Why Do You Exist? The Power of Owning Your Why | Episode 2 | June 2026

What drives you every day?

In this episode of Own Your Fight, we explore one of life's most important questions: Why do you exist?

Your "why" is more than a goal, career, or title—it's the deeper purpose that fuels your decisions, shapes your impact, and gives meaning to your journey. When you're clear on your why, you gain confidence, direction, and the ability to navigate life's challenges with greater clarity.

In this conversation, we discuss:

• What it means to discover your purpose
 • Why so many people struggle to identify their "why"
 • How your purpose influences your personal and professional life
 • Questions you can ask yourself to uncover what truly drives you
 • Practical steps to start living more intentionally

Whether you're feeling stuck, searching for direction, or simply ready to live with greater purpose, this episode will help you begin the journey of owning your why.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Well, welcome to this episode of Own Your Fight, or welcome back if you have subscribed and you're already part of the family. I'm your host, Sarah. If you missed our couple episodes in the beginning, go back, check them out, especially going into today. Now, before we jump in, I'm gonna be so for real with y'all. When we finished the recording last time, I was shaking for days because I really can't believe that this dream and this just idea that God gave me months ago is now coming into reality. So it is terrifying and wildly exciting all at the same time. Um, kind of like the first roller coaster I went on, and I hate roller coasters. So hated every minute, but loved the fact that it happened was how I felt. But then I also realized if you listen to the last episode that we did, you actually only got half of what I meant to say. I am a yapper. I apologize. My mom's Colombian, I blame it on that, but it's only half the story, it's half the reason. So if you missed it, you're gonna miss half of what we're talking about. So make sure you go back and check that out. And so we talked about owning your why and kind of understanding why you are what you are, which is super important. And it's honestly been life-changing for me to understand who I am and what has made me what I am today. But it doesn't stop there. Like understanding the fight of okay, why did I become this way? What influences have I had in my life to get me to hear can't be where we end because we're then we're just stuck in this trauma cycle and we're just gonna keep repeating the thing because we just know, okay, this is why I do what I do. But that's only half. Now you understand why you are the way that you are. Now the next challenge that I want to pose to you has been one that has been uh just as life transformative to me, if I'm honest. And I have to go back to college to give, I wish I remembered my professor's name that gave us this homework assignment. But whoever you are, you have no idea the impact that you had on my life and hopefully all of our lives together today. So, backstory on college. I went to college and I was gonna study math. I know I'm a math geek. I love numbers, I just think they're so interesting, and I also think it's so cool watching how there's such intelligent design in everything created in the world. And math proves that. The way that it just makes sense shows that our God is a God of order. I just I love it, I come alive. And my goal was I'm gonna study math and then I'm gonna run analytics for the rest of my life because I was never gonna have to worry about money. That was my goal. So I went to college, that was kind of my idea. Um, just thinking that's my purpose is to make sure I live a comfortable life. And I was miserable. My entire first year, I was so frustrated. Things that used to make sense were not making sense. I was not enjoying my classes, and it wasn't because of my professors, like they were amazing. They honestly were so kind, welcomed me in like their family. Um, love Southeastern University, that was my college, shout out to them. They were amazing, had nothing to do with any of that. I was just struggling. I didn't feel fulfilled. I wasn't getting that like fire in me and coming alive in these courses and feeling like, oh, I'm learning what I'm supposed to be learning to do what I am supposed to do for the rest of my life. And I do think it's interesting that when you're 16, 17, 18, we're expected to make these wildly massive life decisions about what we're gonna spend our entire life doing. We're supposed to decide, okay, this is what I'm gonna go to do. This is my major, this is where I'm going to school, this is where I'm gonna put roots down. You know, that we're making all of these huge, huge life decisions when we're so young. And then we go to college and we're trying to learn all of these things to become whoever we think we're supposed to become, but we never ask the question, which is what my professor posed to us, my sophomore year of college, that completely changed me. And the assignment was on an index card, no more than five sentences, write out why you exist. What is your purpose? Why are you here? And I went home or I went back