Freedom Friday: Stop Making Your Purpose So Complicated!

This episode delves into the true nature of purpose and its often-misunderstood dimensions. We challenge listeners to distinguish their real purpose from people-pleasing, emphasizing that fulfilling one’s purpose can energize rather than drain.

• The importance of purpose is often misunderstood 
• Central purpose: glorifying God above all 
• Confusion between people-pleasing and true purpose 
• Energizing purpose vs. draining activities 
• Purpose defined by who we are becoming, not just what we do 
• Breakdown of purpose into assignments, roles, and passions 
• Exercise on envisioning one's legacy at their funeral 
• Encouragement to embrace purpose as a lifelong journey 

Let us know your thoughts on this episode! 

Chapters

• 0:09 Discovering Purpose
• 10:26 Discovering Authentic Purpose

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:09

Hello everybody and welcome once again to the Unlearned Podcast. I'm your host, beth Abigail, aka R-A-R-A, and this is Freedom Friday, where we come and share something we've unlearned recently and how it has made us just a little bit more free. So, before I get started, once again, thank y'all for listening, for watching. We absolutely love this community that we're building. Hey, if any of our episodes, our segments, are of any value to you, don't keep it to yourself. Share like comment, let us know. We're encouraged by you. We hope you're encouraged by us and, yeah, we absolutely love you guys. And so just, let's just keep building up the community guys. Let's keep sharing, keep telling people about the Unlearned Podcast. You guys are already doing it and we're seeing it. More and more people are getting to see it every day. So, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, all right.

Speaker 1: 1:06

So purpose, I think, has become very, um, it has felt like an overrated topic. I don't think it is overrated because it's very important, but it's felt very overrated. You got a lot of people talk about purpose all the time. Uh, you have a lot of people that you know there's like everybody. But the question you have to ask yourself the question why do people talk about it all the time? We talk about it all the time because it matters very deeply. There is something about knowing that every time you wake up in the morning, you wake up for a reason. A lot of times that a lot of people including me at times, and maybe even you, have woken up unsure of why we're awake, unsure why we need to get out of bed, unsure why we really need to pursue whatever life we're pursuing. I don't really know why, and that can be very frustrating at times. So you have a lot of people who have made, quite frankly, a lot of money and also who have made had a lot of impact on the world, talking about purpose in different ways. Well, I'm going to do that. So I just did all this lead up just to tell you, yeah, we're going to talk about purpose, but I kind of want to share with you something I've unlearned about it, and it's really, really helped me recently in my journey.

Speaker 1: 2:29

So I'm in a Bible study class at church, and so one of the things that recently I was reminded of is that there is one central purpose that we all have, and it's no small thing. That purpose is to glorify God, glorify our creator, make our creator look better, right, make our creator look great. Our job is to make our creator look great, not necessarily us, but to make our creator look great. So glorify God. And I love that simplicity because number one, it takes the mystery out of a lot of things. And so, if I know, when I have it's like how, how do I make the creator of the universe, how does my actions make people, uh, view him in a in a different way? How do my actions make people view God in an honoring way? How does my life make people view God? When I approach that, when I approach life like that, then I think I can wrap my mind around it a little bit. That's the first thing I've learned about purpose. It doesn't have to be complicated. It actually can be pretty simple. So our purpose, our general purpose as human beings, is to glorify God, to make our creator look great.

Speaker 1: 3:54

Here's, I think, one of the things that is difficult is that so much, if we're honest, sometimes we confuse our purpose with people-pleasing. I know that sounds like how do I confuse with people pleasing? We confuse our purpose with people pleasing because so much of our lives are not centered around pleasing God, but pleasing people. It's not centered around glorifying God and making our creator great. It's centered around making sure other people feel good, making sure other people are happy, making sure other people are happy, making sure other people are pleased with us, want us around, want to, you know, be near us, want to have a relationship with us, which then in turn, centers me and not God, right? So a lot of times we confuse that. So what we think is where we're pursuing purpose. We actually are pursuing people pleasing. We are trying to please those around us. We're trying to get applause. We're trying to make sure that we get the A on our paper. We try to make sure that other people will smile at us. We make other people smile when really excuse me when really the goal is to make God smile. And so if you haven't experienced that difference right, one way to kind of know whether or not maybe you're focused more on people pleasing than on purpose is that people pleasing is a draining exercise. It's very draining draining.

