The Myth of “Finding Your Purpose” - 50

In the final episode of the series, I explore purpose—not as a fixed destination, but as an evolving relationship with your life.

I reflect on how being good at something (like law, math, or argumentation) is not the same as being aligned with it.

I also share how childhood interests can offer clues to our deeper wiring—but not necessarily direct instructions for our future.

This episode unpacks the difference between skill and calling, competence and alignment, and why purpose often requires us to learn new things rather than rely only on what we already know.

Ultimately, purpose is not found. It is lived into—through awareness, experimentation, and integration.

Transcript

Autumn G Noble (00:00)

Welcome back to the podcast. Over the last two episodes, we have talked about identity and conditioning socially and environmentally, as well as nervous system patterns and what happens when you finally start reconnecting with yourself after years in that survival mode. Eventually, if you stay in this work long enough, another question starts to kind of quietly emerge in the background. And usually it's something that kind of

shows up as a feeling at first, like a nagging kind of discomfort. And over time, I think we're able to articulate that larger question that, okay, I've regulated my nervous system, I've questioned my identity and my path. Now, this lingering question in the background is, what do I do with all of this? And what is my purpose moving forward now that I've sort of regulated myself a little bit better?

In short, it's that question that comes, okay, I'm not just surviving anymore. Now what do I do with my life?

And honestly, I think this is where a lot of people get stuck. And lately, I've been getting a lot of new coaching clients that are really stuck on this question of life purpose. So I spent the last several months really digging into these questions around purpose. And how do we distill that clarity from all the personality tests and all the quizzes you can take online about what I'm supposed to do with my life and where do my skills most align? I've really kind of broken it all down.

I've read it all and developed a process that I think can help you get a little bit more clear on finding that purpose. Today I wanna talk about just a few of the insights that I've gleaned that can maybe help you start off on that journey to find your purpose and more meaning in your own life.

I think one of the biggest problems around purpose is that we're almost taught like it's this secret thing that lives fully formed and planned within us that we have to discover. It's like a secret within ourselves that if only we do enough work, the answer will make itself clear.

And I just think that is a huge misconception that there's one perfect answer and one perfect path for all of us, a perfect career and a thing that we're meant to do.

then you add this whole wave of mindfulness and this coaching trend to it. And it's almost like if we meditate hard enough or coach hard enough or heal enough, eventually we'll figure out the answer. But I don't actually think that that's how purpose works. And certainly that's not how it worked for me. I think it's something that we build more intentionally and something that can evolve over time.

And furthermore, I think our purpose changes and evolves as we change and evolve. And most importantly, I think it's less about a moment of clarity and finding that one thing and more about a relationship that you develop with your life over time. And psychologically, that distinction is pretty important.

The research in this area shows us again and again that having a sense of meaning and purpose in your life is associated with improved psychological well-being and lower rates of depression, higher life satisfaction, and even improved long-term health.

So I think overall, the question of purpose really has an impact on all areas of our life, including our physical and mental wellbeing. But I wanna be really clear here and say that purpose is not necessarily tied to one fixed identity. I think it's more about connecting with meaning to making a greater contribution and feeling.

internally aligned with your life, whatever that may mean for you.

And that internal alignment changes everything. A lot of people, I think, are waiting for that certainty to show up before they move. They're waiting for that kind of lightning aha moment of, okay, this is my purpose. This is what I meant to do before they start pursuing the purpose. They want that clarity before they even begin. And I will tell you, I promise you, that rarely comes.

at the beginning of the journey. Rather, the journey starts with just some type of uncomfortable action or exploration, curiosity, experimentation. And then over time, clarity can start catching up as we engage in those brave acts of exploration and evolution.

All of this is really not only based upon the research that I've done, but my own personal experience in these explorations. When I started doing work around my own identity and healing myself, there was a phase where I became really kind of uncomfortably aware of my patterns and my little tricks that I would play. I could see my people pleasing and my perfectionism.

loud and clear and let me just say none of that is completely and 100 % fixed. I'm still a human with the human brain and I am not perfect, but I developed a real awareness of those and I can see clearly when I am persuaded back into those patterns. I also started to recognize ways that I kind of abandoned my own wants and needs in order to stay safe or feel successful or feel accepted.

