PURPOSE, A BIG WORD...

...AND RIGHTFULLY SO

Why the Word Feels Big

Purpose is a big word — huge, actually. It has weight. Not because it is abstract or inflated, but because it governs something fundamental. When we speak about purpose, we are not speaking about inspiration or ambition. We are speaking about direction.

When purpose is clear, direction follows. Decisions may still be difficult, but they are not confusing. Effort may still be demanding, but it is not scattered. There is an internal logic to movement. You know why you are doing what you are doing.

When purpose fades, something subtle shifts. Activity does not stop. In fact, it often increases. Meetings multiply, strategies are adjusted, new initiatives appear, and motion replaces momentum. From the outside, everything may look busy and productive. From the inside, alignment begins to wear thin.

Purpose is what brings heart, soul, and, most importantly, meaning to effort — whether in a company, a relationship, or a life. Without it, structures remain, processes continue, and performance can even improve for a time. But something essential is missing: the clarity that tells us where we are going and why it matters.

Not an Epiphany

I did not follow a straight professional path. I changed professions several times. Sometimes, because I was bored, sometimes because I wanted to learn something new, and sometimes, if I am honest, simply for the money. There was no grand design behind it.

What remained constant, though I did not see it then, was something entirely different.

Wherever I worked, I noticed what was not being said. I saw patterns. I saw tensions. I saw solutions. And I dared to believe I knew what was best for others. My intentions were always good. My execution was not.

I was often right, and that was part of the problem.

Being right can be seductive. It gives you a certain power, and I used it. I would point things out. I would push. I would intervene and think I was helping. In reality, I was often taking something crucial away — the space for others to arrive at their own insight, their own clarity, their own achievement.

That realisation did not happen overnight. It came with discomfort. With embarrassment. And, at times, with humiliation.

The most important shift was not that I stopped seeing what I see. It was then that I learned to observe and not act. To contain myself. To allow the process to belong to the other person.

My purpose did not change.

But I had to change in order to live it responsibly, understanding that well meant is not necessarily well done.

When Direction Disappears

When a company loses its purpose, it does not announce the fact. There is no formal moment in which someone stands up and declares that the organising reason behind the work has shifted or dissolved. What changes first is something far more subtle and far more destabilising: direction.

The work does not stop. In many cases, it even intensifies. New initiatives are introduced, strategies are revised, priorities are rearranged. The organisation appears active, even ambitious. From the outside, it may look as though the company is adapting quickly to changing circumstances. Inside, however, the experience is different. Without a clear purpose anchoring decisions, there is no stable reference point against which choices can be measured.

Projects begin with urgency but are abandoned when results do not materialise fast enough. Attention moves from one focus to the next. Energy disperses because everything begins to feel equally important. People remain busy, yet they struggle to articulate what all of this effort is ultimately serving.

In such an environment, trust does not collapse instantly. It weakens gradually as the direction becomes less coherent. When people are no longer certain where the organisation is heading, or why particular shifts are necessary, their engagement changes. They continue to perform their roles. They meet expectations. But the deeper sense of commitment that comes from shared conviction begins to recede.

I once heard the phrase “acceptance without pain.” It stayed with me because it captured something I had felt but had not yet named. To me, it sounded less like maturity and more like resignation. Not a financial bankruptcy, but a relational one. The belief that once animated the work had thinned out, even if the structures remained intact.

That is what happens when purpose is no longer at the center. Motion continues. Results may even continue for a while. But direction becomes unstable, and without direction, trust cannot hold.

When Purpose Is Clear

The difference becomes apparent not through slogans or mission statements, but through the way decisions are made.

When the purpose is clear, there is a steadiness to an organisation that is difficult to fake. Conversations sound different. Disagreements do not spiral as easily because there is something larger than personal preference holding them in place. Even difficult choices carry less internal friction, not because everyone agrees, but because there is a shared understanding of what the work is ultimately in service of.

Clarity of purpose does not simplify the world, yet it simplifies orientation and allows people to ask a more honest question: Does this serve who we are and why we exist? That question alone eliminates a great deal of unnecessary noise.

In such an environment, effort feels less scattered, and energy gathers. Not everything demands immediate attention, and not every opportunity must be pursued. Some initiatives strengthen the core of the organisation; others, once examined in the light of purpose, reveal themselves as unnecessary distractions.

The effect on trust is not startling, but it is real. When people understand the direction and the reasoning behind it, they no longer have to rely solely on authority. They can rely on coherence. And coherence is far more stabilising than instruction.