to my dorm and I thought a lot about this because I'm a perfectionist, I'm an oldest child, like we talked about. I have to do things right. I want to be responsible, I want to get an A. And so I went back, I was praying, like, okay, Lord, why am I here? And I was just, you know, I'm here to do what God wants me to do, or I'm here to graduate college, I'm here to, you know, make sure I get a job. I'm here to make sure I do all the right things. And and going through all of this, but they were so surface level, I was like, okay, let me just, I'm gonna keep praying because none of them quite sat right with me. And as I was praying, I literally wrote down, which I think was definitely the Holy Spirit, I am called and I'm here to be a mouthpiece for the Lord to the people around me to bring joy, light, hope, and truth. And the student in me was so proud. I was like, oh, I got my answer. I'm gonna get an A. It fits on an index card. I did it, I can turn it in. I had no more anxiety, no more stress. So I turned it in and then immediately realized the implication of what the Lord has just deposited into my life. I'm not here to get a degree. I'm not here to get some job that I found unindeed. I'm not here to just become a spouse or become a mom or become an employee. If if that's all, that wouldn't have answered the question, which is why do you exist? Because what I would pose as some of the reason why we struggle so much is we put so much stock in our purpose on something that can change. We think why we're here is to do XYZ. Oh, you know, it kind of goes back, you know, um, a couple years ago, our church, I love our church, everyone who is married on staff, they had us all go to see a marriage counselor just as like a check-in. We're very pro-counseling. I, if you haven't gone to see a counselor, you should go do it. It's worth an investment in your soul, in your future. The amount of money that like athletes spend investing in their body, I wonder what that would look like if we as people invested in ourselves and our soul and our mind. And so I love our church. They invested in marriages. And he said something that really changed John and I. It really changed my perspective on a lot of things, and I think is something that we have to unlearn, which has to do with this question of why you're here. And the reason this matters in this own your fight idea and really living a life that God has called you to live unapologetically and to be able to engage in the correct fights, you have to actually understand why you're here. And and he posed this whole concept as he's talking. He, this counselor said, you know, a lot of people, when you meet them, they ask, hey, you know, who are you? And the first response is, Oh, here's my name and here's my job. We sum up who we are as our name and the title of our occupation. Oh, I'm so and so and I'm in marketing. Oh, I'm so-and-so, I'm a recruiter, or I'm in medical sales, or I work at the hospital, I'm a teacher. And he said, the issue is we were never created to be human doings, we're created to be human beings. And so if we wrap our entire identity and why we exist around something so temporary, when that thing changes, we lose all sense of self. So if you go into college and you're like, the whole reason I'm here is to be a student. Well, then you have to graduate college at some point. Like you can't stay in the dorm forever. You've you've got to move. And when you leave, your why is suddenly shattered because that whole identity you had built around why you exist is now done. That chapter is gone. And now you're having to rediscover who the heck you are because you put all of your eggs in the basket of what you do or some title. I think, especially as women, we can find ourselves like, oh, well, I'm I'm just I'm single, that's who I am. Okay, you're so much more than that. Do you think God's only purpose for you is based on your relationship status? Do you think God's so small that he doesn't have a bigger purpose for you that can't be unlocked until you get married? Because the Bible that I read says that God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. And it says that he made mankind in his image. So his purpose, his character, who he is does not change. And I would pose to you that the purpose that God has on your life is bigger than something that can change. So when I wrote down that I'm a mouthpiece for the Lord, that didn't have anything to do with what job I had, who I was gonna marry. It should affect all of those things, but it doesn't change because something circumstantially does. The foundation of the purpose that I feel like is on my life doesn't change just because circumstances around me change, or my job title changes, or my season changes. Especially, I don't know, you know, where you're at in life, but you can really watch this. I have two kids, like I've said, in the last couple months of pregnancy, into the first 18 months of that woman having that baby, you really have to dig in, and it's such a revealer of where my identity is. And I'll just speak for myself. But when you are someone that you have a job and you have a career and you're married and you have a friend group, and then you become a mom and you're