's what you want

to do and like committing 100% of your life to

it. And, you know, it's romanticized on TV. So

like, You know, it's easy to like look at it and

sort of feel a certain way. But yeah, I think I had like mixed

feelings about it. Like part of me was like, that's so cool. Like I'm really

happy for them. Like that's like a lifetime's worth

of work and getting to getting a gold medal.

That's like, you know, what you dream of as a kid. So it's cool to

see that happen. But I also think it makes me question

my own path, my own purpose, my own

choices. And I guess it made me feel a little bit jealous, a

little bit like, dang, I didn't know what I wanted

to do then. Almost wishing I would have known so I could

have had more time to

get good at it and figure it out and stuff. And all sorts of these

negative comparison thoughts. And

I was able to realize, okay, these aren't really helpful thoughts right now.

Everybody's got a different path. This is just one example.

And sort of backed myself off a cliff a

little bit. But yeah, I think it's so normal to see something

like that and to see people compete at a high level

and excel. And win, and then

turn the camera on yourself and be like, well, what have I done?

And I think maybe that's happened to you when you were watching the Olympics, like

thinking, sitting on your couch watching it, being like, oh man, what am I doing

with my life? It's too late for me to do anything

meaningful or impactful. And yeah, I just want to break

that. That's not a true thought. That's not like,

I understand where it comes from and it makes sense

when you're comparing yourself, but it's not true.

Yeah, so we'll get into that in a second. But I also

had these thoughts of like, oh, have I found my thing yet? I don't know

if I found my thing. I don't know totally what my thing is or if

I have it dialed in completely. I still work side jobs

and stuff. So, like, the stuff that I work— that I want to be working

on isn't necessarily enough to, like, you know, pay me.

And so that brings, like, inadequacy feelings and,

like, you know, feelings of, like, well, maybe this isn't working or maybe this isn't

it. But yeah, so those are all the feelings that I've had.

And I want to address them and to talk about them because I think I'm

probably not the only one that feels like that. Especially

like, you know, if there's a voice in your head that wants to pursue something

and wants to like find your purpose and find

meaningful work. And yeah, so I

think that it's important to say that like, I think everybody has

gifts and unique talents and skills

and great things within them, but not everybody gets to

utilize those skills and talents like in their job, in their career,

in their life even. Maybe, I don't know, maybe that's an

exaggeration, but especially with work, you know, like, 'cause I

know that to be true 'cause it was me. Like, I was working as an

engineer and like, I went into it because I was good at math,

but it wasn't like what I cared about and it wasn't what

I found excitement and joy in. So then when I

went into that job, it was just, I was just always bored and

it never clicked for me. It never really worked and I was just

confused. But it wasn't until later in

life that I found certain skills that I possessed

and that job really used none of them. So it

made sense that I was so frustrated in that job

and in that career path. But yeah, I mean, I think everybody,

Everybody does have gifts, and I think sometimes it can be hard to recognize

your own gifts, and especially when you're not using them. And

I say that because, again, that's how I felt.

Like, sometimes, like, the things that we're good at just

come easy to us, and we don't even really recognize them as skills.

And that is something that, like, I found time and time again

with my life, like, thinking that something wasn't really a big

deal. And then years down the road, somebody being like, oh,

you can do that. That's really helpful. And me being like, oh, I thought

everybody could do this. So I think sometimes your own skills can really be

a blind spot because they're so used to you. You're so

used to it and they come kind of naturally to you.

So I did want to say that because I think

even just one example for me comes to mind and I've probably told this before,

but I started playing guitar in high school and

I don't know, it just, like, I did teach

myself and it didn't feel like it came

naturally to me. But now looking back

and, like, I don't know, I guess maybe seeing

other people play guitar and learn how to play guitar, I did pick it up

pretty easily. It was obviously hard and a lot of practice, But

I think, I don't know, there's something in the

way that it feels right to you, it's comfortable to you.

I don't know, it kind of just always made sense to me, I guess.

And so anyways, I didn't believe that for a long time. And I

remember I was in Guitar Center one day just trying out a guitar 'cause I

used to go play all the cool guitars. And one of the employees came up

to me and was like, "Hey, are you in a band?" And I was like,

"No, are you kidding? I'm terrible. I can't be in a band."

