Perhaps in the aftermath of Simon Sinek’s famous ‘Why’ Ted Talk everyone started looking for their why. Not just on a personal level. But every project, every work, every company joined a stream of endless definitions to justify their meaning.

You could be made to believe that purpose was all there ever needed to be in order to make it big or in order to find happiness and motivation at work. And that was a trap to many.

I see a lot of posts on LinkedIn where people are annoyed about this constant quest for a purpose. Does there need to be a purpose in your job?

Why do you need to have a why for i.e. being a banker?

Why can’t the purpose simply be the salary. Because after all, you have a family to feed and house to pay for.

when it’s a hunt for the why

But sometimes it’s exactly this focused hunt for a purpose that misses the bigger picture. A purpose is not some vague ideal you are supposed to make up and follow religiously.

Because it easily becomes something that you seem to lack. So it’s just another layer that you would need to add to you. And you want to be true to yourself, right?

But what if that sense of purpose is as good as finding intrinsic motivation? What if that job at the bank, that i used as an example, has the purpose of being able to work and meet a wide range of people? Maybe that interaction with other human beings is the purpose, and maybe crunching numbers and investments is an added benefit.

And, perhaps, to some really the purpose is making money – but not so much the focus on the bank account but what that enables. Pursuing a hobby, going on holidays etc.

That search for a purpose is rather quickly looked at as a must-do-exercise at work. When it can, in fact, help you find more happiness.

Purpose isn’t another layer

I never much thought my own purpose too much – back when I was in banking. Whenever I questioned it too much, I felt like all I did was making rich people richer. But I lacked an emotional connecting to my work.

Maybe this was also all connected to the fact that I believed I needed to find a purpose for this life. What exactly am I meant to be doing? What am I here for or good at?

It felt like a frustrating search for something that cannot be found just at will. You don’t need to take a test to find your purpose. And you also don’t need to have said purpose just to be able to live a happy life. Or to be successful at work.

Can you see that life is exactly enough as is. If you stop searching true freedom will be there. That gives you the happiness you’ve so long been searching for.

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