Purpose does not guarantee success. It does something subtle and far more powerful: it restores alignment between intention and action. When that alignment is present, work begins to feel alive again rather than merely active.

Internal Direction

The same dynamic that affects organisations can unfold within a person, although it is often far less visible. Nothing collapses. Responsibilities are still met. From the outside, a life can look entirely intact. What changes is more internal and far more difficult to articulate: the sense that one’s decisions are no longer anchored in something clearly chosen.

When the purpose is unclear, the difference between what genuinely matters and what merely presents itself becomes harder to discern. Commitments accumulate, not because they are deeply aligned, but because there is no strong internal criterion by which to refuse them. Over time, this creates a form of fatigue that is less about workload and more about orientation. You expend energy, sometimes considerable energy, without the steady reassurance that it is directed toward something you recognise as truly yours.

In that state, even capable and disciplined people can begin to feel scattered. They are not failing. They are functioning. Yet the coherence that once connected their actions to a deeper sense of meaning feels attenuated. The question is no longer whether they can do what is asked, but whether what is asked still corresponds to who they are becoming.

When purpose is clarified again, the change is subtle but decisive. Certain paths regain their weight. Others lose their urgency. Decisions feel less like negotiations with circumstance and more like expressions of intention. The external landscape may remain complex, but internally, there is a restored sense of direction, and with it, a renewed trust in one’s own choices.

Alignment

Years ago, when I first encountered Ken Robinson’s book, The Element, something in it resonated, although I would not have used the language of purpose at the time. He describes the intersection between what we are naturally good at and what deeply engages us, the place where aptitude and enthusiasm reinforce one another rather than compete. It is a compelling idea, not because it promises passion, but because it suggests coherence.

What struck me most was not the pursuit of talent, but the relief that comes when who you are and what you do are no longer in opposition. That relief is not dramatic, and it does not announce itself with fireworks. It feels more like alignment settling into place.

Purpose, as I have come to understand it, lives in that same territory. It is not necessarily glamorous or externally impressive. It is the point at which effort, capacity, and meaning begin to move in the same direction. When they do, energy is no longer spent compensating for internal contradiction. It becomes available for contribution.

This is perhaps why purpose simplifies so much. When alignment is present, you are not constantly negotiating between what you can do, what you are expected to do, and what feels true. Those tensions do not disappear entirely, but they no longer dominate your decisions. Something steadier holds them.

Where This Has Landed

For full disclosure, there isn’t some grand “where this has landed” moment. It’s not as if one day I suddenly understood everything and now my work is aligned and complete. As convenient as that would be, it would also be untrue.

What feels different now is not the purpose itself. That has been there for a long time, even when I didn’t always handle it well. What feels different is the way I relate to it. I no longer feel compelled to prove that I see something, and I no longer feel responsible for delivering the answer. That compulsion used to drive me, and it also got in the way.

Over time, and through more mistakes than I would like to admit, something steadier replaced that urgency. It was not passivity or detachment, but a different kind of discipline. The understanding that the work does not belong to me. It belongs to the person I am working with. My role is not to supply clarity, but to make space for it.

This has not been a recent shift. It has been shaped over years of doing the work, getting it wrong, adjusting, testing myself against resistance, and learning restraint. If anything has changed, it is that I no longer confuse insight with ownership. Seeing something does not make it mine to control.

If there is coherence in what I do today, it is not because I reinvented myself. It is because I stopped trying to stand at the center of something that was never about me.

_____________________

There may be a reason the word purpose carries so much weight. Not because it is lofty, and not because it promises some elevated version of life, but because it determines whether what we are doing is animated from within or simply sustained by momentum. It is entirely possible to build something that functions, to maintain a career that progresses, to remain in relationships that continue, and yet to sense that the underlying reason for it all has grown indistinct. The structures hold. The activity continues. What fades is the connection between effort and meaning.

When purpose is present, that connection re-establishes itself. It does not transform circumstances overnight, nor does it eliminate complexity, but it restores orientation. The question is no longer whether something can be done, but whether it belongs. That subtle distinction changes the quality of decision-making, the steadiness of direction, and the trust we place in our own choices. Movement no longer feels improvised; it feels aligned.

Purpose brings everything to life, not by making it easier, and not by removing difficulty, but by ensuring that what we are building or leading or living is anchored in something we recognise as true. When that anchor is present, even change has context. Even a challenge has direction. And what might otherwise feel scattered begins to gather into coherence.

That, perhaps, is why the word deserves its size.

Without purpose, we function. With purpose, we live.

What is currently driving you — and is it still yours?