Speaker 1: 5:21

Being purposeful is energizing when you understand that you are not here for others. You're not here. Let me rephrase that. I don't want to be misunderstood You're not born to please other people, you're born to please God and in doing so, a lot of times other people will be positively impacted. But you're not here to please them. That's not your first purpose. Your first purpose is to glorify God, and so purpose living is energizing People. Pleasing is draining If you wake up and feel more drained than you do, energized, around why you're here, what you're supposed to be doing, how you're supposed to be approaching life.

Speaker 1: 6:08

If you feel more drained, it's very possible that you're confusing your purpose with people pleasing activities just food for thought. So that's the first thing right Purpose glorifying God. Second thing purpose is not about pleasing people, and if you are trying to figure out whether or not you're doing one or the other, a good way is like, hey, am I being drained most of the time or am I energized? And if you're being drained, you might be confusing purpose with people pleasing. Here's the major thing that I unlearned though this was big for me, I definitely was in the camp of purpose is about what I in the camp of purposes about what I do, purposes about what I do, purposes about what I do, and I've gone through all these different leadership trainings.

Speaker 1: 6:51

I've done a lot of things that have had you kind of write your purpose statement, right? Or your mission statement for your life, whatever you want to call it, and I have written it down. I've written down several and that sounded good. It's like, oh yeah, I think I can rock with this. This feels about right. Nothing has ever felt real, though. For me there hadn't been a statement that I've written in the past 15 years or so that has felt like, oh, I hit it, this is it. This is the way that I would describe my glorifying God. Right, I haven't hit it, um, or I hadn't hit it until several months ago.

Speaker 1: 7:34

And one of the things that helped me to hit it was to understand two things. Number one that purpose is not about what I do. That purpose is not about what I do. Purpose is about who I'm becoming and who I am, who I am and who I'm becoming. Purpose is not about what you do. It's about who you are and who you're becoming. And then the second thing is purpose is broken down into three things assignments, roles and passions.

Speaker 1: 8:03

When you begin to really break down what your unique purpose is again, umbrella of glorifying God, what your unique purpose is, you're going to find it. It lives in assignments and roles and in your passion, assignments, the things that throughout your life you are called to do, different things in different seasons. Assignments change all the time. Uh, roles is the way you relate to other people your friend, a daughter, um, a wife, a son, a husband, um, yeah, you know, a sister, a brother, a mentor, a teacher, um, a director, a pastor. You, you are these things to people. You have a role in people's lives. You have a role in greater society. You have something that is relating to people. All right, so it's broken down into roles, and what I mean by that is like, whatever it is that you're doing is going to live in how you're connecting to people through those roles. So your purpose is going to live through your role as a mother. Your purpose is going to live through your role as a pastor. Your purpose is going to live through your role as a mentor. It's going to live through your role as a spouse. It's going to live through your role as a child. It's going to live through your role as a friend. It's going to live through your role as a friend. It's going to live through your role.

Speaker 1: 9:26

Okay, the third thing is passion, right, the thing that kind of gives you that fulfills you right, the thing that fills you up, the thing that you could do all the time and never get tired of Purpose can live within your passion we talked about before earlier on in the podcast. Purpose and passion are two very different things. Purpose can live through passion. It is not passion itself. You're not always going to be passionate about your purpose. I will be the first to say I have not always been passionate about I'll say not about my purpose, but about different assignments that were attached to my purpose. I haven't always been excited about I'll say not about my purpose, but about different assignments that were attached to my purpose. I've haven't always been excited about that, and so passion doesn't have to be a part of purpose. But, um, your passion will. At some points it will. It will live through your purpose, all right, uh, your, I'm sorry, your purpose will live through your passion, but passion isn't. You're not always going to be passionate about your purpose. I hope that makes sense.

Speaker 1: 10:26

So I like to think about purpose this is what really did it for me, y'all like. I like to think about purpose in those three categories, like woven through those three categories, uh, assignments, roles and passion. And when I could. When I was able to grasp that, two things happened. I stopped trying to find my purpose, you know. This is why I wake up every day, forever and ever.

Speaker 1: 10:49

Until I'm 93 years old, I stopped trying to do that and started paying attention to where I was in my life. This is where I am. I have this role, I have these roles. I have many roles, right, um, I'm a wife, uh, I'm a mother, I'm a you know leader of an organization. I'm a daughter, um, I'm a mentor to some, I'm a friend, I'm I'm all these different roles Um, I and I have assignments, right, god is, uh, has, has, has called me to focus on doing certain things in my life right now, right, and so then there are things that I just love to do, and when I'm able to really parse that out, then I say, okay, cool. So first of all, I get encouraged because it's like I'm not trying to find this one thing that I'm trying to do and I see that there's something that lives that's threaded throughout. All of those things, all the roles, the assignments and the passion that I have and the way that I like to phrase it for me, again, all of the under the umbrella, of glorifying God, of making my creator look good.

