Whenever I run across one of those productivity-culture articles about how to master your time, gain control of your life, and develop a perfect 5-year plan to live on purpose, I always think about whether or not the author has “been through in it” yet.

Have they ever had an unexpected disaster wreck their best-laid plans? Have they ever sat in silence, stunned by a betrayal? Have they ever mourned a devastating loss?

If you have, then you know: It changes you.

Maybe for you it was losing a loved one through death, divorce, or dementia. Maybe it was a big diagnosis, or a chronic condition that you live with every single day.

Or maybe it was simply the growing sense that you’ve lost your way. Your life just doesn’t feel right. Your old plans have fallen apart, and there’s no clear path anymore.

It’s really uncomfortable, especially when planning used to work so well! Before, you were practiced at ticking through the boxes, taking the tests, filling out the applications, and getting it all done.

Your path was tough at times, but it was also really well-laid out. You got used to having a lot of structure, and some measure of success. And while you hadn’t done anything based solely on gut feeling and desire in decades, life was ticking along. All of your hard work was paying off.

But then came the reality smack-down, the huge loss, the life-altering news. Productivity culture likes to avoid this, but sometimes life really does go off the rails. Sometimes we get hit by a change tsunami. When that happens, we have an important choice to make.

Do we go back to doing what’s expected of us, or do we listen to the voice of our spirit? Do we try and reconstruct the old life, or build a new one?

When the “crisis cluster” came for me

About 5 years ago, I looked up and realized, with a shock: I had achieved almost every goal I’d ever set for myself. My biggest dreams had come true. I’d published my first book, You Don’t Owe Anyone, built two successful businesses from the ground up, given two TEDx talks, and come through years of infertility to have two beautiful children.

Then, during COVID time, all hell broke loose. When I was 8 months pregnant during the pandemic, our one-year-old broke her foot and had to be carried everywhere. Then I sprained my ankle, had the baby, then had surgery.

Then when our baby was a week old, my brother punched a hole through the wall of her bedroom. Then my husband was rushed to the emergency room, my longtime therapist died suddenly, and I was diagnosed with a rare genetic condition.

The point is: Sometimes, life throws you a real crisis cluster, and it changes every plan you’ve ever made.

Oddly enough, this can be the catalyst for you to build a life that you love (not just tolerate, or suffer through because it feels like you’re supposed to). This can be the moment you learn to be brave in choosing yourself.

But first, you have to have a wake-up call. You have to recognize: The way I’ve been doing life isn’t working.

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The year was 2021, the season was summer, and my life had officially gone off the rails.

I was walking down the alley adjacent to our house. I had my newborn in a carrier strapped to my chest, and my toddler’s hand in mine. In the other hand I held my phone, trying to place a takeout order for my entire extended family, while being interrupted every 2 seconds.

For some reason, this was the moment when I snapped out of the exhausted haze. The insanity of the situation suddenly became clear. What was I doing out there? Why did I not ask any of the other adults present to place the order (or take care of the kids)?

Because I’d unconsciously stepped right back into my old role of overdoing, overgiving, and overworking. I was tap-dancing for love and approval, even when I had every reason to rest.

I’m sharing this story with you for two reasons. First, because sometimes, life really DOES get crazy.

Whether you’re taking care of tiny humans, dealing with a tough diagnosis, or caring for your parent with dementia … all of these things are super-challenging.

Second, in hard times it becomes extremely important that we take a look at our own patterns. We must examine WHY we keep doing what we’re “supposed to” do, even when it causes us to suffer.

The problem is, it’s tough to see what’s going on beneath the surface. We get that there’s a problem, we just don’t see the root cause. This was certainly true for me! At first, I didn’t know what I was doing out there in the alley. But I knew something didn’t feel right.

The solution was to take a closer look, then genuinely shift the pattern of people-pleasing that was keeping me stuck. Once I did that, I felt so much freer and happier!

Sure, I still had two kids under two. But breaking through a lifelong pattern of people-pleasing and setting better boundaries freed up a HUGE amount of energy.

It also made me feel like I was making progress, even though by that point, my life looked nothing like I’d planned.

What does it mean to live on purpose?

OK, I can hear you thinking: That’s great Caroline, but how do *I* have an experience of joy, meaning, and freedom even in hard times? What does it mean to live on purpose?