And then I started kind of adding the body work and I started reconnecting with my body and regulating my nervous system through meditation and Reiki and all of the things that I discussed in the last episode. At that point, I started slowing down enough to really feel and connect with what was happening internally within me instead of just constantly overriding myself and just running.

the race. I started paying attention to who is this person running the race instead of just showing up every day and running. And eventually that the awareness of myself and all those patterns, it stopped being enough. And I started really wanting that awareness to take me in a different direction.

As I started to see kind of everything a little bit more clearly, I kind of panicked because I didn't know how to build a life based around this new awareness. I saw all of these things in my life that I needed to change, but it started to feel really overwhelming when you think about every piece of the puzzle that's gonna have to shift in order for you to show up in greater alignment. I was gonna have to maybe ruffle some feathers at work. I was gonna have to change.

my personal relationships. was gonna have to change the way I was showing up with my friends and my family and the people in my romantic relationships. And it really, it felt very overwhelming at first. But over time as I chipped away at it, what ultimately was left was the big question of, okay, I've done this work in my personal life, my relationships, but what about my career? And what do I do with that? And that was sort of the last kind of hurdle.

in this journey that I was on, because I think for a lot of us, we connect identity and purpose with our career. And that's where, for me, I think the work really started to begin, because the question I get again and again in coaching is, I want to feel more purpose-driven. I want to feel more aligned in my career. And how do I figure that out? And how do I get clear on that and how to move forward in that space?

through coaching, one of the conversations that we have when you're in this space is just taking a little bit of inventory around what is it that you do in your life that makes you feel alive? Or can you identify areas in your life where you enter a flow state, where you kind of lose track of time, you forget to eat lunch, and you're missing things around you because you're so wrapped up and passionate about the work that you're in? Are there things in your life that make you feel like you're

You have meaning. Are there things that continually come back and pull at you? And are there things that you're willing to learn and evolve within even when that learning process is difficult or more challenging than you would like it to be?

And interestingly enough, research around meditation and psychological flexibility shows that as people become more self-aware and emotionally regulated, which is what I'm talking about in the last two episodes, when people kind of cross those bridges, they become a lot less rigid about how they define themselves.

And studies suggest that meditation and nervous system regulation practices actually increase our cognitive flexibility, meaning our ability to adapt, of reconsider our identity and who we are and move beyond our automatic thinking patterns and kind of past conditioning and evolve into something new. And I think that's really important because purpose requires that flexibility. And that is why for this month, this is the

third episode in this series because without those nervous system tools and that identity work, it's very difficult to take action on any identity shift or purpose shift without that foundation and studies support that again and again because as you develop those skills, your ability to see yourself differently and take action to create a new identity becomes so much stronger because in order to connect with your

purpose, we have to stop identifying with only one version of yourself and be open to creating a newer version, a more evolved version of yourself and all of the discomforts that will come with that.

One of the things I loved so much about this work and research on purpose that I've been doing is being able to look back and explore my childhood ⁓ and really think through who I was and what I was passionate about before I kind of got conditioned or told what I was good at or what I should do. And I think sometimes the clues to our purpose really does go all the way back to childhood. And it's not because

There's this like secret destiny that lies back in that time. But it's because during those early ages, our wiring of who we are and what lights us up is so much clearer because we haven't been clouded with so many outside influences just yet, or even experiences just yet. When I look back at my own childhood, I do feel like there were kind of signs everywhere.

Growing up, I developed a passion for speech and debate and writing and communication. And really at the root of it was trying to understand how ideas worked and how other people were thinking. Within that was this desire to help people feel understood and kind of mediate challenges. That was something that really lit me up. I've always been, I don't think pacifist is necessarily the right word, but I've never really liked conflict.

