Why I Never Fully Bought Into the Idea of Purpose

Why This Is Worth Reading

Purpose gets talked about as if it’s the missing puzzle piece that suddenly makes everything click. Find it, name it, and life falls into place. I’ve always felt a little tension around that idea. Not because purpose doesn’t matter, but because the way we talk about it often skips over the parts that actually make it usable. This is me trying to articulate where I land with it now.

Read Time: 4 Minutes

’ve never fully bought into the idea that the first thing you need to do in life is “find your purpose.” I understand the appeal, and I see the merit. Purpose gives people language, direction, and a sense that their life isn’t random. But the longer I’ve lived and worked with people, the more it’s felt incomplete on its own.

The place I keep landing is this... purpose is downstream, not upstream.

“The experience of meaning and purpose in life is facilitated by environments that support autonomy, competence, and relatedness.” Deci & Ryan, American Psychologist

When people treat purpose as the starting point, they often end up confused, performative, or stuck. They’re searching for something abstract without having a clear relationship with themselves yet, and the result is usually more pressure than clarity.

Purpose doesn’t appear in isolation either, it emerges from self-understanding, values recognition or creation, patterns, and capacity. When someone chases purpose first, they tend to skip the harder, quieter work of figuring out who they actually are, how they’re wired, what they care about under pressure, and what problems they’re naturally oriented toward solving.

That’s where things start to wobble.

“Identities are dynamically constructed in context and are shaped by action rather than merely guiding it.”— Daphna Oyserman, Journal of Consumer Psychology

One reason purpose gets slippery is that without self-knowledge it quickly turns into fantasy. If you don’t understand your conditioning, your strengths, your blind spots, or the strategies you developed to survive earlier chapters of life, your stated purpose often ends up being an idealized version of who you wish you were. It sounds inspiring, and yes it reads well on a website, but when real life shows up, it collapses under weight it was never built to carry. Kind of like the New Years resolution that you gave up on January 9th.

Another complication is that purpose is contextual and evolutionary. Most people don’t have one fixed, lifelong purpose waiting to be uncovered, they have chapters. Purpose shifts as you develop skills, heal wounds, take risks, fail publicly, and mature privately. Treating it as static tends to create pressure rather than direction, as if you’re supposed to get it right once and never revise it again.

“Identity is a life story constructed to provide a sense of unity and purpose, and it is revised continuously in response to lived experience.”— Dan McAdams, Review of General Psychology

here’s also the assumption that purpose creates momentum, when in practice alignment does most of that work. People rarely burn out because they lack purpose. They burn out because their actions, values, environment, and energy are pulling in different directions. You can feel deeply purposeful and still be exhausted, resentful, or stuck if your life isn’t aligned with what you actually need and value.

“Individuals who feel pressure to identify a singular life purpose before developing self-understanding report higher anxiety and lower well-being.”— Hill et al., Journal of Positive Psychology

Sometimes purpose even becomes a sophisticated hiding place. “I’m still figuring out my purpose” can quietly mask fear around choosing, committing, or being seen. It sounds noble, and it buys time, but it often delays movement. In my experience, clarity shows up through action far more often than it shows up through contemplation.

Underlying all of this is something simpler that tends to get overlooked... identity precedes purpose. What you’re here to do only starts to make sense after you understand how you see the world, what you can tolerate, what you consistently return to, and which problems you feel compelled to engage with even when it’s inconvenient.

Purpose expresses identity, it doesn’t replace it.

“People do not first generate options and then evaluate them. They recognize patterns and act, refining understanding as they go.”— Gary Klein, Sources of Power

The frame that’s made the most sense to me looks something like this.

1. Self-awareness first, where you understand your patterns, values, wounds, and strengths.

2. Alignment second, where how you live, work, and relate begins to reflect that understanding.

3. Purpose then emerges as a byproduct rather than a destination.

When people stop asking, “What’s my purpose?” and start asking, “What feels honest, energizing, and useful right now?” they often find themselves doing meaningful work without forcing it or performing it.

“A sense of coherence predicts psychological health more reliably than abstract meaning-seeking.”— Aaron Antonovsky

It’s the difference between staring at a menu trying to decide what kind of chef you’re meant to be, versus opening the fridge, noticing what you actually have, and making something honest with it. Most meaningful meals aren’t planned months in advance, they emerge from attention, taste, and practice.

That’s the paradox I keep coming back to. Purpose is powerful, but it tends to work best when you stop chasing it and start becoming coherent.

The Question Worth Sitting With

If purpose really is downstream, what part of yourself needs more understanding before the next step can make sense? Not as a problem to solve or a flaw to fix, but as an honest point of inquiry. What patterns keep showing up, what tensions keep asking for your attention, and what parts of you might be asking to be understood before they’re asked to be expressed? Just something I’m noticing. Just something I’m inviting you to notice too.

About Deevo

Deevo is a brand strategist, keynote speaker, and professional pattern-noticer who helps leaders and founders make sense of identity, alignment, and the stories they’re living inside. His work focuses less on quick answers and more on building coherence over time.

If this resonated, feel free to reply and share where you feel pressure to have things figured out. I read every response.