Before we talk about what it actually means, let’s talk about what it doesn’t mean.

1. Taking the standard advice to “pull yourself up by the bootstraps” and act like everything’s fine after having been through a crisis cluster. This will only make you feel crazy.

2. Doubling down on the path of productivity, believing that happiness is just around the corner from there. Many of the people who come to me for coaching are refugees of productivity culture, with its false promise: Just get these projects done, then you’ll be happy.

There’s actually a term for this faulty way of thinking, the belief that happiness is one achievement away. It’s called the arrival fallacy, and I’ve interviewed the academic who coined the term, Tal Ben-Shahar.

In our interview, we spoke about what happens when you get “there” and it doesn’t bring you lasting joy or peace. Basically, we already know that “I will be happy when XYZ happens” is a big fat lie.

Instead, we need to find ways to enjoy the journey of our lives here and now. (Shahar’s “happiness map” exercise is a great place to start.)

And – if the here and now feels really hard, happiness may feel far out of reach. I get what that’s like! So let me tell you about a specific, practical way to feel peaceful and on-purpose even in the midst of tough times.

How challenges actually serve your purpose

Here’s the good news. In thousands of hours coaching hundreds of people, I’ve come to see that the challenges you’re facing can actually serve you and your purpose. Not just when you “get to” the end, but actually when you’re facing them.

Here’s why. Even when you’re going through challenges, when you’re not yet “at” your goal, you can have two of the most important predictors for happiness. Here they are:

1. Relationships with people we deeply care about, who care about us (including ourselves), and

2. Having a strong sense of purpose and meaning.

Put another way: Who do I love, and why am I here?

When times are hard, these are actually the two things that come to our attention the most. These questions hold the keys to our happiness and fulfillment. They have the power to transform our lives. So, please take a moment to answer them right now.

Who do you love, and why are you here?

(Yes, you do get to decide! It’s your life, after all.)

OK, so now that you’ve answered those questions honestly, you may be feeling pretty shaken. Why? Because honest answers to big questions have the potential to completely reorganize how we use our time, money, and energy. In short, they have the potential to wreck our plans.

Which is scary, because we think our plans and roadmaps are what keep us safe.

Live on purpose, meaning … what?!

But here’s the deal: you actually don’t need a detailed plan in order to feel safe! There’s something else that will serve you better, and that’s to restore your connection to your inner guidance.

You could even go so far as to say that’s the whole point of this adventure here on earth: to tune into our inner wisdom and follow its wise, loving instructions.

The problem is, most of us have been taught to ignore and distrust our physical, emotional, and intuitive signals. It’s like having a great GPS, but never being allowed to listen to it!

So, our first task is to reconnect to our internal navigation system. It’s always trying to get back online and help us. As such, one of the simplest and most powerful things you can do is just to sit in stillness, doing nothing for 15 minutes. (This is the first challenge in my book, You Don’t Owe Anyone.)

If you’re skeptical here, I get it – but give it a try for at least a week. It’s sort of like how when your phone starts glitching, the first thing you do is to turn it off for a few minutes. Doing nothing is a powerful reset practice, getting us back “online” with our inner guidance.

Be forewarned, however: When you start doing nothing, the truth of your life will bubble to the surface. The truth has a natural buoyancy; it always rises up. And one of the first truths that may arise when  you get still is this: I’m lost. I don’t know which way to go.

You may then judge yourself as a failure for having gone “off course” on the path to your purpose. I know I have. Most of us were never taught that psychological growth follows a predictable process – and get this, disorientation is actually the first stage!

Yes, that’s right: feeling lost and confused is an important part of the story.

I learned this by studying the work of Martha Beck and her Change Cycle, as well as The Transtheoretical Model of Change, developed by researchers named Prochaska and DiClemente in the late 1970s.

(They did studies seeking to understand why some smokers were able to quit cigarettes on their own, while others needed more support – it’s fascinating stuff!)

All of that to say, I took that research, added it to my own decade-plus experience as a coach, and synthesized it into what I call the SURE process. It’s a four-step process to represent the phases of psychological growth.

The SURE Process for Living on Purpose

S is for Subtract. This is the stage when your world is falling apart, where life is “subtracting” your plans at astonishing speed. Chances are, you’re completely disoriented. You don’t know who you are or where you’re going anymore. This is scary, but it’s also normal!

