About a year ago, I wrote “If you don’t know who you are, pay attention to what you get mad about“. Now, I think “mad” is a little too narrow minded. As my therapist would say, anger is a secondary emotion that protects you from some deeper, primary emotion.
So my new framing is: if you’re looking for your purpose, first think about what causes you the most pain.
If you deal with crippling social anxiety, maybe your purpose is to help others dealing with it. If you were bullied growing up, maybe it’s time to do some bully-prevention volunteering. If you are sick of seeing teams of lonely, isolated, siloed software engineers, maybe you should become a team coach or write a stupid blog.
Make a list of the top five things causing you day-to-day pain (i.e., a Suck List), and for each one, list ten options for turning that thing into purpose. You’ll end up with a list of 50 ways to spend your time that you’ll actually give a crap about.
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Mike Crittenden 