“Find your purpose” is one of those phrases we hear constantly. It’s in books, podcasts, leadership talks, and graduation speeches, and somewhere along the way it started to sound like purpose is this one big thing waiting out in the distance for us to finally discover.
That has never really been my experience with it.
For me, purpose started showing up when I finally slowed down enough to hear myself think.
And to be clear, slowing down did not mean sitting somewhere with a clear calendar and a glass of wine in hand. My life is still full. I’m a mom, I work, I lead organizations, and most days move fast. But somewhere along the way, I stopped constantly filling every quiet space. I became more aware of what was happening internally instead of only reacting to what was happening around me.
For a season, I kept waking up in the middle of the night. Ideas, thoughts, messages, patterns, all sitting there waiting for me when everything else was finally quiet. At first I ignored it. Then eventually I started paying attention.
What I realized was that purpose was not coming from outside of me. It was already there. I just had not made enough space to recognize it.
And once I started leaning into the things that felt aligned, they began to build naturally. Speaking. Writing. Encouraging people. Paying attention to the deeper meaning inside ordinary moments. The more I stepped toward those things, the more energy I felt around them. Ironically, the more energy I felt, the more opportunity started showing up within those alignments. It created a kind of traction that is honestly hard to describe unless you’ve experienced it yourself.
That’s when I started understanding purpose differently.
I no longer think purpose is something you “find” once and suddenly arrive at. I think it unfolds over time as you become more connected to who you are, how you are wired, and what continues pulling at your heart.
Looking back, the path begins to make sense. Certain conversations mattered more than you realized. Certain seasons shaped you. Certain opportunities stretched you in ways you could not see at the time.
But while you are living it, purpose usually just looks like the next step that feels aligned enough to take.
And sometimes once you finally start listening to what has been inside of you all along, it begins flowing out in a way that is hard to stop.