Purpose@Work

A recent conversation with a friend got us talking about passion and purpose and how it needs to be intertwined with work. One thing I found common in a lot of people energized at work was - their ability to find or build their purpose @work. And when I say purpose, I am not talking about a higher order purpose to define our existence but a little bit more here and now that makes us happy and helps us drive our energies towards an outcome.

I don’t want to turn the note philosophical with – have you found your purpose? Because I feel it is one of the most difficult things to discover, can keep evolving as we age, yet might be the simplest things in life.

From a workplace perspective, a purpose-driven culture is typically defined as one where an organization's purpose/value aligns with an employee's personal goals, leading to employees acting as an embodiment of the values of the organization.

Yet purpose first starts at an individual level. For people to participate in a purpose driven culture they need to first understand what their individual purpose is. Hence, difficult to make it a top -down approach but rather ends up being a bottom-up approach. It is therefore important for leaders in an organization to understand the purpose of their people at an individual level to be able to tie it back at an organizational level. And purpose tends to vary at an individual level. From recognition, reward, titles, to learning, pride, impact, ownership etc. Finding this purpose at an individual level can really be difficult.

Growing up (professionally) I probably had zero purpose and therefore work didn’t seem to make the kind of connections it does now nor was I motivated or driven enough to think, reflect, and change in ways that would have benefitted my personal and professional growth. The initial years ended up being more discovery busy with experiments at role level to land onto things that made me the happiest or most productive. I found my purpose somewhere I was never trained to look at – people and giving back. Hence, I do understand while talking to a lot of early-stage professionals that things around purpose still seem distant because a lot of them are busy trying to find feet on the ground. But the paradox here is that till you don’t find your purpose at workplace; you will never feel like you have found a foot on the ground as well. The many memes on social media about being unhappy at work, waiting for the day to end, and figuring out ways to stay afloat in corporate life are a huge signal that people have found jobs not purpose.

So then how do we find purpose @work? Here are some of the things that I experimented with that helped me get closer to defining my purpose at workplace:  

1. Find what makes you happy / Do what makes you happy – there are always some things that will make you happy – helping others, recognition, family, problem solving, growth etc. Examples here can be endless and would really depend on you as a person and your individual life journey. I figured early on that I am not a numbers person, while I am qualified to do the same, but solving number complexities did not energize me as much as solving human complexities did (and trust me both are tough!). The other passion area was giving back or serving the corporate goal through larger community engagement. I learnt slowly how to incorporate these in my work under the guidance of my leaders to a point where it ended up being my fulltime work. Irrespective of your role or title you can always find ways to incorporate what you enjoy doing most in your work rhythm.  Some people grab the opportunity through the various initiatives running in an organization – employee resource groups to internal job movements. Find that energy that helps you get up in the morning wanting to come to work!
2. Build a world view – this happens to be my top advice to many because I feel our life alone may not be able to give us exposure to diversity of life, thoughts, and ideas. We may live in our bubble that might restrict the way we decide and think and react to situations. Get curious about people and their journey, don’t just travel to a resort but travel to volunteer in locations that you otherwise would not have visited. Volunteering has been the single biggest influencing part of my life. I have visited nonprofits in remotest of corners and trust me no one teaches you about life the way such experiences do. My belief that money makes you happy went out of the door completely during such visits. I have seen the happiest of people in our rural sides who are very content with their quality of life and the work they do. Helped me understand soon enough that true happiness comes from the quality of your work and not the quantity (titles or money!)
3. Build a mentor network – mentors’ matter! They really do. Helps to build a view and dive deeper to answer questions from their own experiences. Finding a mentor/coach can be beneficial to get access to a perspective that may help solve some challenges around purpose. My mentors have time and again stepped in when I am in a state of confusion or need to double check on my thought process. They have also pushed me into terrains I would have otherwise never imagined venturing towards. Not knowing is not always a bad thing but not doing anything to find out most definitely is!

 As rightly quoted by Mark Twain, “The two most important days in life are the day you born and the day you discover the reason why.”

 Happy discovering yourself! Please share ideas on how you found your Purpose@Work for all of us to learn.