in the you're in the trenches of diapers and bottles and survival mode and figuring out what the heck is a wake window and what is a feeding schedule, and you're learning all of these things. If your identity is ruined, is is determined by action and output and labels, then suddenly you have no idea who you are anymore. Because you're just doing the same thing over and over and over again, and your life completely changed, and it can feel so unsettling to not feel like you even know who you are anymore when what you do changes. But when you understand that who you are, why you exist, your purpose goes beyond something temporary, I think it's powerful. I think there's something that changes when it goes from, oh, I'm Sarah and I'm a XYZ at work to I'm Sarah, I love people, and I think God's called me to be a mouthpiece. I think when that's the filter on our purpose and on our life, every other decision becomes so much easier. Every room you enter, you can be more calm, you can be more confident because you know what God has called you to do. You know why you exist. I was a part of a kind of like a multi-level marketing um organization for a long time. I loved it. This is not a knock on those. I had such a good community there. I had so much fun. I learned so much. It was um something that was so rewarding for me in that season. But what it taught me, which I think is true, is that there's a lot of people that don't know their purpose. And another problem if you don't know your purpose is that other people are more than willing to tell you what they think your purpose should be. Oh, you don't, what do you mean you don't? You know what? I see this in you. I see this in you. Oh, I think, why don't you come do this thing with me? And while there's nothing wrong with opportunities, if we don't know our purpose, we can quickly become riding on the coattails of other people's purposes and watch them fulfill what they have been put on this planet to do without ever actually understanding the purpose God put on our life. What are you put here to do? What is your God-given purpose? What is that thing that when you're doing it and where you get to operate in fills you up? What is that? What is that thing? And if you don't know, I would really challenge you to take an index card, write three to five sentences and try to put to words what you are here to do. What is that thing? What is the thing that gets you so excited? And it's so valuable to talk about. You know, this concept of own your fight is very near and dear to my heart. Because I do think there are so many fights that we encounter in life that we run into blindly, like we talked about, we are unprepared for, unequipped for, we avoid and run the other way because we think we could never win that. And when we don't know why we exist, when we only know why we are what we are, and we don't know why we are here, we end up engaging in a lot of fights that we should have never ended up in in the first place. We're fighting for things and struggling with things that had we known what we were here to do, we would have never ended up being frustrated in that thing anyway. We end up engaging or missing out on opportunities because we never put ourselves in that place because we don't know why we're here. And what's crazy, so after writing, you know, I'm here to be a mouthpiece for the Lord and and to the people around me, I felt so confident for like 10 minutes. And then I realized the implications of what that meant. And I was terrified, but in a way that was so peace-filled. Because it was exciting. It was so exciting to get to think, oh my gosh, where could I have opportunities like this? Where can I share? Where can I be a mouthpiece? Where can I do these things that God has called me to do? And it was honestly mortifying to think because I don't necessarily love speaking. I wasn't the one that would always speak up in class. I wasn't the one that raised my hand. I didn't want to be looked at. But then understanding that I'm not doing this because I feel like I want to be looked at, but because I think God put this purpose on me gave me a confidence that's honest, it's unshakable because it's not me. It's not something that I mustered up within myself. It's not something that I, you know, said, Oh, I'm gonna have the oomph and just grind and work hard and figure it out. I just know that's why I'm here. Not necessarily to be on a stage, not to hold a microphone, not to, you know, be at conferences or something, or even honestly, if I'm being so for real, not even to do a podcast. Like this is not birth to because I said, Oh, oh, well, God told me to be a mouthpiece, so I better grab a microphone. No, no, no, no. The purpose is not linked, like I said, to a season or an opportunity or a job. It's a filter. I knew my why. So now that I know, like, okay, I'm supposed to be a mouthpiece. That's why when I go into Target, I'm talking to the cashier. That's why when I go to Starbucks, I frustrate everyone in the line behind me because I'm asking, how's your day? Oh my goodness, how are you doing? I was just talking to um someone at our local Target just about their day, and they were having a hard day. And it was one of those moments I