How to Increase Your Sense of Purpose
If you want to make a difference but feel like you’re falling short of the mark, how do you go about increasing your sense of purpose? We’ll look at the dimensions of purpose, trade-offs to be considered and 19 motivating factors that will help you plot your path.
Personal vs Business Purpose?
Personal purpose and business purpose are two different things. The former is about your own journey and the way in which you personally want to benefit society — it need not be small or lacking in ambition, but it is centred on you. Whereas purpose for a business or organisation describes the benefit to society that its owners or controllers see it delivering. It is a subtle but important distinction.
Sometimes they can be one and the same. For example, if you are the owner of a business then your personal and business purpose could be perfectly aligned if you so choose. However, most employees will usually find that there is a gap between what they seek to achieve personally and the agenda of the business they work for.
This is complicated further by the fact that many businesses haven’t seen a need up until now to properly define their purpose — many define themselves more by their activities instead of the outcomes they create. For example, ‘making cars’ is an activity whereas ‘delivering sustainable transport solutions’ is an outcome.
How you make a difference is up to you.
You can make a difference at work, outside of work or a combination of the two.
The key lies in identifying your options and consciously following a path rather than making it up as you go — as that can lead to feelings of ineffectiveness, burnout and unwanted stresses in your personal life.
Levels of Impact
If you pursue purpose through your personal agenda then you are in direct control of your impact. If you work in a business or organisation you may have some influence but lack this level of control.
However a general trade off in the personal approach is that you have less resources at your disposal and might struggle to make a difference on the scale you desire. Successfully mobilising the resources of larger organisations helps us make a far greater difference than we can on our own.
This is just one of many considerations to take on board when working out your approach. To help you in this process let’s look at the motivating factors behind ‘doing good’ through both a personal and business lens and you can identify the ones that resonate the most with you.
The list is not necessarily exhaustive — it’s based on my own personal and professional experience. I invite you to add any extra factors that you think are important in the comments section.
11 Personal Motivations
Ego — the need to be seen to be giving back and / or having the power and ability to do so.
Conscience — feeling a compulsion to give something back.
Caring — helping a cause that resonates deeply with you, perhaps because you have a lived experience or connection to it.
Belonging — the social experience of being in a group that is working towards a common goal.
Endorphins — the joy of participating in, or contributing to, something good.
Safety — reducing risks that could disrupt your life (eg. mentoring wayward youths could make your neighbourhood safer).
Resilience — activities and initiatives that strengthen the community around you.
Strengths — applying what you are good at can be very satisfying in itself.
Advancement — aligning your contributions with personal or career goals.
Curiosity — a vehicle for gaining new knowledge and perspectives.
Growth — testing yourself or trying something new.
8 Business Drivers
Conscience — making a decision to give back when you are doing well.
Permission — ensuring the community supports your “licence to operate”.
Responsibility — mitigating brand and reputation risks.
Alignment — sponsoring charities or causes that resonate with your customers.
Productivity — addressing social, economic or environmental issues that impede performance (eg. the health and wellbeing of your workers).
Value — creating win-wins by addressing societal needs in a profitable way.
Advantage — differentiating your business to gain an edge.
Ecosystems — working at an industry or regional level to improve the backdrop for doing business.
A Greater Sense of Purpose
We all live different lives, do different things and have different ideas about what’s best for us, the communities we live in and the organisations we work for and with.
Therefore the precise recipe for increasing your sense of purpose won’t be found on the back of a cereal packet — it takes a little bit of exploration and thinking through. I guarantee the process will be enlightening and the list of motivating factors above will help you achieve great things.
About the Author
Phil Preston is a business purpose guide, helping business owners, executives and leaders put purpose into practice to deliver exceptional results. He is the author of Connecting Profit With Purpose and can be contacted via +61 408 259 633 or phil@philpreston.com.au
