Finding Your Purpose Outside of Work + A Life Update

Episode 33: Today, I share all about how to find your purpose in life outside of work and a life update. So many of us attach our meaning and purpose to our careers, but it’s so important not to tie your entire identity and sense of purpose to your career. I share about how to redefine your purpose through personal goals, hobbies, learning, spirituality, and meaningful relationships, and why your purpose isn’t just one thing—it’s something that evolves with you over time. This episode is a reminder that your purpose isn’t something you have to find outside of yourself, but something you get to remember, cultivate, and live through in many different ways.

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Transcript

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Hello and welcome back to another episode of Where the Woo Meets the Work. I'm your host, Kayla, also known as Hey Kayla Bowen, on all of the corners of the internet. And today I'm going to be talking all about how to find your purpose outside of work and also a life update. I was inspired to record this episode because of what I'm going through right now in life. And I will get into that in a minute. But I also want to talk about this because I feel like in our society, the main focus on what brings us happiness, what brings us joy, what brings us meaning is our work. And this is shown all the time. I mean, whenever we meet someone new at a party or wherever, probably the number one question that we get asked is, what do you do for work? I don't think this is weird because we do spend most of our day working. We spend like eight hours working, five days a week. So it's not a weird question to ask because that's how we're spending most of our time. And I also think it's totally okay to find purpose in your career or your work or your business. I think it's great if you're able to do that because a lot of us have jobs or work that we really don't find purpose or meaning in, but you gotta pay the bills and you gotta show up for work. So it's totally okay finding purpose in your career. But I also think it is so important to find purpose and meaning outside of it. There is more to life than just working your nine to five or even if you have a business. And I think a big problem that comes with just finding your purpose inside of your work as someone who has been guilty of this is that what do you do when your work isn't going well and you aren't hitting milestones or achieving things or making a certain amount of money or progressing up the corporate ladder, whatever. How do you keep yourself regulated? How do you keep yourself from feeling empty or like you're a failure? Or what if you lose your job or you have a business and that business doesn't work out? Who are you when you detach yourself from that? Or even when you retire one day. This comes up for so many people when they retire and they've been working for the last how many ever years most of their life. What are you going to do when you retire, when you don't have to work anymore? What is going to bring you meaning and purpose? So I wanted to get into all of this today and why it is important to find your purpose outside of work and how to actually do it. But first, I want to dive into a life update. Okay, guys, I am going to give you a full-blown life update on what is happening in my life right now because there have been some major changes that I want to share with you guys. This is kind of vulnerable for me to share. I'm just going to totally be honest about what has been happening. I guess I need to take a couple steps back and say that if you're new here and you don't know my story, I have been a wedding photographer for most of my adult years, and it was not bringing me joy or fulfilling me. I felt like I was not living out my purpose. So I took a step back from it. I closed down the wedding part of my business at the end of 2024. And since then, I've still been doing photography, but I have just been doing interior design photography and branding photography for small businesses, which I very much enjoy. But at the same time, I've been trying to build a coaching business. With the coaching business, I've dabbled with a number of different niches. I started out with health coaching and then I transitioned into life coaching and spiritual coaching. And I've realized that at least right now, coaching is not for me. And it's not because I don't like it. I do enjoy coaching people. I think it's very fulfilling and rewarding. But to be honest, I just have not been embodying the type of person that I would want to hire as a coach. I still very much struggle with a lot of things, mainly my weight and my diet. And I know that doesn't totally matter if I'm not a health coach, if I'm coaching people on other things, but I just don't feel like I have my shit together enough to be a coach. Because when you are a coach, you have to show up on social media and you are selling yourself. Versus in the past with photography, I have been selling my work. And it's so much easier to put out photos that I take and be like, okay, this is what I'm selling. Either you like my style or you don't, and that's fine. I don't take it very personally. But as a coach, you are literally selling yourself. You have to show up on Instagram or wherever you're promoting yourself and show your face and talk and all of these things. And if I'm not confident in my body, it has just been really hard to show up in that way. I've felt paralyzed, like I couldn't sell my coaching services because I lack confidence in my appearance. So, all that to say that I have made the decision to go back to wedding photography. And to be honest, when I first decided this, I was a little bit bummed. Not so much because I have to go back to it, but just because of the fear of what other people are going to think of me. I worried that people would think, wow, she couldn't hack it as a life