And I didn't say that, but I was just like, no. And he was like,

oh, you should be in a band because you're good. And that really shifted my

perspective because I was like, what does he mean? I'm bad.

So it made me kind of question how I saw myself. And I

think that was probably an early moment where I was like, maybe I'm being a

little too hard on myself. But I still didn't do anything about it. I

just kind of let it pass. But yeah,

thinking about it now, I definitely was good

enough to be in a band and you don't even really need to play guitar

that well to be in a band. So yeah, just

thinking about the idea of some things coming easy to you, but you

not really recognizing that they're easy because

they're like, you're kind of like natural to it or because you're just being really

hard on yourself. So I think that that's

like a part of finding the things that,

like, are special to you, your special unique talents, gifts,

your calling, purpose, whatever you want to call it. I always struggle, like, talking about

articulating it with a word, but sometimes they're

hidden because they come naturally to you. And that was

the point I was trying to make. So everybody has gifts, but not

everybody gets to use them in their career or their job. And

I think that's what working towards a purpose is. Kind of all about is

like trying to align your

gifts, talents, the things that you enjoy to do with

your job and with your career and what you get to do to make a

living. And yeah, like something also

I've been thinking about recently is how much

of a choice that is. And I know that there will be people that will

disagree with this, but I think like you do get to

choose what you do. And I don't know, I was thinking the other day,

I know I'm good at these certain things and

I now have the capability of going and

trying to find work or a job or a business

that aligns with those things and lets me use those

things that I think I'm kind of good at. And

that's a choice. You can make a change. You can You can leave a career,

you can start a business, you could do kind of

whatever you want. And

there's boundaries around that and certain things. But I do think

that once you recognize what

you're good at, it becomes easier to be like, oh, I think I'm actually going

to like this job, or at least

I want to give it a shot and try it out. So yeah, I think

that that's, it's an interesting thing to think about, like, especially if you're sitting

in a job and you hate it to think about like, well,

what would it be like if I had a job that used

my talents and skills and I was excited about it

and I was excited to do it and I didn't hate doing it?

Yeah, so just like, yeah, ask yourself that question. What would that feel like?

'Cause I think I do that a lot. And I think I like that. I

think I like envisioning that. And I think I like trying to think about

like how I can better use my time here.

'Cause yeah, you know, it goes away fast. So, but yeah, anyways,

that's kind of a tangent. Let me see. I kind of wrote my notes a

little too small today, so I'm having a hard time reading them.

Oh yeah, one last thing before we get into the two steps of being able

to find your gifts. I think a lot of times we focus on

things that we're bad at, and especially in

jobs, I always was told to work on the things that I sucked

at, and that's not usually

fun, but also I think it sort

of minimizes, well, you could be using that time and doing the things that

you're good at, and maybe you don't need to do everything. And I

understand why it has a place in, in like corporate America and stuff.

Like you were hired for a job and you need to do all those tasks,

but in maybe a grander scheme,

um, always focusing on like the things that you're not really that good at.

There's, there's, you know, positives in like getting better at some things, but

like, I think I've wasted a lot of time trying to

fix the things that I'm not good at instead of like

double downing on is that word double downing? Double down?

I don't know. You know what I mean? On the things that you're good at,

like focusing and spending time doing the things that you're good at instead of trying

