“It is said that before entering the sea a river trembles with fear.
She looks back at the path she has traveled, from the peaks of the mountains,
the long winding road crossing forests and villages.
And in front of her, she sees an ocean so vast, that to enter
there seems nothing more than to disappear forever.
But there is no other way.
The river cannot go back.
Nobody can go back.
To go back is impossible in existence.
The river needs to take the risk of entering the ocean
because only then will fear disappear, because that’s where the river will know it’s not about disappearing into the ocean, but of becoming the ocean.
”
Our first vision of the future propels us through our youth and young adulthood. It’s our booster rocket. It launches us out into our stratosphere, and we are off. But over time we need to update this vision. We need to reassess our trajectory—not just where we want to go—but why we want to go. I call this purpose or noble purpose, but some others call this vision, or mission, or their why.
Purpose can feel both like a destination and the reason for a destination which makes it hard to describe. Purpose is something internal to you. You get to define your direction and the impact you want to have. Your purpose and the way you connect to it belongs entirely to you. And only you can know whether you are living your purpose the way that you want to.
Your purpose doesn’t have to align directly with your job, but it can. Sometimes it’s a 1:1 and sometimes it’s not. I have a dear friend who works as a therapist and her noble purpose is ‘love.’ She lives her purpose by bringing love to her work, supporting her clients to experience and bring love to their lives, and experience love in her own life. Her purpose clearly aligns with her work. But I also have a dear friend whose job is in biotech sales and you wouldn’t necessarily discern her purpose from her job title. Her purpose is ‘community.’ Her job is often technically challenging with a lot of financial pressure- and she excels at managing both—but she lives her purpose in the community she creates in her work teams, and in her volunteering at church. She is the person who is always looking out for the ones in the group or her extended family who are the ‘odd person out’—who need to be included and feel a sense of belonging.
My purpose is to help people who have been hurt to heal and grow, and to help those who work with them and love them. It’s a purpose perfectly aligned with being a therapist and a writer about trauma but can seem like a stretch for a leadership consultant. But learning that 69 of the 100 largest economies in the world are corporations and not countries—I understood that if I really wanted to impact the way adults lived their lives I needed to meet them in the workplace. I found that when I worked in organizations, I learned things about communication, emotional intelligence, systems, power and change that informed my work and understanding of trauma and made my work and writing stronger, regardless of context.
One of the biggest benefits of knowing your purpose at any given time is the clarity it gives you about priorities and decisions. It can help you decide what to say ‘yes’ and ‘no’ to. It can help you make a choice about priorities or how you are allocating your time. You can use your purpose as a north star.
For example, I was once asked to write a book chapter on a topic that I was not expert in and was not connected to my purpose. The request came from someone who was an authority in my organization and connected in the publishing world. It was offered as ‘an opportunity.’
This is one those requests that I call a ‘shiny object’—like those flashy lures anglers use to get fish.
I could have looked at the request as a way to please a boss. I could have looked at the request as an opportunity to learn a subject area. I could have looked at the request as a way to learn about writing a book chapter. Or I could have looked at the book chapter as an opportunity or stepping stone to bigger publication opportunities. All of these and more could have been options. And any of them might have fit for different reasons.
But I came to this decision with experience of writing a chapter on a topic that was adjacent to my expertise and it was still a lot of work. And I knew that pleasing someone and hoping for future gains were not guaranteed no matter how well I did.
Instead, I asked myself this clarifying question: Will writing this chapter support and connect me to my noble purpose? And the answer was a clear no. It was easier to see ‘publication’ and ‘pleasing someone’ as shiny objects, and easier to let them go.
Recently I heard the author Neil Gaiman talk about purpose: He imagines his purpose as a mountain, and asks himself with each request: Will this activity bring me closer to my mountain or farther from it?
Purpose is something that needs continual revisiting. It needs tune-ups and alignments. Why? Because we grow and change. Because the systems we are in are growing and changing. Because we get more capable and we need to be able to use our new capacities differently. And because even if you choose your exact purpose again—you are choosing it now, with new energy, and connecting it to the life you have now.
And while I don’t usually give updates in my blogs, I am excited to share a new endeavor very much connected to my purpose that combines my trauma work with the leadership work I have been doing for the last 20 years.
This past week was the launch of the Center for Trauma and Leadership, a leadership development group I co-founded with my dear friend and colleague, Carolyn Murphy.
The Center for Trauma and Leadership partners with leaders and organizations that operate in a context of repeated trauma including first-responders, journalists, hospitals and mental health centers, nonprofits, and government agencies. We offer resources and learning programs that give leaders practical, useful, and supportive tools for leading in a trauma context. Our mission is to help leaders stay in their fields, love their jobs again, and lead through trauma with emotional intelligence and kindness.
You can visit our website to learn more about our work and our upcoming open-enrollment program Leading Through Trauma—as well as other resources over time.
But starting new things and refining your purpose doesn’t always mean the loss of the old. While I will be doing new things, I am very much committed to my writing about trauma, healing and growth, and committed to this blog and conversation with you. I thank you for your support of my work and writing these past 10 years and look forward to the collective healing that we can create together.
©2024 Gretchen L. Schmelzer, PhD
For exercises to support your exploration of purpose you can read: