Embracing your mandate as a changemaker
Purpose | Part 3 | Settling into a life of purpose
The first post of this mini-series on purpose argued that it has the power to supercharge our change-making. In the second post, I shared 9 tested pathways for discovering one’s purpose and encouraged you to do so for yourself, your loved ones, teams, and communities. Now, let’s explore how knowing your purpose may change your life. Having already shared my origin story, I’ll now illustrate this on my own purpose: to envision and create realities far better than have been possible so far.
How did you go distilling your purpose? Please reflect in comments and let me know if I can help.
You know your purpose. Now what?
1. You must make a choice
If I were to pick the single most potent reason why changemakers get derailed, it would not be their inability to pursue a course. It would be their unwillingness to let go of the other options.
Image credit: Russell Yan
The etymology (kind of like genetic mapping for language) of the word “decide” references death. Death is intrinsic to decisions because a choice eliminates all other options. While it may seem obvious, bear with me because most of us have a hard time practicing this.
Finding your purpose — your story — is immensely empowering and liberating, but that is in part because it is fully yours. Nobody else will have one just like it. This also means that other stories, no matter how amazing, are not yours. If you, like most, have wanted to have it all, be prepared to grapple with this a bit.
You are defined as much by who you are as by who you are not. Think of it not in terms of what you are forced to forsake but in terms of where you could be a virtuoso. There is no doubt that Yo-Yo Ma could have charted any number of paths in music. However, he chose cello at the expense of other options, and the world has held its breath ever since.
Your purpose may be to communicate the incomprehensible. To heal trauma so that all can live fully. To redefine — through science — what is possible. Or to tap into our shared humanity through joy.
Specialization — devoting yourself to your purpose — may be your best contribution to co-creating magic. Yo-Yo Ma — an arresting soloist — can play with a full orchestra. Similarly, specialization will not compromise your collaboration. Instead, imagine what we can create together when all changemakers master their superpowers!
2. Make room to grieve and readjust
Making a choice is empowering, yes, but it can also bring on a sadness. There was a comfort in not knowing, wasn’t there? On a bad day, perhaps even an excuse. But now you know better. Give yourself permission to settle into your new reality.
3. Forge a bond with your superpower
If you have watched The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, you may remember the scene at the start of Season 1 where, having bailed Lenny Bruce out of jail, the heroine Midge asks him, referring to stand-up comedy, “Do you love it?” He responds, “Ok, let’s put it like this: if there was anything else in the entire world that I could possibly do to earn a living, I would. Anything! I’m talking dry cleaners to the Klan, crippled kid portrait painters, slaughterhouse attendant. If someone said to me, ‘Leonard, you can either eat a guy’s head, or do two weeks at the Copa,’ I’d say, ‘Pass the fucking salt.’ It’s a terrible, terrible job. It should not exist. Like cancer. And God.” “But do you love it?” Midge retorts, to which Lenny shrugs and grins sheepishly. “Yeah. He loves it,” she concludes.
I bring this up because many changemakers share these complicated feelings about their calling. I remember at least two times in my life when I decided to call it quits. There were MUCH easier ways to make a living. Why couldn’t I just have a regular job; one that ended well before evening exercise, and a home-cooked meal would render it a great success? Why did I need to bring all that additional stress upon myself? Especially if throughout history, civilizations have imploded at least as many times as changemakers remade the world for the better. Is any of it worth it if the future generations are pretty much guaranteed to sabotage the whole thing even if we somehow rescue it from certain collapse?
I willed myself not to care. Or at least care the way that “normal” people do: enough to feel good about themselves but not enough to seriously question their lives, let alone lose sleep.
It is true, my days had more room for activities and simple pleasures. But I never lasted but a couple of months before growing untethered, petty, and — according to reliable witnesses — unbearable.
Those experiments forced me to conclude that while my calling came with its challenges — and even if the outcomes of my best efforts were far from guaranteed — living my purpose was my only pathway to contentment. This conclusion has been echoed by changemakers worldwide.
4. Gear up to act
While I most definitely hope to open your eyes to whole new horizons of possibilities, some options are off the table for you. Inaction is one of them.
Let’s start with defining action. In the Western world, too much emphasis is placed on forward momentum. I have come to conclude that it is not only unhelpful but misleading and even unhealthy. Many fabulous analogies have been drawn about annual seasons for me to offer but a gentle reminder: neither autumn, with its shedding of what has been, nor winter, with its withdrawal to regenerate, are passive states. Hopefully, enough said.
Living in sync with your nature will likely look differently throughout your life. It has for me. There have been years when I existed almost entirely in the public eye and years when almost nobody knew where I lived. Eras when it was all “go” and eras when days on end would pass unpunctuated. Months when I flew half-way around the world every two weeks and months when I did not set foot in an airport. Times when dust bunnies and dead plants had the run of my apartment and times when I left the didn’t leave home for weeks, cocooning in the company of my lush ceiling-high houseplants.
5. Savor some exceptional perks
When your change-making is supercharged by a clear sense of purpose, you stand to gain a lot!
Relief. With a clear sense of purpose, you no longer have to carry the entire weight of the world on your shoulders. Rather, enjoy the relief that comes with knowing your part in the orchestra.
Impact. What could you achieve if you truly focused? If your chief responsibility were to perfect your contribution, knowing that others will complement it in ways that produce more than the sum of the parts?
Meaning. Remember how many good outcomes are related to a sense of meaning? A changemaker guided by their purpose hits all those balls right out of the park, reaping the substantial correlated benefits.
How my life has been informed by my purpose
Even as seasons of my life have come and gone, what has never changed is that pull from the pit of my stomach to envision and create realities far better than have been possible so far. That nag — satisfied only through intentional action — for a future not yet conceived.
The future I envision — and hope to co-create with you
A future where changemakers are recognized as a unique psychological profile.
Where the attributes that define you as a changemaker are seen as assets essential for any transformational brief, not a weakness or liability.
Where a therapist or coach won’t tell you “it’s just a job” and “not to take it personally” but rather help you become the best changemaker you can be.
Where we attend to the unique wellbeing risks changemakers face.
A future where change-making is recognized as the craft of creating regenerative transformation.
Where we know the building blocks and formulas for transformation and wield them to assess when and how to tackle a challenge; to bring others on the journey; to play to each other’s strengths; and to reduce uncertainty over transformational outcomes.
Where we intentionally learn from each other and best practice, perfecting our craft with each generation.
A future where change-making is recognized as a career path.
Where it is seen through a lens of competencies that can be developed, verified, communicated, and sought after.
Imagine being able to describe yourself as a changemaker in your resume, LinkedIn, and interviews, illustrating your impact on your experience.
A future where changemakers’ vital contribution to society is recognized.
Where we understand the economic value that changemakers — like caretakers — create for society, often at great personal cost.
Where we honor that contribution, including through financial remuneration.
Where we strive to care for changemakers who have given their lives to service, like our veterans. Where we strive to make their lives easier while they are on “active duty” and guarantee healthcare, pensions, and the like once they conclude their service.