Finding your purpose is one of life’s deepest and most persistent questions. It’s also one of the hardest. In a world that rewards productivity over presence, speed over personal growth, and certainty over curiosity, it’s no wonder so many people struggle with the question: “Why is it so hard to find your purpose in life?”

The answer lies not only within us, but around us. It’s not that you’re doing something wrong or haven’t read enough self-help books. It’s that you’re living in a society that was never designed to help you discover who you really are.

In short, it’s hard to find your purpose because, quite literally, the system does not want you to.

Why It’s So Hard to Find Your Purpose

1. The Systems Around You Don’t Encourage Self-Knowledge

We live in systems that reward conformity, not curiosity. From an early age, most of us are shaped by institutions that prioritise productivity and standardisation over self-awareness and meaning.

In schools, we are often taught what to think, not how to think. Our education is measured through standardised tests and external benchmarks that value uniformity rather than unique expression. The economy, too, is structured to produce workers - not well-rounded human beings.

This is what the Presencing Institute calls the three divides:

• The social divide - separation from others
• The environmental divide - separation from nature
• And the spiritual divide - separation from self

It’s this third divide that makes finding purpose so hard. When we’re cut off from our own values, emotions, and intuition, we lose access to the internal compass that helps us navigate meaning.

In a culture that trains us to be efficient before it encourages us to be authentic, it becomes difficult to even ask: “Who am I really? What matters to me? What am I here to contribute?”

These are radical questions - not because they’re complicated, but because they challenge the norms of the systems we live in.

2. Purpose Is Often Confused With Productivity

Many of us have absorbed the idea that purpose must translate into something visible, measurable, and ideally, profitable. We are told to “turn our passion into a career,” or to “monetise our calling”.

While there’s nothing inherently wrong with wanting your work to align with your values, this mindset can easily turn purpose into another productivity metric - something to optimise or perform.

In this frame of mind, purpose becomes a product: another achievement to be unlocked.
But purpose is not a job title. It’s not a five-year plan or a LinkedIn headline. It’s a living relationship with life itself - one that unfolds and evolves as you do.

When we mistake purpose for performance, we cut ourselves off from the quieter, deeper forms of meaning that can only emerge through meaningful presence, reflection, and connection.

3. The Work That Feels Most Meaningful Is Often Undervalued

Here’s one of the hardest truths: the work that feels most aligned with your purpose is often the least rewarded in our current system.

Jobs that care for others, protect the environment, nurture communities, or sustain basic infrastructure - all vital to the wellbeing of society - are frequently underpaid or under-appreciated. Meanwhile, the sectors that extract the most value from the system (finance, technology, and marketing) are often the most financially rewarded.

This creates an inner tension: you may know what feels purposeful to you, but find it almost impossible to sustain yourself through it.

That isn’t a personal failure. It’s a systemic mismatch between what society values and what the world actually needs.

Finding purpose, therefore, isn’t only about following your passion. It’s about navigating the structural realities that make purpose work - care work, creative work, changeworking - hard to sustain.

4. Purpose Has Been Oversimplified by Popular Frameworks

You’ve likely come across the Ikigai diagram - the Japanese-inspired model that suggests your purpose sits at the intersection of what you love, what you’re good at, what the world needs, and what you can be paid for.

It’s a beautiful idea in theory, but it can be harmful when applied uncritically, especially for changeworkers, activists, and those working in complex systems.

Telling someone to ‘find what you love’ and ‘do what you’re passionate about’ sounds nice until what you care about is stopping deforestation, ending femicide, or addressing climate collapse. Unfortunately, following your passion without structural support is often just a fast track to burnout.

Many purpose frameworks ignore systemic realities like the privilege, access, social inequalities, and power dynamics that shape what’s actually possible for people. They make purpose an individual pursuit rather than a collective one.

In truth, finding purpose is rarely a linear journey. It requires patience, resilience, community, and the courage to live with complexity and contradiction.

5. Purpose Anxiety Is Real

When we treat purpose as something we must “find” like a hidden treasure, we can set ourselves up for failure.

This leads to what psychologists now call purpose anxiety: the fear of not knowing your purpose, of not having a clear sense of direction, or of wasting your life by choosing the “wrong” thing.

But purpose doesn’t reveal itself all at once. It emerges gradually through action, reflection, and experimentation. It’s something you grow into through curiosity and courage, not something you simply discover through logic.

In this sense, not knowing your purpose isn’t a sign that you’re lost - it’s an invitation to listen more deeply to your choices.

Definitions: Meaning vs Purpose

Before we can find purpose, it helps to distinguish it from meaning.

Meaning

Meaning is about why something matters. It’s the sense of significance we derive from experiences, relationships, and contributions.

You can find meaning in small, everyday moments: sharing a meal, caring for a friend, walking in nature. It’s what helps you feel connected to life as it unfolds.

Purpose

Purpose, on the other hand, is directional. It’s about what guides your choices over time - your sense of why you do what you do.

Purpose asks: “What am I here to contribute?”
Meaning asks: “Why does it matter?”

Both are essential. But for many people, the pursuit of purpose can’t begin until they have reclaimed a sense of meaning, especially if life has been reduced to constant doing and striving.

How to Start Finding Your Purpose

You can’t think your way to purpose. You have to live your way into it. Here are practices to help you start:

1. Begin With Honest Observation

Before seeking clarity, cultivate awareness. What are the patterns in your life that already point toward what you care about?

Notice moments when you feel most alive - or conversely, when you feel most disconnected. What do those experiences have in common?

