Discover your purpose
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As you know I did a 180 from having the dream of becoming the CFO or Finance Manager somewhere abroad, preferably in any nordic countries like Sweden or Denmark, to turning my back to the corporate world and starting my own business as a leadership and mindset coach.
What led to this change, how I found my true purpose and how I navigated those times of uncertainty, is exactly what we will dive in today.
This post is especially for you if you’re currently feeling lost, stuck, unfulfilled, unhappy or all of that within your career and life. You will walk away with some key tips on how you can discover your purpose and how to prepare yourself for what’s to come if you decide to make a switch!
Because I just want to put that out there, you might already be in your dream job, but not realise it or you might find it’s other factors that are dampening your current experience and not necessarily what you actually do.
I also want to point out, that entrepreneurship might not be the answer for you as it was for me. You can 100% have the most amazing and fulfilling career in corporate, there is no one way or the other. But there is your way, and we will find out together what that is.
Let’s travel back into my last 2-ish years at corporate. I was working full-time whilst studying full-time at the same time as well. My big goal was to become a CFO, Finance was my jam, not necessarily int he form of crunching numbers, but I loved interacting with people, helping them understand the financial impact their decisions can have, strategize whats possible to align their goals with the overall companies goals.
Of course I also did all the month-end closings and budgeting, but I always preferred the people side of things, where Ialways found was more impact possible compared to adapting accruals for office chairs.
With the frist restructuring I went through, I also got assigned a huge global project as a project lead and product owner. This project at first seemed like an amazing opportunity for me as I could gain more leadership and project experience. However, it turned out to be the work that brought me down to rock-bottom. It was way more complicated than anticipated and whilst we managed to launch the new system landscape and retire the old one, I paid the prize with burning out.
When I realised what was going on I knew I needed to get out, and I needed help.
So, long story short I got a coach and a mentor and we got to work.
In this time, we did a lot of self-discovery, and we especially worked on my values and what I wanted out of life. It was pretty clear pretty fast that I couldn’t see myself in Finance any longer. There was no more joy in the work for me, I didn’t have the impact I wanted and I just felt frustrated and unfulfilled.
To find your purpose or what you want most out of life, you got to go inwards and be curious about what makes you truly happy. Fulfillment then comes from being aligned with that purpose and taking action towards it.
The key questions I pondered on that gave me clarity are:
What is most important to you?
What do you enjoy doing?
What do you want to make real?
These 3 questions will give you insight on your values and your goals. If you think right now “I don’t know”, then think of it this way: “what do you dislike the most right now? What do you want to be different?
Because knowing what you don’t want, also provides clarity on what you do want.
I heard a lovely story a couple of years back about a woman who found her purpose in being a school bus driver. She found her fulfillment and happiness in the smiles of the students she would pick up daily. And I loved this story so much because it shows it doesn’t need to be a fancy pantsy job with a wonderful title that’s your purpose. It doesn’t need to solve world hunger. It can be enough to make someone smile today, to share words of encouragement, to make a difference for on other person only.
There is no right or wrong when it comes to what brings you deep happiness. This is so highly individual, and letting go from that expectation can open up many new possibilities for you in your day to day job, because you might find you already love what you do.
Then once you found that, do more of that, and you are living your purpose.
For me these questions shed light on my desire to inspire others, to help them, to make this world a better place and to see the impact I can have, not through a balance sheet, but in the faces of the people I work with.
And that led me to signing up for the coach training. As I mentioned in the first episode, I just knew from the first second on that this is exactly what I wanted to do.
I could geek out on all things mindset, work with people and help them change their lives.
That to me was my purpose.
However, this also came with fear and uncertainty as I had to leave everything else behind. It took a while for me to decide that I want to give this a proper shot.
Navigating this space wasn’t easy, there was loads of judgement that I faced from others. For example, I still remember that I told one of my managers that I started coaching training and I was all excited about it and he said “Ah yeah, I know what that it, we don’t need these people here”. Like eeeehm wtf?
What helped me most to navigate those times were three things:
working through my own self-limiting beliefs and become aware of how I hold myself back
For example, one of my major self-sabotage types is the critic.
And this one often arises from internalised self-judgement, low self-esteem, or a need for control. And as with all self-sabotage types it stems from critical messages received during my childhood, such as harsh parenting or constant criticism. And I used it as a defence mechanism to prevent further disappointment or rejection from others by pointing out flaws or perceived shortcomings myself beforehand.
However, this led to being extra hard to myself, constantly pushing to be the best and working more and more instead of smarter or to do what others expected from me, so they’re not disappointed.
So I had to learn to uproot these limiting beliefs and step by step replace them with more supportive ones to build up that self-trust again to know, I can do this. This can be hard when starting from rock-bottom after burning out, because your confidence kind of gets anihilated in that time, but it is possible.
To find out your main self-sabotage type, I highly recommend you to take my quiz that will ask you several questions, because yours might not be the critic but instead the perfectionist or overthinker.
Anywho, the second point that emerged from this work was the self-trust, and to know I can do hard things. I knew nothing at the time about building a business, had no strategy and only a website, an instagram account and a vision of making this world a better place.
But this is your potent combo right there: having the intrinsic motivation, aka a strong WHY you wanna do something AND your #delulu selfbelief.
Then the last key ingredient that helped tremendously was to focus on the people who were supportive of me and to also let go of those who weren’t.
And here we are today.
So to sum it up, to discover your purpose your first and foremost got to go inwards, get to know yourself, what you like and dislike, what’s important for you and also how you want to be remembered.
A great way to find your purpose is to ask yourself when you’re at your death bed, what do you want to be remembered for and who do you want to be remembered as? What legacy do you want to leave behind. And again there’s no right or wrong answer, there’s simply your answer.
If you do decide your purpose lies in somewhere completely different from where you are right now, what can help you to navigate the space is to foster ultimate self-belief, build a supportive circle around you to have people to lean on and of course to take action towards it.
In the end, it’s what you do that creates the outcome and gets you closer to your goals.
So get clear, and take action.
My invitation for you is, to take 5-10 minutes or longer and journal on the question for a little bit and see what comes up. Then decide on one thing you can start doing from today, that will make you happier or get you closer to where you wanna be to live your purpose.
And I would also love to know what comes up for you, so if you’re happy to share, jump into my dms over on instagram and I give you an extra boost of motivation, or if you struggle with this a little bit, I’ll help you to find more clarity.
Need help to figure out your purpose, values and mission? That’s exactly what my Coaching Booster is for, one session you, me & a hella lot of clarity and action steps to get you going!