Instead, I liked helping people kind of understand different perspectives. I was also really naturally analytical and math came really easily for me, which meant pattern recognition was a skill I've always had and structured thinking was something that always came really easily to me. So for a long time, all of those kind of skills and talents put together led me toward law, which made sense and

that path kind of rewarded the intellect and the performance and the communication and argumentation and competence and all of those things. And I was good at it, but that wasn't really necessarily, I think, the path that I was meant to go on. It's just sort of checked all the boxes for these tools that I had. And looking back even more, that passion for helping people understand ⁓ disparate points of view and communicate those and feel heard.

That was actually what was really important to me. And being able to kind of recognize patterns and how people were thinking and operating, that was something that really lit me up. And I think my skill set in math kind of relates to that. And I think back to how I spent my time as a kid. I loved just being alone and writing. And yes, I do a lot of writing and practicing law, but I have really gotten away from that.

And now as I've kind of been on this journey, I'm realizing now that that early passion was something that I overlooked and didn't see as a real clue towards my path. And I kind of let it be watered down into writing within the legal profession. And I think we all have these things that we did with our time as kids and things that came really naturally to us that we forgot or we tried to like...

make them fit square peg round hole kind of a thing and make them fit with this career, this path that we are on. And so I think when you're considering what you really want to do with your life or what your purpose may be, asking yourself, what did I enjoy as a child? What was I really good at? What did people praise me for? Or what did I enjoy doing when no one else was around watching me? I think it can give us a lot of clues around our wiring, not necessarily instructions for our destiny.

But I do think there's something in those early patterns and passions that can give us clues as to what we might be, ⁓ maybe should be exploring now as we evolve and try and find more purpose in our life.

Given that, I want to be really clear and state that just because you are good at something doesn't necessarily mean that it has to be your purpose. And so yes, we're looking back at our childhood and things that we were good at, but I really want to be looking more for what did we actually really enjoy and what lit us up, not just what were those innate skills and talents that we kind of have. Because I think this is where a lot of people get confused about purpose.

We all have a lot of talents and lot of skills, but just because you're good at something, it doesn't necessarily mean that you're meant to build your whole life around it.

And this is where I think behavioral psychology can really be enlightening around the identities that we built and the career paths that we pursued because here's what the research tells us. Reinforcement strongly shapes our identity. So if you're praised for something, if you're rewarded for something or you're successful at something, our brains will naturally begin associating that thing with safety and value and identity.

And this happens even when it's not something that's emotionally aligned. So sometimes we start to confuse that positive reinforcement that we're getting from everyone around us with alignment. Your brain likes the feel-good. And when we're doing something well and praise comes from it, our brain starts to say, okay, that's part of who we are. That's part of our identity. That's part of who I'm supposed to be. And while that may feel very compelling,

that is not the same thing as alignment. And so just being very aware that because you had a talent for something early in life, the surrounding encouragement and reinforcement and support could have driven you to pursue that thing as a career and as a path because it felt right. It felt like that's what we're supposed to do. But that feeling isn't necessarily alignment. It's just reinforcement and your brain kind of letting those good

good hormones, those endorphins go every time you get that positive reinforcement and feedback. And so we think that this matters. And I want you to really hear me when I say that doesn't necessarily mean alignment and purpose.

I think this only gets worse as we continue to develop those skills and talents and we receive more praise and we become known for something or we become successful at something. And eventually over time, our identity starts to become wrapped around continuing to perform that role for the praise. But skill and calling are not always the same thing.

As I was doing this work myself, I remember thinking, gosh, I was always really good at math and I really enjoyed it. And maybe that's what I was supposed to pursue because I had this talent for math. That's just the way that my brain worked. And I think that that was one of those skills and talents that even though I was good at it and I had a lot of positive reinforcement around, know, majoring in math and studying mathematics, I realize now that it was just an indication of kind of how I was wired.

I'm really good at kind of picking out pieces of information and finding the patterns within them. And I think that is a good fit for a law. I think it's also a good fit for coaching. And so I had to let go of that idea that maybe there was something there I was meant to pursue. I just happened to be good at it. And a lot of people sort of reinforced that and told me that it meant something and it didn't. And I'm thinking it's more of an indication of how my brain worked.

and how that talent can suit me in a number of different ways that doesn't require me to major in mathematics.

