Your Purpose Can’t Be All About You!

In our Level 2 workshop, we give people four very simple but powerful steps to help them live their purpose. Those steps are below.

• Step 1. Move

• Step 2. Build

• Step 3. Express

• Step 4. Expand.
  
  

And those steps are all about you — which is great. That’s how you get started, get better, be true to self, and grow.

But your purpose can't be all about you, otherwise there’s no service in it for others, and it will ultimately become a shallow pursuit doomed to fail. Similarly, your purpose can’t be all about others either, otherwise there’s no joy in it for you, you'll become a slave to the needs of others, and burn out.

Ideally, your purpose needs to be 50% about you and 50% about others. Not exactly 50–50, but you get the point. You need to meet somewhere in the middle.

As we said, our workshop already covers the 50%-about-you part because Steps 1-4 are definitely about you — and that's deliberate. The 50%-about-others part means using your purpose to help people in some way. That might mean using your skills to serve people, sharing your expertise, developing a quality product or service, guiding or teaching people, and so on.

A practical real-life example would be a singer-songwriter who, instead of just writing songs about her own life, goals, and dreams, also writes songs that inspire people, makes them realise they’re not alone in their problems, transfers her life experience in a lyrical or poetic way.

Another example would be a builder who doesn’t just renovate houses for money, but takes pride in building spaces families actually feel safe in.

In the beginning, it’s fine to make your purpose all about you, because it has to be — to get you started and get you out there living it. But as you progress, don't forget to balance your focus so it includes others — serve, assist, inspire, make the world a better place.

It'll make you feel better, it’ll make them feel better — both of which will add a lot more fulfilment and meaning back into your purpose.

And generally speaking, people are inclined to help people anyway. It's built into our DNA. We love to help others. And the way the 4 steps in the workshop are structured, it's probably going to lead people in that direction anyway. You don’t have to force it — once you’re doing something well, you naturally want to share it in a way that matters to people.

But it’s important to note: some people may interpret this workshop as just, “Optimise me. Perfect me. Build my thing”, whilst forgetting about everyone else. That can tilt towards narcissism, especially if a person is already wired that way.

So please be aware: if you focus your entire purpose around yourself, it can be very rewarding in the beginning. But without some form of service to others built into it, you’ll suck the passion right out of it — and your purpose will lose all depth and meaning.