coach. So she failed at that. And that's embarrassing. But you know, sometimes life doesn't go the way that we think it will. And it's important to pivot so that you don't stay stuck doing the same thing without any results. And I mean, it's 2026. I stepped away from wedding photography in 2024 at the very end of it. So it's been almost a year and a half of not photographing weddings. And I'm just realizing that right now, coaching is not a viable option for me to make money. So I am going back to wedding photography and I'm putting some boundaries in place so that way I enjoy it more in the future. When I was looking back and I was thinking about why did I fall out of love with wedding photography? Because at the start of doing photography, I very, very much enjoy it. I put my heart and soul into it. And I could even see when I looked at the photos when I first started shooting weddings and doing photography in general, I actually like my photos more from back then than I did by the end of my photography experience. And it's because I put so much love and passion and joy and I was having so much fun taking photos versus by the end of 2024, I was so burnt out and spent that it was just like a job to me. So what I'm going to do now, as I'm getting back into wedding photography, is have some very strict boundaries. First thing is the year that I got burnt out doing wedding photography, I photographed way too many weddings. I photographed 29 weddings of my own. And if you're not in the industry, that's a lot. Like most wedding photographers strive to book around 15 weddings per year. That is pretty full time. So I did almost double that. Plus, I was still photographing for other photographers. I was associate shooting, second shooting, I was photographing family sessions, engagement sessions, interior design. I was doing so much that when I look back, I'm like, no wonder I was burnt out, no wonder why I hated it, because I was just working so, so much. And my body felt the stress of that. At the end of that year, I was also diagnosed with Hashimoto's, and I know that it was in part because I was so stressed and overwhelmed. Moving forward, I am going to only photograph 15 weddings per year. And another thing too is I live in Las Vegas. It is hot as hell. Six months of the year here, to me. Some people will argue with that and say only four months of the year, but to me, it is too hot, six months of the year. So I am not going to photograph any weddings here in the summertime because that makes me want to kill myself. So that's a good boundary to have. And I also get kind of sick of the venues here and like the environment. It's just not that pretty. It's not that pretty to photograph weddings here. It's dry, it's brown, it's dirt, you know. And I come from Portland, Oregon. That's where I was born and mostly raised. And I really think that if I had continued living there, that maybe I would have never gotten sick of wedding photography because it is just so beautiful there. I mean, it does rain a lot, so that would have been a challenge for sure, but it is so pretty. So my goal is to hopefully photograph weddings there in the summer when I am not photographing here. And I also want to take on more destination weddings. I would love to photograph weddings in California or even other countries. I photographed a wedding in Mexico before, and that was cool. But if I do that, I really do need to take my health more seriously and get it in check because at this point I am not really in the position to be traveling a ton. I just feel horrible when I go to new places and I'm out of my routine. But yeah, so those are some of the boundaries. And then the last one is that I just really want to fall back in love with photography, like how I felt before. When I was shooting weddings before, I actually had one bride who asked me if I could edit her wedding in a different style. And this was before her wedding happened. And actually, I think her wedding got canceled because of COVID. I don't think we even ever photographed it. But when she was reaching out to me and stuff, she was like, okay, can you photograph it in this different style? And that really got to me. It made me start overthinking and wondering, okay, is my style not good? Am I not photographing how I should be or editing how I should be? So I changed my whole editing style. And this time around, I am not doing that. I'm going to photograph exactly how I want to with a style that I love. So that way I keep enjoying it and feel like I'm truly expressing myself, my creativity, my art. So yeah, those are the boundaries. And that is what I am going to be pursuing next is rebuilding and opening up my wedding photography business. I'm happy to say that now I'm actually really excited about it. I think it's because I really thought it through and I thought through these boundaries. So now I feel like I can approach wedding photography and make it a business that I really love again. So, what does this mean for the podcast and for the future? I am still going to be sharing an episode every single week on here because I love recording this podcast. It is part of my purpose, which I will, you know, be talking way more about soon. But now I actually feel the freedom to share about whatever I want on here and on social media, which is such a great feeling. Before I was a little more cautious about what I would share on social media and even on here somewhat, because I was trying to build a coaching business and I don't want to offend anyone if I'm trying to build a business. And of course, I don't want to offend anyone ever, but I also can't control that. But now that I'm just going to be having my wedding photography business as the business and having my personal Instagram account and this podcast as outlets for creative expression, I feel like I have the freedom to really talk about all of the things that I want to talk about, no matter how controversial they are, and just express