So when you start thinking about your purpose, the question isn't necessarily, what am I good at? What have I always been good at? But more, what feels meaningful to me and I'm willing to continue showing up for even when it challenges me, right? So what has such a deep, compelling meaning for me or a deep, compelling pull for me that I'm willing to sign up for some challenge in order to pursue it?

That's a very different question than what am I just really good at? Because when we're just really good at something, we're not risking failure, there's probably not a lot of discomfort there. And I think for many of us, our purpose is on the other side of that discomfort. It's not living in those spaces of talent where things come easy.

So the message here is really not every talent has to become a career and not every interest that you have has to become an identity. At the same time, some of our most important gifts are the ones that we overlook because they come so naturally to us. There are things that may feel effortless, but to others, they may seem like abnormal or a little bit unusual. And sometimes you can hear people saying like, how do you do that?

You know, it wasn't too long ago, my husband said to me, he's like, there's something about you that people just want to share everything. He's like, you meet a stranger in 30 seconds into it, they're telling you like their deepest, darkest secrets and passions. He's like, there's something about you that gets people to open up. And I thought it was normal. I thought that's just how people were. And that was one of those moments of, okay, that makes sense why I'm in coaching and why this type of work.

and connection with other humans is a line for me and part of my identity. That is a skill and a talent that for me seemed very commonplace. It just felt very natural and effortless, but to other people, it's a little bit sort of outside the realm of understanding. And so those are the things we wanna start kind of questioning and wondering about. And sometimes it's helpful to ask the people around us,

What am I really good at that is difficult for other people to do? You might be surprised at the feedback that you get. And some of those answers might be the key to kind of figuring out what your purpose and true alignment might look like.

Another thing I've learned about purpose that I think is really important to talk about here today is this. Purpose is not necessarily limited to what you already know how to do. I think there's a huge misconception that our purpose has to be something that we're naturally good at, that doesn't require a lot of work and effort to hone the talent. But in fact, I think finding your purpose often requires you to become a beginner again.

And that is what is deeply uncomfortable for a lot of high achieving people. Many of the people that I coach, you know, kind of like me, they had a career, they had done the thing, and then they're like, none of this resonates with me and none of this feels good anymore. People like that are not very good at failure, right? Or admitting when things aren't working. There's that perfectionism and people pleasing built into a lot of high achievers.

So coming to that reality of I might have to start over and not only start over, but kind of admit to everyone around me that like, I'm really good at this, but I don't love it and I'm not passionate about it. And there's a tremendous amount of discomfort around all of that that I think keeps people from pursuing real meaning and real purpose. Because when your identity is built around competence, admitting that you

are wrong or admitting that you need a change or admitting that you're unhappy is very difficult. But then also embarking on a passion for purpose where you might be bad at something out of the gate can feel very unfamiliar and very threatening.

But passion does not start with mastery. It often starts, I think, more accidentally. Maybe it's a random conversation, a book, a class, a guest speaker, or just a moment of curiosity that kind of came out of nowhere.

Sometimes we have those little sparks that come and sometimes they fade quickly and sometimes they kind of linger and keep

And I think that's how passion comes into our lives and these little flecks and sparks of kind of locking in on something. And I think back to my first experience with my coach or my healer. And I just had these moments of like, this feels right. This feels where I'm supposed to be. This feels very aligned for me. Then I go back to work and I move about my day and I kind of let that spark go.

But I really think that it's those little flecks of passion and curiosity that are signposts for that greater purpose that maybe we're meant to pursue.

as you identify those things that light you up and maybe start getting more curious about them or exploring them a little bit more, that's where potentially that little spark can become a little painful because even though something is meaningful for you and there's a light and a passion there, right? You're kind of exploring like, why did that feel so aligned? And what was it about that that really got me lit up? As you explore it, challenge is going to enter the picture.

And that's where the question of is this aligned and does it feel aligned and does that outweigh the challenges really comes into play. Because when something matters to you deeply enough and lights you up enough in that very aligned kind of a way, the meaning of it will outweigh the discomfort of learning and not being good at something right out of the gate. And interestingly enough, there's a lot of research that backs this up as well.

