Dose of Dignity: Your Purpose - What, Why, & How?

In this episode of the Dignity Lab, Jennifer explores the concept of purpose, addressing common objections and misconceptions. She emphasizes the importance of understanding one's purpose as a guiding framework for life and leadership. Jennifer discusses what purpose is not, highlighting the distinction between purpose and career, and offers practical advice on how to identify personal purpose. The conversation concludes with a reminder that purpose can extend beyond work and the importance of revisiting it regularly.

Episode Resources

• Meaningful Work: A Quest to do Great Business, Find Your Calling, and Feed Your Soul by Shawn Askinosie

Takeaways

• Purpose provides direction, meaning, and significance in life.
• Knowing your purpose can help navigate opportunities and distractions.
• Purpose is not limited to career or job titles.
• Your purpose should not restrict your present experiences.
• Identifying purpose involves understanding your core values and strengths.
• Heartbreak can guide you to discover your purpose.
• Purpose statements should be broad and inclusive, not limiting.
• You can have multiple purposes in different areas of life.
• Revisiting your purpose regularly ensures alignment with your values.
• Sometimes, simply getting through challenges can be a purpose.

Exploring what it means to live and lead with dignity at work, in our families, in our communities, and in the world. What is dignity? How can we honor the dignity of others? And how can we repair and reclaim our dignity after harm? Tune in to hear stories about violations of dignity and ways in which we heal, forgive, and make choices about how we show up in a chaotic and fractured world. Hosted by physician and coach Jennifer Griggs.

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Transcript

This is The Dignity Lab, a weekly podcast in which we guide you through understanding dignity, its violations, and its reclamation no matter who you are, what you’ve done, or what’s happened to you. Here at The Dignity Lab, we believe in the inherent worth and value of each person. We also believe that our dignity is vulnerable to harm–at work, at home, and in our communities. 

Hosted by physician, narrative medicine practitioner, and leadership coach, Dr. Jennifer Griggs.

Hello, and welcome to The Dignity Lab. As a coach, I am often asked about purpose and just as often am met with objections about the very idea of purpose. Objections such as, How is it possible for me to know my life’s purpose when there are so many parts of myself? What if my purpose changes? And What if I get it wrong and end up heading in the wrong direction? 

In today’s dose of dignity, I’ll share my thoughts as a leader and a coach about purpose. I’ll describe what purpose is, the purpose of purpose, what purpose is not and some pitfalls when it comes to identifying your purpose, and some ways to figure yours out when you’re ready. And If you stick with us until after the credits, when you think the episode is over, you’ll hear how I figured out the purpose of a new thing I’m doing. 

We’ve spoken on this podcast before about the importance of self-awareness, which helps you to live, and lead, with dignity. Along with your core values, your purpose will help you be the kind of person, the kind of leader, you want to be. If you haven’t yet listened to our dose of dignity on core values, you may want to check that out too.

So what exactly is purpose and what is the purpose of purpose? 

Your purpose is a guiding framework that gives you direction, meaning, and a sense of significance beyond merely turning pages of your life day after day. The stoic Seneca wrote, If a man knows not to which port he sails, no wind is favorable. If a man knows not to which port he sails, no wind is favorable. Knowing your purpose can, as Seneca implies, provide direction and focus, helping you choose from the many opportunities available to you, and without purpose, you may fall prey to distractions and Siren songs, pulling you off course. 

Purpose can increase both motivation and resilience as well as your overall life satisfaction and your wellbeing. Knowing your purpose can help you navigate your work and your world intentionality. Along with your core values, having a purpose can help you and your team create your strategy for the work you do. It can help you in your hiring, onboarding, and retention. It can help you lean into generative conflict, help you decide what your strategy will be, which projects to take on, and which to let go. 

Before we go on, I’d like to talk about some of the things that purpose is not. It’s important not to confuse purpose with career or job title or frankly even with work at all. Your purpose is not about producing something. Your purpose is not what your parents or teachers told you you should be. Your purpose is not a one-way street. Your purpose is not a script from which you are not allowed to waver. It is not a tyrant. Your purpose is not allowed to take away your experience of your present moment. Searching to find and name your purpose should not keep you from taking that next indicated step. Your purpose is not just about you…as citizens of the world, I believe that we are called to resist rabid individualism that ignores our common humanity. 

So let’s say you’re game and want to identify your purpose. How do you go about doing so? First of all, there’s no form to fill out or algorithm you need to follow. You may have been given all sorts of advice, such as, Think about your passions and interests. Or What do you enjoy learning about? While these are clearly helpful in narrowing down all the options available in this sometimes big and shiny world, finding traction around your answers may be challenging if you stop there, particularly if you view yourself in a vacuum. 