to fix the things that you're not good at. So I think that

that's also something that I think about and try to remind myself,

like, you don't need to be good at everything. You don't need to know how

to do everything. That's why there's you

know, so many of us, and we all have unique different talents. And I think

that trying to focus more on the things that we're

good at can bring us more joy out of our work and more

satisfaction. And yeah, just working on something that you're excited

about versus something you hate is just a completely different

way to approach it. And, you know, I think you're more focused, you get

more things done when you want to be doing it versus

like knowing that you're bad at it and just doing it because you're trying to

get a little bit better. So, you know, take that with a grain of salt,

but that was just a thought that I had. So,

yeah, let's get into the two things that you can do to find your

gifts if you feel like maybe you don't have any,

because I definitely know what that feels like. And I think

the two things that— one thing really helped me, and

then the other thing is something that I always hear people say, So I'll do

the first one. People always say, like,

in order to find, like, your gifts or your talents or your calling, like, what

do people always come to you for? And this one can be a little tricky

because, again, you can, like, it could be a blind spot and you kind of

don't even notice it. But using this tactic,

I think, might be helpful. So, like, if you're into this and

you're curious, like, what people come to you for, for the next week or

so, get a piece of paper or get a journal or take out your notes

app on your phone. And anytime somebody like comes to you for a question

or asks you a question, like write it down and see

what it is that people come to you for. And I'm not talking

specifically about like work problems, but like, what do your friends

ask you for? Or like, you know, what does somebody come up to you at

work and say? Like, you know, maybe they're, maybe you're a hockey

fan and they're like coming up to you to talk about the hockey game. It

could be anything like, like what do people most go to

you to talk to or to look for help? Because

I think that that shines a light on the things that

you're good at or you have knowledge in or that you're

articulate in. So I think that this one

is a little bit harder, but if you can like try to document the things

that people come to you for, it can help give you some insights into

like what are the things that you're naturally good at. And then the second thing

is a CliftonStrengthsFinder. And I know that's like

a super corporate answer. And I did do one of

these tests, not in a corporate job, but in one of my side jobs,

like last year or the year before. And it was actually really

interesting. You do have to pay for it. I think it's maybe like

$70 or something like that. I don't know. I'll put a link in the show

notes. And maybe you can get your company to pay for it for you

because, you know, they do that sometimes.

But it was really helpful because it broke down. So it has you

ask like a bunch of questions. It's like just an online test.

I can't remember how long it took, but it was probably like, I don't know,

50 to 100 questions or something like that. And

you just like answer these questions and you're supposed to do it like as fast

as you can. So you don't like overthink it.

And so I believe it was timed. And at the end of it, it basically

just prints out this report and says what your

strengths are. And

it also, I think it categorized it into 4 or 5 different

topics and it was color-coded. So, you know,

it was really helpful because it puts the data in a really readable way and

it prints out this report for you. So for me, My biggest one, I

can't remember exactly what the category was, but it was like empathy

and relating to people and like communication.

So it was kind of cool to see that because I didn't really expect that

for some reason. Like I never thought about

that being a strength, I guess, or never really thought of using that

in a job or using that in what I do or using

that to help people. So it was nice to just like kind of see it

on paper and, you know, I'm sure it's not 100% accurate, but

it felt validating to have this test tell me like, hey,

you're good at these things and these things you kind of lack. So yeah,

organization was another one that I was good at, which is interesting because I feel

like, you know, like part of my brain can be analytical

and good, but then the other part of my brain is like emotional and like

having both of those things kind of come together.

Yeah, that test made me kind of feel seen and made me feel like

I did have some strengths and talents. So if you're feeling like you

don't have any, I think that test is a really good thing to

do to help give you some insight. So yeah, so

those are the two things that I think you can use to try to find

your gifts if you're feeling like you don't know what they are. First

thing is like seeing what people come to you for.

And trying to log that and write that down for like a week. And then

the second is the CliftonStrengths test. And I'll link

that in the show notes, like I said. But yeah, so I just wanted to

like have this episode to talk about and to

encourage you, hopefully, that it's not too late to

find the things that— to find work, to

find something that you feel purposeful in or feel

like is your calling. I think it's never too late to find it. And I

think a lot of times we can compare ourselves and we can sort of

belittle ourselves and belittle our talents and belittle the things that we're good at

because we didn't win a gold medal. But that doesn't mean that

it's not helpful. And that doesn't mean that it's not gonna help the people around

you and the community that you're in. And,

you know, everybody who you come in contact with, you could change in a positive

way. And I think that when you're, working in alignment with

yourself and your gifts, then you can do that more often.

And yeah, I think I'll end

it there. But yeah,

if you enjoyed this episode or any of these episodes, if you could share

it with a friend, I'd really appreciate that. And if you haven't

left a review on Spotify or Apple,

if you could take a moment to do that, I would really also appreciate that.

And then in return, I have a free

guide for you, 7 Days to Softening Your Inner Critic. If you feel

like you are hard on yourself, you can download

this guide and it's a 7-day short,

like 20 minutes a day for 7 days, and it'll help you

hopefully be a little bit kinder to yourself. So that's

available for you in the show notes of any episode. And

yeah, that's all I got for you this week. Hopefully, this is

helpful. And I appreciate you tuning in. I'll see you on another

episode real soon. Take care.