The self-determination theory, which is part of motivation psychology, tells us that motivation develops through three things, autonomy, curiosity, and competence development. It's not skill and competency right out of the gate. It's not instant certainty. It's an exploration.

And I think what this tells us is that purpose is not discovered fully formed. It's something that we construct and we build through engagement, evolution and development. And that passion that we have, those little things that light us up, does not require talent at the beginning. It just requires us to be curious enough about that thing. You know, why is it that I felt that way in that conversation? Why is it that that that

you know, movie or that documentary or that speaker really lingered with me. What is that? That's the curiosity that we need to follow to track that passion. It doesn't matter whether or not we're good at it or skilled at it from the beginning. Most things worth doing begin with us being terrible at them at the outset.

And part of this exploration towards purpose and passion and new identity requires us to be open to play before we start to master something. of follow that passion, we play around with it, we get curious about it, we invest in learning, we find ourselves being challenged but still wanting to learn. And I think that's the magic of pursuing passion.

I personally think that that's what keeps a lot of adults from not ever finding their deeper purpose is because they refuse to become beginners again, or they really hesitate to pursue a passion in an area that they're not already experts in, or they're not already talented in. And I think this goes back to this misconception culturally that our purpose has to be tied to some innate talent that we already have. We have to throw that out.

and recognize that we have to find those sparks of passion, pursue them, explore them, and sign up for the learning, for the challenges, and invest in becoming a beginner again and learning something new. Because true skill only develops over time. It's not something that you're born with. So we have to invest in pursuing those passions and learning through repetition, through devotion, and willingness just to keep showing up for yourself.

For me, as I started to make this switch, I realized that coaching required totally different skills than practicing law did. I had to develop my emotional literacy, my presence. I had to start listening a little bit differently than I did in law. And then you add the nervous system regulation work that I do, like Reiki and bodywork. I had to learn a lot about the nervous system that I had never learned before and our stress responses that I had never studied before.

And it required me to develop a new type of openness and willingness to learn in these areas that maybe I wasn't that interested in, but I needed to understand in order to be good at this work. And then you add the teaching and the podcasting, and that required a whole new level of vulnerability that I was not skilled at. Being open and honest about my past and my experiences and sort of throwing caution to the wind, knowing that people are gonna judge me and gossip about me and talk about me and have a lot of things to say.

about the things that I'm saying. That took a long time for me to get past that. Nevermind all the technical skills that go into running a business and having a podcast and all of those things. But over time, I stopped asking that question, what am I good at, to what am I willing to learn in service of this goal, this thing that really matters to me and feels really aligned to me.

Does it mean that I have to do a lot of things that maybe I don't really enjoy? Yeah, it does. But it's worth it because of the alignment that I feel and the certainty that I have that this is a path that I'm supposed to be on.

The last thing I wanna touch on here today is just being open to examining your life and your past through a lens of signs and synchronicities and seeing if there were other signposts along the way that may be steering you in a different direction. I just talked about kind of those flecks of passion and insights and moments of flow. Those are absolutely part of that backward looking kind of evaluation of what were the signs I missed.

but I think there's also random moments in your life that quietly guide you on that path. And this is where synchronicity comes into the conversation. And when you talk about synchronicity, you have to talk about Carl Jung. He describes synchronicities as meaningful coincidences, events that appear unrelated, yet align in ways that feel deeply significant. And whether you interpret synchronicities as a spiritual thing, psychologically or symbolically,

I think a lot of us have experienced moments that felt bigger than randomness. People that you accidentally that totally redirects the trajectory of your life, opportunities that arrive at the right moment, difficult seasons that later become the thing that kind of prepare you for the next chapter. If that hadn't happened, then this wouldn't have happened. If that terrible thing hadn't happened, this wonderful thing wouldn't have happened. I think all of those can help kind of

lead us towards ⁓ signposts for our purpose and direction. For me, some of the very challenging experiences that I had to go through personally and professionally, they led me to a coach. Certainly my career and the challenges there showed me that I need additional support beyond what I was getting in my workspace. And so I found a coach. The challenge and trauma and violence in my personal life showed me that