myself. So I'm really, really excited about that. For the future, I'm really not sure what it holds. I don't know if I'm going to succeed in reopening my wedding photography business. I really hope so, because it was successful before. But of course, I have that little fear in my mind that because I've taken some time off, that maybe I'll be irrelevant or people won't want to work with me. I hope that's not true, but only time will tell. So who knows how long I will do it for. I do know that one day I do want to sell courses, I want to write a book, and I want to host retreats, but I don't know if I want to do coaching. I don't know if I have to do coaching to do those things. Also, maybe none of these things that I want to do in the future require me to do it professionally. There's no reason why I couldn't create a course or write a book or host a retreat as a side project or a hobby or a passion instead of trying to make it my full-time living. But yeah, that's where I'm at right now. And I just want to share it with you guys because I feel like I can tell my podcast audience anything. I feel like you guys are my real homies, my true friends that show up every week and listen to me yap. So I'm glad to be able to share this with you. And I would love to hear from you. If you have ever restarted something, felt like a failure at something, let me know because you are definitely not alone. Now let's get into the rest of the episode all about finding your purpose outside of work. I'm going to share with you guys the main things that I think you can do to find your purpose that have nothing to do with work. And the first and most important one, I think, is setting and pursuing personal goals. It is totally normal for us as humans to want to accomplish something, to want to learn things, to want to create. I think that is part of being human. I think that's why we were put on this earth at this time was to learn as much as possible and to create things. But that doesn't have to be work-related. Sometimes I feel like I should only create something if it's going to have an ROI, return on investment, you know, where I can see that I'm going to make money on doing this thing. But that does not have to be the case. We can set and pursue goals just for the hell of it, just to expand our minds, our consciousness, our creative expression. And these personal goals can be big or they can be small. I'm going to give you guys some examples of some of my personal goals that I'm either working on right now or that I want to work on. So I want to visit as many national parks as possible with my husband. That's one of my personal goals because it is just so much fun. I love going to national parks. They are beautiful. They're a great way to travel. And I'm so lucky that in the United States we have so many different kinds of biomes and environments to visit. And as far as traveling goes, it's pretty affordable because my goal is to hopefully drive to a lot of these destinations and have a fun road trip with my husband. And it's just something that we really enjoy doing together. So it's a really fun personal goal. I also would love to get a black belt in a martial art. I've always wanted to do this, and I think that would be really empowering to know how to defend myself and just feel like a badass. I want to write a book and host a retreat, like I mentioned before. And I always thought that that would kind of go with a business, but I'm realizing now that it doesn't have to. I was actually just thinking the other day, I was driving in the car and I was thinking, how fun would it be to host a retreat just for my friends, where I don't charge them like a high ticket price. I just figure out what the expenses are and just be like, hey guys, why don't I plan this whole retreat? And then we can just split the cost of whatever it is. And it hopefully wouldn't be that much because we wouldn't be doing it to like make money. But I thought that that could be really fun, just a weekend retreat that I could plan and host with my girlfriends. So maybe that's something that I will do in the near future. And then another personal goal I have is to go to South Korea with my mom and my brother. My mom was born in South Korea and she doesn't have any connections really to her culture. But my brother is obsessed with being Korean and he really wants to know more about his heritage. So I think it would be really fun for all of us to go to her home country one day. So maybe take some time to sit down and journal and think about what kind of personal goals you have for yourself. They can be small, they can be big, they can be medium-sized, whatever you want, but just kind of think of it as like a bucket list of things that you want to do before you die. And they don't have to be work related at all. What are things that you want to do? Maybe if you won the lottery and you had nothing but time, what are things you would want to accomplish and to have experienced during this time on Earth? Give that some thought. The next thing I would recommend to find your purpose outside of work is to find things that bring you meaning that have nothing to do with work. Basically, just figure out what you love to do. What do you love learning about? What are hobbies or experiences that you enjoy? This is kind of like setting personal goals, except that these are things that you could do more regularly. For me, these would be things like recording this podcast, hiking, reading or listening to personal development books, coloring. I'm enjoying that lately, pottery, weightlifting. I started weightlifting and I really enjoy the community of people that are at the gym with me. And next, a hobby that I'm going to start is learning how to crochet. I used to know how to crochet in college, but that was so long ago now that I forgot everything that I learned. So I would love to start crocheting again. But yeah, just find hobbies and experiences that you enjoy. Maybe all of