In a global survey conducted by Deloitte in 2025, Gen Z and millennial workers said that money wasn’t the sole driver of their motivation to work. Most also looked for meaning and an optimal work-life balance. That youngsters want to do impactful work while making a living is indeed laudable. Yet, many of them are also grappling with mental health issues because they struggle to find purpose in their life. In an article in Psyche, clinical psychologist Ross White says he encounters many individuals who are “apathetic, and lost in life,” as they are unable to articulate their purpose.
Finding or forming purpose?
But White’s experience as a clinician has taught him that the way people conceive of finding purpose itself can “become part of the problem.” In The Path to Purpose, William Damon says that purpose provides an “ultimate concern” or a “deeper reason” to meet the short-term goals that we set for ourselves. But White argues that the idea that we must find our purpose, popularized by self-help books, may be “inadvertently” preventing people from living “purposeful lives.” The metaphor of finding purpose implies that people are devoid of a larger concern unless they seek it.
The notion of finding purpose suggests that we should encounter it “fully formed, in brilliant clarity,” almost like encountering a gem, says White. When people don’t quite experience this shining moment, they feel disheartened. Another fallacy is that once we ‘find’ our purpose, it remains ‘fixed.’ This attitude can prevent people from exploring other avenues.
White advocates that we envisage purpose as something we form rather than find. In fact, Ross argues that the “seeds of purpose” are within us. Activities or ideas that interest or spur us can potentially become our purpose if we invest in exploring them further. According to Ross, “Purpose requires cultivation.”
Cultivating purpose
When we conceive of purpose as something to be tended to, like a garden, we are more open to facing ups and downs in the process. Encountering a stumbling block does not mean that we’ve lost our purpose, rather we need to navigate around it. The garden metaphor also helps us realize that our purpose may evolve as neither we nor the world remains static.
If you can cultivate purpose in a job that pays, that’s wonderful. However, purpose does not have to be tied solely to paid work. If your job doesn’t provide meaning, you can cultivate purpose otherwise, be it from a hobby, your relationships or volunteering. Ross reminds us that purpose is autotelic, which means that it provides its own fulfillment. External incentives like money, praise or rewards are not required to impel you to pursue your purpose.
‘A Day of Purpose’
To help his clients form purpose, White asks them to engage in an exercise called “A Day of Purpose.” Imagine that you have a whole day to yourself where you do not have to engage in routine chores or other unpleasant tasks. On this day, you are free to pursue activities that are “meaningful to you” and help you “connect with the world beyond yourself.”
Think of what you would choose to do that day. What activities would you engage in and why? How do you expect to feel at the end of the day? In what ways are those activities significant for you? How can you inject more of these activities into your life? Ross says that we need to intentionally chalk out time to “form our purpose” by trying out varied activities and experiences and reflecting on them.
In his latest book, The Meaning of Your Life, Arthur Brooks says that “Meaning is a question that must be lived” and cannot be answered solely with “intellectual horsepower.” Doing a Google search or adopting a purely analytical mindset cannot infuse meaning into our lives. Meaning emerges when we engage in “deep contemplation” and commit to “living a real life” filled with both triumphs and travails.
About the Author
Aruna Sankaranarayanan is the author of Zero Limits and the co-author of Bee-Witched along with Brinda S. Narayan.