You may not see a clear path at first, but you’ll start to notice threads of meaning that, when followed, begin to weave a coherent direction.

2. Unlearn and Reconnect

Finding purpose often begins with unlearning. That is, shedding the beliefs and expectations that keep you disconnected from your authentic self.

Ask yourself:

• Growing up, what messages did I absorb about success, worth, and productivity?
• Whose approval am I really seeking?
• What assumptions am I ready to question?

Unlearning is uncomfortable, but it creates space for reconnection with your body, your emotions, and your inner wisdom. This reconnection is the soil from which purpose grows.

3. Explore Through Action, Not Just Reflection

Purpose reveals itself through trying different things. Volunteer. Create. Collaborate. Experiment. Learn. Pay attention to how different experiences make you feel.

Each action is an experiment in discovering what resonates. Over time, patterns emerge - and so does clarity.

Purpose is a cyclical process. Seeds are planted through curiosity and care, they take root through action, and over time, they bear fruit - not just in outcomes, but in insight. Then the cycle begins again. It’s a learning process.

Ready to start your exploration of purpose in a grounded and supportive way? Download our free, instantly watchable Find Your Purpose 101 workshop - a guided journey that helps people like you find their purpose, inner clarity, and direction without falling into burnout or purpose anxiety. Highly recommend!

4. Stay Connected to Community

Finding your true purpose doesn’t happen in isolation. It’s shaped and sustained through relationships with others, with the earth, and with something larger than yourself.

When you engage in community - whether through local activism, art, dialogue, or shared spaces - your sense of purpose often becomes clearer. You begin to see where your gifts meet the needs of society or others, and how your story fits within a larger web of change.

5. Let Your Purpose Evolve

Your purpose today may not be the same as it’ll be 10 years from now, and that’s a good thing!

Purpose evolves as you grow, learn, and change over time. It’s not about finding one calling for life, but about staying in relationship with what feels alive and true for you right now. You never know what could spark your passion in a few years from now. That’s why it’s critical to remain open to where life takes you.

As long as you remain curious and open to adapting, you are already living with purpose even if you can’t quite name it yet.

10 Important Questions to Ask Yourself to Help Find Your Purpose

Use these questions as a compass for reflection:

1. What breaks my heart and what can I realistically do about it?
2. What kind of world would I love to help create?
3. When do I feel most at home in myself?
4. What activities make me forget time?
5. What issues or causes do I return to, again and again?
6. Who or what inspires me most deeply, and why?
7. What experiences have most shaped my values?
8. What kind of contribution feels meaningful, even if it’s not recognised?
9. What would I choose to do if I weren’t afraid of failure?
10. What small step could I take this week that reflects something I care about?

Benefits of Living With Purpose

When you live with purpose, even imperfectly, your life begins to take on a different texture.

1. Greater Emotional Resilience

Purpose acts as an internal anchor. It helps you stay grounded during uncertainty or difficulty because you know why you’re showing up.

2. A Deeper Sense of Connection

Purpose connects you to something larger than yourself - a cause, a community, a vision. It turns isolation into community and belonging.

3. Better Health and Wellbeing

Studies show that people who feel a sense of purpose experience lower stress, better physical health, and greater life satisfaction.

4. Meaningful Contribution

When you align your actions with your values, even small efforts can feel fulfilling. You move from reacting to creating.

5. Sustainable Changework

For changeworkers (people seeking to make a just and regenerative future possible), clarity of purpose prevents burnout. It keeps your activism grounded in care, not urgency.

If you’re ready to start your exploration of purpose in a grounded and supportive way, check out our free, instantly watchable Find Your Purpose 101 workshop - a guided journey that helps people like you find their purpose, inner clarity, and direction without falling into burnout or purpose anxiety. Highly recommend!

Journal Prompts to Help Find Your Purpose

Purpose work often requires slowing down enough to listen to yourself. Journalling is one of the most powerful tools to do this!

Daily Prompts

• What gave me energy today?
• What drained me?
• When did I feel most connected or disconnected from what matters? 

Weekly Reflection Prompts

• What did I learn about myself this week?
• What patterns am I noticing in my choices?
• What situations helped me feel aligned with my values? 

Vision Prompts

• If I could whisper one truth to my younger self, what would it be?
• What legacy do I want to leave, not in achievements, but in how I made people feel?
• How can I align my daily actions with the world I wish to see?

A Gentle Reminder

If you’ve been struggling to find your purpose, you’re not failing, you’re awakening. You’re stepping out of systems that have conditioned you to ignore your own wisdom and stepping back into relationship with yourself.

This process can feel slow, messy, and nonlinear. That’s ok. Purpose is not a puzzle to solve but a practice to keep doing.

I often remind my students that the difficulty of finding your purpose is not a personal flaw. It’s a predictable outcome of living in systems that prioritise extraction and productivity over wholeness, meaning, and care.

If you’re ready to start your exploration of purpose in a grounded and supportive way, check out our free, instantly watchable Find Your Purpose 101 workshop - a guided journey that helps people like you find their purpose, inner clarity, and direction without falling into burnout or purpose anxiety. Highly recommend!

Your purpose is not something waiting at the end of a straight path. It’s the path itself - the choices, relationships, and acts of care that shape your days.

It’s in how you show up for your work, how you tend to the earth beneath your feet, how you listen, and how you love.

Purpose is not about being certain. It’s about being present. And when you begin to live that way, you realise: you were never lost at all.