the ones that I listed that I do you have no interest in, and that's totally okay. Maybe you would prefer doing something like leading a workout class or skydiving or gardening, or maybe you have no idea where to start at all. If that's the case, I always recommend thinking about what did you enjoy doing as a child. When I think back to when I was a kid, something I loved doing was collecting. Do you know those like real estate catalog things? They would always be in restaurants, like in the front little area, and you could take them for free. I would love taking those as a child, and then I would look through, see all of the beautiful homes that were for sale, and I would cut out pictures of homes that I liked, of architecture that I liked, and I would just keep the photos. Sometimes I would turn them into collages, like I would paste them onto a piece of paper. And I also loved getting architectural magazines, but you had to pay for those, so usually I wouldn't get them, but I would at least look at them in Barnes and Noble. But it's funny because I can see now that I love photographing interior design, which is so similar to the hobby that I had as a child, where I would collect photos of homes. Now I take photos of homes. So just think of what you enjoyed doing as a child. Maybe it was Disney movies. Maybe you really loved Disney. How can you incorporate that into a hobby as an adult? Or if you have no idea where to start, what can you lose yourself in for hours? Maybe it's reading a true crime book or listening to a fantasy podcast. Maybe it's shopping or thrifting or crafting. Whatever it is, that is a good place to start. Or you could just try something completely new. Maybe think of things that you would never do. Maybe if you are an indoorsy person, you could never see yourself hiking or playing pickleball. Or maybe if you're an outdoorsy person, you could never see yourself scrapbooking or doing needlepoint. If that's the case, maybe just try something completely out of your comfort zone because you never know. That could be your next hobby that you actually find a lot of meaning and purpose in. Another thing you could do when it comes to hobbies and finding out what you love to do is asking yourself, is there a cause that you're passionate about? I was just getting lunch with a couple of friends the other day, and they are also wedding photographers. And they were telling me, though, about how they are developing an app for type 1 diabetes because one of my friends has type 1 diabetes, and I didn't even know that. And they were saying how they are super passionate about this cause because they want to make it easier for people who have diabetes to know what foods are making this worse for them and what foods are making it easier for them. And they actually have already developed the app, which I think is so cool. And they showed it to me and it looks awesome. Can't wait for it to be out so it can help people. But I just thought that was amazing. And when I asked them, I said, okay, if you guys won the lottery, what would you do? Would you keep doing wedding photography or would you do something else? And they were saying how they would just want to be more involved with diabetes work. So for you, can you think of a cause that you are passionate about? Maybe it's animals or the ocean, the environment, or maybe it's a disease like Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, whatever it is. If you can think of something that you're passionate about, you could volunteer for it. When I was in college, I thought that I wanted to be a grief counselor because I had experienced a death in my family, my Aunt Carrie, which, if you listened to an earlier episode of this podcast, you already know all about that. And so during this time, I volunteered for hospice. If you don't know what hospice is, it's basically when people are terminally ill, they are put into hospice, and hospice could really use volunteers. So I volunteered for that. And also when I was in college, I volunteered to feed the hungry as well because I thought that that was a worthwhile cause. And then when I was doing wedding photography, as I was towards the end, I had this idea of donating one wedding photography collection to a couple in need every year. So I only did this once before I shut down my business, but I volunteered a whole wedding day to a couple who I thought needed it. The way that I found the couple was she had already inquired for my services, but then she told me later, like, oh, actually, I can't do it because we don't have enough money and my grandma is sick and all of these things. Like she had a lot of things coming up where I was like, dang, like this poor girl, it sounds like she's going through a lot. So I offered to her to shoot her wedding and edit all the photos for free for her. And I did that. And it was rewarding for sure because she was super appreciative. I know that it made a difference. And I really think that if possible, everyone should have beautiful photos to look back on from one of their most important days in their life. So I'm just telling you guys these things as examples of things that you can do. The next way that I believe you can find purpose outside of your work is through your spirituality, religion, or faith. This will not be true for everyone. And I totally understand that. So if you're not religious, spiritual, whatever, you don't believe in anything, that's totally fine. You can just disregard this part. But for me, discovering my spiritual beliefs has really anchored me. I've talked about in this podcast before how I used to feel like I had a hole in my heart, like a literal hole in my chest that could not be filled by anything. And I felt like I didn't know what my purpose was. And I just felt so empty and restless and so much existential dread. But when I really dove ahead in to figuring out what I believed, this was completely healed. I don't feel like I have a hole in my heart