How to Decipher Your Purpose in Middle Life
I am currently taking part in The Purpose Course, hosted by the Modern Elder Academy. This class has been a very rich experience for both me and my business. Getting to learn alongside fellow entrepreneurs and benefit from their insights has helped me grow tremendously in my Encore Career.
Because of this, I shared some of the things we’ve been learning and discussing last week on Creating Your Encore Career. Let’s dig into what I went over in that episode now!
The Purpose Course
The Purpose Course is hosted by the Modern Elder Academy. The purpose of the academy as a whole is to build a community of inspired and empowered midlifers because our forties, fifties, and sixties are so rich with potential. The Purpose Course in particular is an eight-week online course. It includes a mix of online content and live sessions that are highly interactive.
Chip Conley’s Session
The first session I want to overview was done by Chip Conley. The first thing he revealed was that 70% of people find purpose in their work. What do we do when our main purpose in life is gone (i.e. when we retire)?
We can consider this time to be either an evolution or a revolution. If it’s an evolution, you'll repeat yourself, just in different “soil” inside of your organization. If it’s a revolution, you’re deciding to work independently or find a new source of work to do.
Chip also talked about the difference between a job, a career, and a calling. As an example of this, think of the people who work in construction. Those who see this as their job view it as simply laying bricks. Those who view it as a career may consider themselves to be a mason. Finally, those who consider it their calling know they are there to build a cathedral.
The last concept Chip discussed was Ikigai. This is a Venn diagram that splits up the various kinds of work you could do into these four categories:
what you love
what you are good at
what you can be paid for
what the world needs
Richard Leider’s and Rich Feller’s Session
The first thing discussed in this session was a way to decipher your purpose in middle life. That way is to ask, “What puts a whistle in my work?”
You can also ask yourself questions like, “Do I give and grow every day? Does that feed my soul?” Not everything you do has to feed your soul but figuring out what does will give you the excitement and energy you need in your career.
They also discussed three worries people have: being irrelevant, being isolated, and being invisible. On the flip side, we all have hopes to be understood and anticipate something better. Anticipating good things in this way and having a positive perspective can give you purpose and improve your life.
Next, they discussed two basic questions: who are you and what do you want? It’s important to sit with these questions for a while and mull them over.
They also talked about a napkin formula for purpose that you can try out: Gifts + Passion + Values = Purpose/Calling.
Finally, they discussed the difference between your “small p” purpose and “big P” Purpose. There are thousands of small p moments in a day, giving you countless chances to work for a purpose, even if it’s not something huge.
The Four Regrets
Dan Pink did a session all about his book, Regrets. These are the four main types of regret he discussed:
Foundational: you regret not doing more foundational work early in life
Boldness: you regret not taking enough risks and big steps
Moral: you regret taking the low or easy road
Connection: you regret neglecting the people that matter to you
Kari Cardinale’s and Jeff Hamaoui’s Session
Finally, Kari Cardinale and Jeff Hamaoui gave a session on purpose as well. They discussed a Purpose Map. This is a map with four quadrants that represent four elements of your life.
They are:
Personal
Professional
Relationships
Community
Kari and Jeff told us to rank the four quadrants in order of importance and then rank the individual elements within each quadrant. From there, you can figure out if there is alignment or tension in your work. Are you over or under-purposed?
These are important questions to explore as you are trying to figure out your purpose.