How to Find Your Purpose (Ultimate Guide)
You’ll work 90,000 hours in your lifetime.
Let that sink in.
90,000 hours.
That’s half your waking adult life.
So when someone says, “I want to find my purpose,” it’s not just existential fluff.
It’s a damn good question worth your time (90,000 hours to be exact).
In this newsletter, I’m giving you the four best questions to help you find your purpose—in under 20 minutes.
Let’s get you closer to your purpose in the next 5 minutes than most people get in a year.
Welcome back to Refusing to Settle! Where we talk about transforming your life and unlocking You 2.0.
HERE’S WHAT’S COMING UP
- You don’t find your purpose—it finds you
- Why “follow your passion” is terrible advice
- The question that silences your inner critic (and fear)
- Using your excitement as your North Star
- This 20-minute journaling exercise beats a year of coaching
THE PURPOSE PROBLEM
Myth #1: “You find your purpose.”
Purpose doesn’t appear in a lightning bolt moment at the top of a mountain in Bali.
It emerges from data:
- Things you try
- Things you fail at
- Things you pivot from
- Things that actually resonate
Start thinking of finding your purpose as more of a process of elimination, not revelation.
Kina like building IKEA furniture: messy, confusing, and you won’t know what it is until it’s half-assembled.
You don’t find your purpose.
Your purpose finds you.
Myth #2: “Your purpose must be ONE MASSIVE THING.”
I remember being in my mom’s basement, $30K in debt, fresh out of college, newly single, and completely lost. There was so much pressure to figure it all out.
I thought purpose had to be:
- Massive (”leave a legacy”
- Altruistic (”save the world”)
- Unchanging (”The ONE thing I do forever”)
Oh, and it had to make a ton of money, too. (Obviously)
The truth?
You’ll have multiple purposes throughout your life.
Research backs this up. A 2019 study from Northwestern University tracked career changes and found that the average person changes their career focus (not just jobs) 3-5 times in their lifetime. Each shift represented a new chapter of purpose.
Think of your purpose like a commitment for the next 1–5 years.
Not a forever contract.
That frame alone changes everything.
And with those two myths out of the way…
Here are 4 questions to help you see your purpose that’s been hiding in plain sight all along.
QUESTION 1: WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF YOU KNEW YOU COULD NOT FAIL?
Your inner critic is an assassin. It kills your dreams before they fully form.
I saw this first hand when I was running my coaching program. We’d have clients design their dream 2.0 character in the first two weeks, and their inner critic would shoot down their dreams before they could even fully form.
So here’s what you do: Set a timer for 20 minutes. During that time, your critic isn’t allowed in. Just write.
Don’t censor. Don’t suppress. Don’t judge. Just write.
You want to put this question on hard mode?
Make a list of 100 things you’d try if you knew you could not fail.
This was an exercise my coach gave me, and it was eye-opening.
Don’t underestimate the breakthroughs that will come from this one question.
QUESTION 2: WHEN DO YOU COME ALIVE?
Picture a life without purpose. What does it feel like?
Flat.
Soulless.
Same thing, different day.
If we had to sum it up in one word?
Apathy.
Feeling nothing.
Now flip it: If apathy is the absence of purpose…
Then purpose feels like excitement.
Here’s a wild fact: Do you know what the root word for “enthusiasm” is?
It comes from Greek origin and means “to be possessed by God.”
When you’re excited about something, that’s literally the divine within you saying, “YES! This is it! More of THIS!”
So ask yourself:
- When do you come alive?
- When do you feel excited?
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who pioneered the concept of “flow,” found in his research that people who regularly experience flow states report significantly higher life satisfaction. These moments of flow are your signposts to your purpose.
Go one step further. Don’t just guess. Track it!
Like a food journal for your soul, start logging the moments that make you feel electric:
- What made you forget to check your phone?
- When did you feel like you were in the zone?
- What rabbit hole did you go down “just for fun”?
- What are you always giving advice on—without realizing it?
- What do friends or coworkers always ask for your help with?
- What conversations made you more energized after than before?
- What content are you constantly consuming but never get bored of?
- What were you doing the last time you thought, “I could do this all day”?
- What would you be doing if money wasn’t a factor, but you still had to work?
No fancy app here. Just a simple note on your phone or a journal will do.
After a week or month of logging these moments, patterns will emerge.
QUESTION 3: WHAT WOULD YOU PAY TO DO (AND HOW CAN YOU GET PAID TO DO IT)?
Make a list of everything you voluntarily spend your money on.
Key word: voluntarily.
Not groceries.
Not gas.
I’m talking about the things you want to buy.
How do you find this?
Just pull up your credit card statements.
What books are you buying?
What courses or experiences are you investing in?
That sort of stuff.
Now, let’s go deeper.
If that’s where you spend your money…
Where do you spend your time?
- What content do you binge when you’ve got a couple of hours to kill?
- What topics keep popping up in your feed?
- What rabbit holes do you love going down?
When I was in my mom’s basement, two things stood out:
- I was consuming tons of YouTube content
- I was devouring books.
I couldn’t stop learning about behaviorism, psychology, and marketing. I’d get so excited and want to share what I learned.
So I did.
I started making videos. Breaking down the 10 biggest ideas from each book. That simple combo, [curiosity + content] became the seed. And that seed grew into everything you’re reading now.
All because I asked:
What would I pay to do?
And how can I get paid to do it?
QUESTION 4: WHAT ARE YOUR STRENGTHS (AND HOW CAN YOU USE THEM DAILY)?
Martin Seligman, the godfather of positive psychology, discovered something powerful:
To feel truly alive, you need to know your strengths and use them daily.
His research?
- people who use their signature strengths every day are 18% more likely to report high life satisfaction
- And 3x more likely to report having an excellent quality of life.
Here’s why it matters to you:
Using your strengths builds self-esteem and positive momentum. It’s the difference between crushing it in a game versus feeling like you’re getting your ass kicked all day.
That’s literally how life feels when you use your strengths versus doing something unnatural for you.
Want a shortcut to finding your strengths?
The Myers-Briggs 16 Personalities Test is free and incredible.
You’ll get a four-digit code (I’m an ENFJ) and a profile detailing your strengths, weaknesses, and potential career paths.
But here’s the real insight I want to share with you:
You undervalue what you’re naturally good at.
If you’re great with people, you assume everyone is.
Meanwhile, someone with social anxiety sees your gift as a superpower.
If you’re a deep thinker, you assume everyone’s mind works that way.
But extroverts are blown away by how you connect dots they didn’t even see.
Stop undervaluing your natural talent!
As Pablo Picasso said:
“The meaning of life is to find your gift.
The purpose of life is to give your gift away.”
Know your strengths and use them often.
THE 20-MINUTE PURPOSE FINDER
Take these four questions:
- What would you do if you knew you could not fail?
- When do you come alive and feel enthusiastic?
- What would you pay to do (and how can you get paid to do it)?
- What are your strengths, and how can you use them daily?
Now, grab your journal.
Give yourself 20-60 minutes.
And really dig.
Don’t settle for the first answer that comes to mind.
Push deeper.
Feel free to shoot me your breakthroughs! Due to volume, I can’t reply, but I read every email.
The truth is, you already know your purpose. It’s been hiding in plain sight while you’ve been waiting for permission to claim it.
See you next Saturday!
stop settling, start living.
CK