said, How are you? And I asked a follow-up question, and I saw that they hadn't had someone look them in the eyes and actually ask how they were doing in probably their entire shift. I just know that for me, that's what that's the purpose of my life is just be a mouthpiece. I'm gonna do that. I'm the person that's gonna ask you how you're doing. I, it's so funny. I just had a meeting this past week, and um, this woman had set up a time to chat with me about a couple ideas that she had. So I said, Yeah, let's sit down and talk. And so we go outside. Um, and I just said, Hey, how are you doing? She said, Oh, oh, it's been a little crazy. And she just mentioned something super quick. And I was like, Oh, why don't you tell me about that? Like, how are you handling that? For the next 40 minutes, we began to talk about her life and her story. She's crying with me. We're having moments where I'm getting to speak life into her and share truth and hope with her. And we looked back after 40, 45 minutes, and she was like, That is not what I came to talk to you about. But for me, I know that my purpose in that moment, sure, we can spend the next 10, 15 minutes talking about what we had to talk about, but I knew I was there on purpose and on mission, and that's why God had created me to be here at this time. It's easier for me to make decisions because I know why I'm here. It's way easier for me to engage in conversations that might feel wildly intimidating to me when I know that, okay, well, God wants me to do this, so I'm gonna do it. There's something about going to sleep at night, knowing your purpose, why you exist, that can give you a piece that I would guarantee some of you are looking for. You're looking for your purpose in finishing your degree. You're looking for your purpose maybe in getting that following that you want on Instagram or TikTok or social media, or maybe you're finding that purpose and you're just hoping to make the next, you know, AI breakthrough that just changes the internet, or you're looking for that job that you've worked so hard in college to get, you're looking for your purpose in a spouse, in a boyfriend, in having kids. Can I just be so honest? If your purpose is wrapped up in something so small, I would challenge you to have a bigger understanding of the God that you serve. The God you serve loves you way more than to just say, you know why you're here to be someone's wife, to be someone's husband? I'm not downplaying the gift that that is, but there is more inside of you than you even know. And I also want to say some of you might have gone through and understood why you are the way you are, and maybe you know, you were neglected, maybe you were adopted, maybe you were really hurt and abused, and you're maybe you were told like you were an accident, so you know, we're just kind of figuring it out. All of those things, you might have been a surprise, but you're made on purpose. You are not a surprise to the Lord, you are not an accident, you're not a mistake. God has a purpose for you. There's no one on this planet that was made by accident. God has a reason that you are here. You don't just exist to be born, to live your life, and that's it. You have a purpose, and you've gotta understand what that is. And it's bigger than something that can change because we're human beings, we're not human doings. So if we're not just people that are doing a thing, and we actually are people that be, we are, we we exist, then your purpose is bigger than something small. So I would challenge you. Last time I really, you know, said lean in, try to figure out what has influenced you to get to this point. Now your next thing is okay, three to five sentences. Why am I here? Why do I exist? Make sure it doesn't get linked to something that's seasonal, temporary is the reason why you get paid. Like it can't be linked to any of those things. Think bigger. Honestly, dream. What things do you do that bring you the most life? What do you do? What do you engage in? What is that thing that makes you just light up and you can go to bed at night thinking, man, I did what I'm supposed to be doing. I know that is why I am on this planet. And if you don't know, figure it out. Pray. Pray about it. Maybe you've never asked God about it. Ask some trusted friends and mentors. Like, hey, what do you see in me? What do you see as my my purpose? Because all of us are created to love the Lord. That's first and foremost. But then He has a specific assignment on your life. Figure out why you're here so that you can engage in the correct fights, you can engage in fights that you are bound to win and have victory in. And you are equipped with what you need to engage the battle well. Because when you know why you are what you are, and then why you're here, you can come out on top every single time. So take an index card, three to five sentences, figure out why you exist, take some time and pray about it. And we'll catch you on our next episode. Make sure you like, leave a comment on what you would like to see us talk about, chat about, any hosts that you'd like to see come, because we're gonna have some guests coming, which I'm super excited about. Thanks for hanging out, and we'll see you next time.