Why you won't find your purpose

If you have passed the age of 30 or 40, it is very likely that you have been asked by a friend, colleague or your mother, if you have found life's purpose yet. And it is even more likely that your answer are rolling eyes or another form of an annoyed face of yours.

Finding one's purpose has made it secretly on everyone's to do list, once a certain age is reached. 50 already and no purpose guiding your actions? – Eow, not good. Not even heard of the word purpose – arghhh, what's wrong with you? Every coaching book, Brigitte magazine, the Japanese Ikigai and Simon Sinek ("Start with Why") make us aware of the ugly truth: We haven't found our guiding north star star yet. Or to say it more poetically:

We are strolling earth like lost plastic bags, whirling in autumn winds.

(Yes, say hello to American Beauty). We're not sure why we are here and what makes us a valuable (and not just eating and digesting) habitant of earth.

So we go on an adventure to find our purpose: We fill in the form in a magazine to understand our life's goal. We read a book about it. And are often thrown-back to zero, because we have a hard time finding it. Why can't I see it clearly yet? Why doesn't it lie in front of me? Shouldn't it be just there – because I honestly searched for it?

My true believe is: You cannot find your purpose. You need to actively construct it – and there is a huge difference between finding it and actively constructing it: While in the first approach you believe you just need to go out, need to look a bit here and there and then – voilà here it is! Your purpose effortlessly lies in front of you like the door keys you searched for 5 min –, the latter approach requires an active, effortful and persistent mental construction on your side, following a constructivist world view:

The active and purposeful (ha!) act of putting together single, so far unconnected pieces of insights concerning who you are, what you love and what you're good at into a coherent story, that you deliberately decide to believe in.

And this is not a one-off act: The story will change with you, with the experiences you make, with the learnings you have. There won't be a single life's purpose that you once find, e.g. at the age of 24, and then you can rely on it as guiding star until you are 80. This is not how it works, unfortunately.

So if you are struggling to finally find your purpose, be kind and patient with yourself and don't put yourself under unnecessary pressure. Be aware that it requires you to have given effort to understanding yourself better in the first place. Then having understood and selected the parts (values, believes, behaviors, passions) that are most relevant to you. And then actively combining them in order to tell a coherent story that makes sense for you (not others) and feels right for you. And then sense check if the story fits your life backwards: If you have the feeling that this story spans your entire life and everything you did in the past magically matches that story and brings your actions to a some higher level, than there is a fair chance that you have made it! You just constructed your life's purpose! Congrats!

And if someone asks you this nasty question the next time – "Have you found your purpose yet?" – then just answer: "I am currently in the active construction phase of my life's purpose, because I believe in a constructivist view of the world. How about you?" – and I guess they won't ask again.