I needed to work on my nervous system regulation and that led me to yoga and meditation and reiki and energy work. And those are sort of two halves of the whole that ultimately changed my whole life. And I think the women that I met along the way came in for a reason. And I will say these women kept coming back to me, right? I met my coach, my career coach first, and then I was like, it's too expensive. I don't want to do it. Years later,

She pops up in my world again. And so every little thing, there were all these little signs and these little kind of nudges, like this is the direction that you need to be going. I went in-house with the Fortune 300 company years, 10 years before I ever wanted to go in-house. And it happened at the same time that I was starting my coaching certificate. And it...

offered me the opportunity and the space to really engage in the work. Had those things not happened at the same time, I probably wouldn't have pursued coaching. I pursued coaching because one of my best friends was listening to a podcast and they were talking about getting coach certified. And she was like, you really need to think about this. This is also the friend that years before had introduced me to her coach. I met the coach, I said, I don't think so. And then she just kept bringing it up over the years again and again. And so it just seems like looking back,

there were all these little nudges kind of funneling me in this direction and things that happened at the right time that not only showed me the efficacy of this work, but kept reaffirming this is the path that you need to be on again and again and again. So a lot of times these are very subtle and I would encourage you just to kind of think through your past and see if anything jumps out at you. It could simply be a repeated idea, a repeated invitation like it was with my friend and her coach.

a repeated feeling that you can't ignore. For me, that was a tremendous amount of discomfort every time I would go into to work at a law firm. I just felt like this is not aligned, something is off here. And over time, I stopped ignoring it. So the more you become connected to yourself, the more clearly you're gonna start noticing those patterns that can also help you figure out, okay, maybe there's something more for me to explore here.

So this brings us back to kind of the larger theme of this month. My first episode this month was about identity, conditioning, survival patterns, and the rules that we learn to perform.

Episode two was about our body and our nervous system and the need to kind of balance that regulation with our identity work, how we often carry the past with us physically and how regulating that can change our perception of everything. Now today we're talking about purpose. And as I said, purpose does not emerge from ambition alone. It comes when identity and our nervous system aren't operating from a survival condition.

space because survival asks how do I stay safe but rather purpose asks how do I stay honest

And for me, this evolution was pretty straightforward. Law gave me identity, validation, coaching, awakened awareness and service. But Reiki and bodywork brought regulation and embodiment. Through teaching and podcasting, I was able to integrate and express some of these things that I had learned. None of this was random.

but none of it also happened all at once. It kind of unfolded gradually, and I think that's how purpose often does. And honestly, I don't think it's something that we ever fully arrive at. I think we participate in it, I think we stay in a relationship with our purpose, and it becomes less about finding one answer and more about staying connected to what feels alive and honest and meaningful and true in every season of your life. And I think over time, it just sort of builds.

this new identity.

I really want you to hear me when I say and kind of conclude here today that clarity does not come from standing still and waiting for lightning to come and tell you what's next. It comes from movement. It comes from action. So if you're in a season where you don't really know what comes next, it doesn't necessarily mean that you're lost. Maybe you're simply in the middle of a becoming because purpose is not.

Asking you to have the whole map right now like that's not how it works It's only asking you to find the next right and honest step and after that the next step will make itself known But it's having the bravery to take that first step For me purpose has been a lot less about finding the right answer and more about staying in a relationship with what keeps me feeling alive and honest and True and that relationship continues to evolve as I think it does for all of us

So thank you for being here with me this month for this series. And if this conversation resonated with you, please check out Becoming Her, which is really kind of the behind the scenes lab for everything that we've explored this month. It's where we go deeper into identity mapping and nervous center awareness, embodiment practices, and purpose integration.

It's a space to build a life that reflects who you're becoming and not just who you had to be to survive and please those around you. So I will leave the details for that in the show notes and until next time.

I invite all of you to engage on some of the questions and explorations that I mentioned in today's podcast and send me a note. Let me know how this work is going for you. Let me know what resonated with you. And if you want any additional support, finding your purpose and more alignment in your life, shoot me a note, autumn at the uncomfortable dream.com. Thanks so much for being here and thanks as always for sharing with your friends.