When people say they’re searching for their purpose, they’re often really asking: “What can I be acknowledged for? Where’s the approval going to come from?” The search for purpose becomes a disguised search for external validation — someone to tell you what you’re supposed to do, an authority to confirm you’re on the right track.
“Often times people confuse a sense of purpose but they’re really asking is what can I be acknowledged for? Where’s the approval going to come from?”
This is precisely backwards. When Joe was making music, he was constantly terrified and wanting to know what people thought. That was living his purpose in a sense — it led him forward — but there was a more aligned version available: writing music for himself, playing it the way that made sense for him. Great artists deeply in their purpose do it for themselves, which makes it unassailable. There’s no way to doubt something you’re doing for your own deep reasons.
The flip is from approval to recognition: doing what hurts too much not to do, even when everyone says don’t, and gradually building an internal recognition that yes, this is your purpose living through you.
Related Concepts
- Approval seeking pushes people away
- Searching for purpose assumes you don’t already have it
- Chase your own approval
- Purpose is recognition, not decision