Ideally, we’ll identify the intersection of what the world needs, our own talents, and what it is we love to do. I recommend both pulling out your core values and identifying your strengths, which you can do by asking people what they think you’re good at (since we often don’t see our own talents and contributions). You can complement that with a strengths assessment survey. I also recommend asking yourself, as does Shawn Askinosi, our last guest from Season 2, What is breaking my heart? It is in the heartbreak that we can find the world’s need that speaks to us.

Okay, so imagine you’ve done all of this and have the basic ingredients–you know what you love, you know what puts you in a state of flow, you know what energizes you, and you have an idea of your strengths and what’s breaking your heart. What’s next? 

I thought it might be helpful to give a couple of examples. Let’s say that you know that you love working with numbers, you’ve been told you’re efficient, responsive when people need an answer to a complicated problem, and that you’re a good collaborator. Let’s say your values are reliability and trustworthiness. And what is breaking your heart? Perhaps it’s homelessness or addiction or childhood poverty. You may come up with a purpose such as, My purpose is to use data, collaborating with others to answer wicked problems and identify and evaluate solutions for meeting the needs of the most marginalized people. 

Here’s another example. If you love working with people, you’ve been told you’re a good listener, you value compassion and justice, and your heart is broken by the problems faced by people returning home after being incarcerated, particularly now that you’ve listened to my interview with Mary Heinen McPherson, you may create a purpose statement along these lines…My purpose is to help create a world in which people feel cared for and about in ways that empower them to live fully and freely. 

You can, I hope, see that these purpose statements do not stuff you into a small box, do not focus only on your own needs and wants, do not limit what you can do, and do not lay out only one smooth path of success as you move forward.

Here’s another thing–you can have a purpose for other parts of your life beyond work. You can have a purpose for something like a graduation party, or a renovation project on your home, how you want to show up the next time you’re with your family, for what you’ll do when you retire. You and your partner can have a purpose. You can have a purpose for why you’re learning to swim. A special note for leaders, I believe you cannot be the sole seeker and definer of your organization’s purpose. Everyone needs to be involved. 

And your purpose can change. Just like with your core values, revisiting your purpose once a year or even once a quarter if it’s a newborn purpose, will make sure that what you call your purpose is in alignment with what matters to you, particularly as you get to know yourself better. Start small, stay curious and stay flexible.

I know that, even after listening to this, you may not have any more clarity on your purpose, the big picture thing you’re here for. You may think your purpose is too small, not mighty, or lofty, or noble. Sometimes our purpose is just to get through something. It’s hard to look past the clouds when you’re in the middle of a storm. 

My conversation with Shawn Askonosie from Season 2 would be a good pairing with this one. We’ll put a link to his book, Meaningful Work: A Quest to do Great Business, Find Your Calling, and Feed Your Soul in the show notes as well.

I’m wondering, what are you taking away from this episode? I’d love to invite you to take some time today or this week to think about and play with the idea of purpose. 

We love hearing from you. You can reach us through the Contact Us page on our website, www.thedignitylab.com. If this episode brought to mind someone in your life, consider sharing it with them. And please rate, review, etc. etc.

If you’re interested in working with a small group of others who want to live and lead with purpose and joy, consider learning more about The Dignity Lab (yep, the same name as the podcast) by hopping over to our website, www.thedignitylab.com. The Dignity Lab is a leadership mastermind in which we look at life and leadership through the lens of dignity. I’ll be hosting a Dignity Lab demo for the lab-curious on Sunday October 27 2024 if you want to see what happens in the lab. You can learn more and register for free on our website, www.thedignitylab.com.

Thank you as always for listening, and we’ll see you next time.

This has been The Dignity Lab with Dr. Jennifer Griggs.

If you have experienced a dignity violation or have a dignity dilemma and want to be a guest on our show, contact us through our website, www.thedignitylab.com. Guests may remain anonymous. 

Our website also has downloadable resources that you can access from anywhere.

This season of The Dignity Lab is produced by me, Vanessa Aron. Pete Carty is our audio engineer and sound designer. Chase Miller composed our theme music.

So I recently learned to swim. I did know how to do the breaststroke but didn’t know how to put my face in the water without pretty much panicking. I had visions of swimming freestyle with ease. I dreamt about swimming. Eventually, I signed up for four swimming lessons with Mallory at our YMCA in July and am happy to report that I can finally do exactly what I wanted to do. I absolutelyI love it. In preparation for this episode, I was inspired to figure out the why behind my swimming. I love how meditative it can be, but that wasn’t it. We live in the woods. Life here allows for 24/7 mindfulness. I have a bunch of aches and pains that go away when I’m swimming. But pain relief has never been a big motivator for me. Perhaps I want to get fitter? But my smart watch has told me that my level of fitness is already high, so that wasn’t it. Maybe I want to be thinner or sleeker? No, I am so over that. I kept asking myself, “What does it make possible to swim?” I came to the realization that I swim because I want to believe in my body again.