Do you feel like you’ve hit a brick wall when it comes to finding your purpose in life? Dr. Jane Rubin has some thoughts about what could be preventing you from finding your purpose.
When Do People Struggle With Finding Their Purpose?
People can struggle with finding their purpose at any age. Young people who are just starting out in life often struggle with finding their place in the world, but so do people in mid-life who find that the choices they made when they were young aren’t working for them anymore. Also, people who are retired often struggle to find purpose in their lives when their work no longer serves that function.
What Are Common Obstacles To Finding Your Purpose?
In my practice, I’ve found that there are three obstacles that people commonly encounter:
An idea of what their life purpose should be that is too rigid and inflexible.
Fear of making the wrong choice.
Fear of failure.
Each one of these can keep you from finding your purpose by sabotaging your efforts to create the life you want. Let’s review these three obstacles in more depth:
Attachment to a Fixed Idea
In my experience, people often approach finding their life purpose the way they approach finding a relationship. When people are dating, they often have very specific criteria for what they’re looking for in a partner. Their potential partner has to look a certain way, make a certain amount of money, have a certain set of interests, etc. This seems like a reasonable approach to finding a relationship. Yet, in reality, it often keeps people from finding someone who would be a good fit for them.
It’s as if they have blinders on. They’re so focused on finding the person who meets their criteria that they don’t notice the people who might be a good match for them in ways they haven’t even considered. In their search for the elusive perfect person, they don’t notice the people right in front of them.
In my experience, people often approach finding their life purpose in the same way. They decide that there’s only one thing that will satisfy them and, when they encounter obstacles, they feel defeated. Perhaps they don’t get into the school they had set their heart on or they don’t get the job they thought was perfect for them. If they can’t develop a more open and flexible way of thinking about their purpose, they can easily conclude that they’ll never find it.
Fear of Being Wrong
Relationships provide a good analogy for this issue, as well. There’s a myth in our culture that there’s a “right” person out there for everyone and that it’s our job to find that person. While it’s true that a tiny number of people find love at first sight, most people have to go out with a number of people before they find the person who’s right for them.
Similarly, in most cases, there’s no “right” job or career out there that’s just waiting for you to find it. Most people find their purpose through a process of trial and error. If you think you need to know what your purpose is before you try anything, chances are that you won’t find it.
Fear of Failure
This fear is similar to the fear of being wrong. Many people think that they should know how to do something before they do it. They worry that making mistakes means they’ll never succeed. It’s a cliché, but it’s true-- we learn from our mistakes. Many studies of how we acquire expertise suggest that it takes about five years to become competent at something and ten years to become really good at it. That’s because we have to do a lot of things wrong before we learn to do them right. If you’re afraid to take the risk of making mistakes, you’ll never overcome your fear of failure.
As daunting as these obstacles may seem, all of them can be overcome. In future posts, I’ll talk about how you can get past these roadblocks and find a meaningful purpose.
Click to learn more about finding your life path with Jane Rubin, Ph.D.
Jane Rubin, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist in Berkeley, California. She works with individuals in Berkeley, Oakland, the East Bay and the greater San Francisco Bay Area who are struggling with depression and anxiety. She also specializes in working with people who are trying to find meaning and direction in their lives.