As a coach, this is the part where I help you actively subtract rather than add, so you can prioritize without guilt, take the pressure off, and reclaim your time. This is a great stage for subtraction of any kind, because so much is falling away anyway.

This phase represents a clearing out of your old life, so as to make space for your new one. It’s like when you watch those wonderful decluttering shows and the experts always tell you to take all the clutter out of the room first!

U is for Unravel. This is the stage where you start pulling the thread of possibility, unraveling your old limitations, and envisioning a new life for yourself.

(In the later part of this stage, you’ll also start making plans, but not in a rigid, “It has to be this way!” manner. Rather, you’ll take an experimental, “Let’s see how it goes,” approach.)

This is the part where I help you unravel toxic shame and blame, in order to build trust with yourself and maintain healthy boundaries. The most important task here is to learn to give yourself permission to want what you want. To protect and honor your dreams. To decide which direction you’re heading.

This is a more internal stage, but it’s really vital. If you skip this step of clarifying your vision and values, you run the risk of building a new life on a weak foundation.

R is for Rediscover. This is the stage where you actually start moving on your new purpose path. This is where you begin to take action, to bring that vision to life in the real world.

At this stage, I help you rediscover who you truly are, so you feel more confident in every decision you make. (Confidence literally means, “fidelity to self.”) You take consistent action in the direction you choose, and in doing so, you rediscover your power to effect change in your own life.

And in case you’re thinking that your action step needs to be a huge leap: Not so! Think about it this way: Ever had your whole life change in 15 minutes? (The phone call when you heard The News…the doctor’s visit when you got The Diagnosis…the conversation that turned out to be Goodbye…)

15 minutes is plenty of time for a crisis … and it’s also plenty of time to start healing. 15 minutes of doing nothing can quiet your heart. 1 minute of insight can change the course of your career. 10 seconds of hugging someone you love can calm your nervous system.

E is for Embrace. This is the stage where you actually live into your vision and enjoy your life! This is where I help you to embrace the journey of your life as you continually open to joy and do what lights you up.

It’s a stage for celebration and relaxation, and as such, it’s tricky for us recovering perfectionists. Often we get tangled up in the belief that our success must be huge in the eyes of the world. We judge and criticize ourselves for not “succeeding” but we forget what success is.

One of my greatest teachers, Joe Koelzer, once told me, “The issue isn’t the issue. The issue is how you are, with yourself, as you move through the issue.”

That’s the SURE model: Subtract, Unravel, Rediscover, and Embrace. I walk you through it in the live coaching call Live Your Purpose Even When Life Goes Off the Rails. Watch here:

 

There’s a gorgeous connection in the live coaching section towards the end – did you catch it? The two biggest questions lined up so well, it was as though they’d been orchestrated that way (but they weren’t – at least, not by me).

Maggie’s question was, “I’m sad because I’m *not* sharing my true self with my family, I’m being this other version of me. What do I do?”

Shelley’s question was, “I’m sad because I *am* sharing my true self with my family, and I’m getting rejection. What do I do?”

Can you relate? Have you felt the loneliness that comes with hiding who you are? Have you come to that painful realization: Wait a minute, they’re not really my people…?

Then of course, there’s the big Kahuna fear underneath it all, which is: What if I am unlovable?

My experience has been that there is no way out of that fear except to take a deep breath, get as much support as you can, and then walk straight through it.

To risk being true, speaking true, and living true. Not because it’s easy – it’s hard as hell sometimes – but because the alternative is worse.

Live on purpose quote

To quote part of a magnificent essay by Black writer, professor, and activist Audre Lorde:

Next time [you want to speak], ask: What’s the worst that will happen? Then push yourself a little further than you dare. Once you start to speak, people will yell at you. They will interrupt you, put you down and suggest it’s personal. And the world won’t end.
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And the speaking will get easier and easier. And you will find you have fallen in love with your own vision, which you may never have realized you had. And you will lose some friends and lovers, and realize you don’t miss them. And new ones will find you and cherish you…
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And at last you’ll know with surpassing certainty that only one thing is more frightening than speaking your truth. And that is not speaking.

Yes, living your truth and pursuing your purpose can be terrifying.

But it’s less terrifying than the alternative, which is to live according to someone else’s script.

Which do you choose going forward: Spending your days doing what others expect, or courageously living a life that’s true to you?

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