Am I really doing what I love?
Questions like this often surface when we experience dissonance between our values and our behavior.
“I love my family, but I am spending 70 hours a week at work.”
“I love my work, but all my time there may get in the way of my desire to start a family.”
“I have an amazing career, but I don’t feel like I am making a difference in the world.”
“I love the piano, but can’t find the time to take lessons at this stage in life.”
“I love volunteering, but I wish I could make a living doing it.”
These tense feelings always seem to butt in when our behaviors aren’t entirely aligned with our values. So what then? How can I do what I love?
An entire industry has been born to help us answer these big existential questions about purpose, meaning, and how it intersects with our work. Personal mission statements, purpose workshops, and self-knowledge retreats are all geared toward helping us identify “the one unique thing we were born to do.” Yet all these sources of professional purpose often carry a fatal assumption: There is ONE answer to the question.
Purpose is more akin to the joy and fear of a roller coaster than finding the one perfect theme park. Or at least that has been my experience.
In ’97 I captured one of my foundational beliefs and I’ve attempted to integrate it with my work ever since.
I am here to help others successfully journey through difficult transitions.
I’ve lived that conviction in a variety of ways. For seven years it took the expression of a therapist working to help children who had developmental delays or had experienced trauma. In that work, I was confronted with the reality that a great 50-minute session may be for naught when that 8 year old boy returns to the family structure and mental health system that belies the growth he achieved during our session. I experienced dissonance because I wondered if my work would have lasting impact. That dissonance sparked a desire for large scale, systematic transformation.
Nearly 20 years (and three different Master’s degrees) later, my desire to “help others through difficult transitions” is manifested differently. Today I help industry experts and seasoned executives become more effective and productive business leaders. 50 minute sessions have become 90 minute meetings. Playgrounds have become corner offices.
What I continue to find is that purpose grows. When you actively engage the dissonance you feel, your values and beliefs take on greater depth and complexity. The dissonance beckons deeper ownership of your identity and how you do you.
I still feel dissonance today. But rather than ignoring it, I listen to it and engage it. Listening and engaging that dissonance has extended my impact to completely new contexts. Over the past decade I’ve helped multi-billion dollar companies redesign their enterprises to deliver value in competitively evolving ways. I’ve worked with next generation leaders of a nation who were desperately in search of a reason to stay, build a career, and raise a family in their motherland. Navigating difficult transitions is an understatement. This repurposing has not only opened new arenas of impact, but it has also enabled me to reenter the non-profit world I came out of with experience and expertise I previously did not have.
Last weekend I was with my wife and her board colleagues planning to revolutionize women’s health care in Romania. HealthBridge Global, in partnership with Clinica Pro Vita, is working to build Life Medical Center, a fully functional maternity center that dignifies women from pregnancy through early pediatric services. It will be the first of its kind in Romania, and in a post-communist country, that’s no small feat. I get to join these stories and so many others, because I choose to wrestle with my dissonance. I choose to listen for opportunities to align my work with the beliefs I hold dear.
Are you experiencing dissonance in your life or career? Are you willing to wrestle with your purpose and risk it taking on a life of its own? If so, three quick points.
Do you know what you value? We often live values that were given to us unknowingly by our family of origin, workplace, or larger society. Start by acknowledging the beliefs and values you hold dear. Regardless of what you do, identify foundational truths that are uniquely you.
Are there choices you can make right now to be a little more you? Make one. These choices afford tremendous learning; learning about yourself and your purpose in the world. As you learn, stay flexible. Don’t be so dogmatic that you can’t adapt and change along the way.
Are you making excuses? Are you rolling your eyes, saying, “It’s not that easy” I agree, it’s not. But rest assured, until you make a choice to engage the dissonance, how you feel about your life and work will stay the same. At some point the pain of staying the same will be greater than the pain of change. My vote is for the least pain possible.
Maybe at some point you’ll take those piano lessons or leave your job for one that allots you more global impact. But those won’t be THE destinations either. If you listen closely, the dissonance will always be there, calling you to align your behaviors with what you value.