Speaker 1: 11:57

What I have coined kind of as my purpose statement is that I want to be a living, breathing example for those. I'm sorry, let me say it again, let me get it right, I'm still getting used to this. Y'all. This ain't like. This is very fresh. I'm a living, breathing example of what I believe to those closest to me and those, um, that surround me, right, um, so I'm a living, breathing, breathing example of what I say I believe from those close, both to those closest to me and to the world around me. And then the question is like what, what do I believe? And I might go over that at a later, at another podcast but, um, there are certain things that I just sat down with myself and say I believe these things really, really deeply and I want to be, I want to glorify God by being a living example of what of of of these things that I say I believe. So it should live through my assignment, it should live through my roles and it should live through my passion, and it doesn't go anywhere because I don't, it's not going anywhere. And so, even if my roles change, my assignments change and my passion changes, because all those things are subject to change.

Speaker 1: 13:16

So one of the things that helped me to work through this and this is going to sound a little morbid, but uh, kind of thinking about your funeral. Okay, got to say it, we're going to think about your, your, your, your death, all right. So none of us are going to be actually be at our funerals unless you, you know, decide to. You know, fake, fake, do a fake out and show up. Anyway, I just my mind went crazy. Let me come back. So nobody's going to be at their funeral. So all we can do is imagine what it might be like. So what I want you to do is I want to imagine as if you're there. I know it's weird, but do it.

Speaker 1: 13:54

Imagine that you're at your own, your own funeral, and then imagine what people might say, not just what people might say that are unique, but what are things that they would say that are similar. What would you like for most people to say about you? Um, what people? What? Would there be a common theme of your life and, if so, what do you want that theme to be? What do you want the common theme by all these people who experienced you in different roles of your life, who experienced you at different assignments and who experienced different levels of your passion. What is the thing, what is the way you'd like to be described by all of those different people? What would be in common about what they would say when you begin to think about that, no matter what role I have, no matter what assignment I'm in, no matter what passion I have, all of this would be true about me.

Speaker 1: 14:55

For me, it's that I live what I believe. That's what I want to be true. I want anybody in my life to say she lived out what she believed. Period, she was real about it. She lived out. She lived it out. What was, what is it that you would want people to say about you? And then write that down, because I think that will start to help phrase this unique purpose statement that begins that, that you can begin to really like, internalize and say wow, this is who I want to become every day. I want to become a person who, blank I, ruth Abigail, wants to become a person who lives out what she believes to those who are closest to her and to the world around her. That's what I want to become a person who lives out what she believes to those who are closest to her and to the world around her. That's what I want to become every day.

Speaker 1: 15:47

When that hit and when I went through that exercise and I wrote it down, y'all tears came to my eyes. I actually wept that day because it was the first time that I'd ever come to something that I could really grab onto and I believe that was truly authentic to who I was. So that's my challenge let's unlearn purpose. Let's unravel what that means. Let's take it from being this big thing that I have to find and figure out to like this very specific kind of understanding that my entire life is supposed to glorify God. That is the purpose and that the way that that's lived out will change throughout my life. But at the end of the day, this is what I want people to say about me how would you phrase the way you glorified God with your life? All right, cool, that's it, y'all. I hope that was helpful and just be encouraged as you are continuing on living out each day to the best of your ability and just truly for all those, sometimes we just need to hear this.

Speaker 1: 16:55

Waking up and knowing the reason that you woke up is a great way to wake up. Understand that the reason you wake up remains the same throughout your entire life. Don't stress over trying to figure that out at different points in your life. I hope that that's encouraging. The reason you got there is a reason that everybody woke up this morning. Knowing what that reason is gives you the energy to move every single day. It gives you the energy to move every single day and it will remain the same, no matter what role you're in the season that you're in the assignment. You have the passion you have. Your reason for living is your reason for living.

Speaker 1: 17:39

So, okay, that's it for real. All right. Headband All right. So, hey, that's it for real. All right, had a bit All right. So, uh, hey, y'all check out next week. Uh, freedom Friday. And uh, until then, we will keep unlearning together so that we can experience more freedom. Thank you once again for listening the Unlearned Podcast. We would love to hear your comments and your feedback about the episode. Feel free to follow us on Facebook and Instagram and to let us know what you think. We're looking forward to the next time when we are able to unlearn together to move forward towards freedom. See you then.