anymore, which is so nice. And I feel content, which is the best feeling ever, feeling spiritually content because I know that I am just a thread in this ultimate grand design of the universe. To some people, that might sound like a downer, like, oh, you're just this little thread in this big thing. I don't view it that way at all. I feel like I am a small part of a bigger purpose of a bigger grand design. And that's a good feeling. I feel like, you know, life isn't that serious sometimes. And I also feel like everyone else is a threat in this grand design too. And we're just all interconnected and helping each other through this crazy journey of life. And with spirituality, I believe that my overarching purpose here on earth is simply to just learn as much as possible in this lifetime and to share what I learn with others and leave this world a better place than I found it. I don't feel like my purpose needs to be accomplishing a specific thing or crossing certain things off of the checklist. I feel like it is just learning and expressing myself. And that can take many forms, you know, like right now, it's through this podcast, maybe in the future it'll be through a book, through a retreat, whatever it is, but it's continually evolving as I'm evolving as a person. And I also don't feel like my purpose or my life ends here on earth. I truly believe that my consciousness is going to transfer to another dimension after this lifetime, and that my work here is not done. It'll just be evolving, and I'll probably have another soul contract in another lifetime, or I will be in a different dimension, or I will absorb back into source. Whatever it is, I know that there is a direction that my soul is going to go, and I'm just not worried about it. The last way that I really think that you can find purpose and meaning outside of your work is through building a community and through your relationships with your loved ones. I think having meaningful relationships with people I care about is so important and it really adds to the meaning in my life. I joke about wanting to live in a forest and be away from people and just be with my books and have a slow life. And I do think that would be awesome. But I wouldn't feel complete without my family and my friends and my husband. So I really wish I could just take them all with me to the forest and not have anyone else there. But all that to say that it is so important to have people who understand you and support you and to create shared experiences with. When I moved to Las Vegas, I had on my vision board that I really wanted to have a group of girlfriends because I didn't know anyone and I'm so lucky, but also not just lucky that this happened because I put in the work. So if you don't have a community, try to create your own. You could start a book club or something like a wellness club where you just go on walks once a month. You could host a dinner party where everyone brings something. But if you've been feeling lonely, just try to think of ways that you can create more connection in your life. Something else that I want to stress when it comes to finding your purpose outside of your work is that it is not something you find outside of yourself. I know that maybe that's annoying to hear, but it's something that is internal. It's less of a finding and more of a remembering. Remembering who you were before society and culture told you who you should be, and remembering that you are perfect exactly as you are. And I feel like a lot of the time when people are looking for their purpose, what they're actually asking is how can I be acknowledged? How can I be recognized? And that's not purpose. That is looking for external validation. So that's something else that we need to be careful of when we tie our worth to our purpose, which is tied to our job or our occupation, is that it's not even purpose that you're really searching for. What you're searching for is just other people acknowledging you. And of course, it is nice to be acknowledged. It's great to know that people care about you and what you're doing. But I think a more important thing to focus on is really finding your purpose and your meaning and what's going to keep you motivated, keep you happy, keep you fulfilled and content. And I used to think that my purpose was one thing, that I had to find this one thing. And I was so jealous of other people who always knew what they wanted to do in life and what their purpose and their calling was. But now I've really realized that my purpose isn't one thing. It was never meant to be one thing. It's a number of things that fulfill me. It's setting those personal goals for myself and achieving them. It's learning and accomplishing, but it's also my meaningful connections with my community and my loved ones. And it's spirituality. It's my beliefs, it's my hobbies and my dreams and my goals. It's all of these things that are contributing to my purpose. And my purpose is going to change over time, depending what season I'm in. What my purpose was 10 years ago is not what my purpose is right now. And I'm sure what my purpose is right now will not be what my purpose is in 10 years from now. I think so many of us have this idea that we just need to figure out this one thing and that we have to stick with that thing for the rest of our lives, and that's going to be our purpose, and it's going to be amazing, but I don't think that that's the case for many of us. So as I am going back to wedding photography, I really wanted to chat about this topic because I was thinking how wedding photography is not my purpose. It is not my purpose on earth. And that's okay. My job does not need to be my purpose. It can be a small part of my purpose, or it can be no part of my purpose. That is totally fine because I get my purpose from other things. All right, guys, that is all that I have for you this week. I hope that it inspired you or resonated with you in some way, and I will see you all next week. Bye.