Many of you will have read my mind meanderings and musings back in 2020 and early 2021, as I stepped back off the career train and took some well needed time off to ‘recalibrate’. This was an interesting journey for me and I’m glad I spent some of that time capturing my thoughts in some sort of order. It was cathartic and revealing. It was also incredibly validating to hear feedback from people I knew and those I got to know through that process.
Some of it has changed me permanently. Some of it was temporary and a means to an end.
I’m still impressed with my own tiling efforts!
Anyway, as I venture back into the weary workforce, offering my services to those who think it might be useful, I find myself thinking about one little word…
Purpose.
I know I promised not to bleat on about my ‘journey’ in a so-called concluding article, but the more I considered this, the more I felt I needed to write down some thoughts. It’s almost a natural arc to the recalibration process if you will.
In previous articles – and even in the formation of my branding – I’ve discussed the need to remind myself of family, be more honest, keep good counsel and balance contentment and ambition.
I think I’ve managed to maintain these aspects pretty well all told.
You could argue that these are purposeful things. Things that many people would cite as reasons they made decisions in their lives for the better.
But despite feeling incredibly lucky that I’ve had not only the time to craft the circumstances of my current situation but also the support to do it, there’s a little bit missing. It feels like I’ve completed a really satisfying jigsaw puzzle to find the very central bit of the puzzle is missing. The last jigsaw piece has been hoovered up (apologies to my Dyson readership…vacuumed!) and I’m fishing through the dusty spoils to try and find it and complete the puzzle.
I appreciate that sounds incredibly pedantic and spoilt. I don’t mean it to. I simply wanted to explore the concept of purpose as it’s something I can’t quite put my finger on.
It’s also something that has a huge impact on the rest of what you do. It’s the metaphorical butterfly wing flutter to your wider physiology. Without being particularly aware of it, I’ve found that bits of me have started to ‘malfunction’ (if that’s the right word) as a result of what I think might be this missing little dollop of purpose.
It’s a bit like rising damp. You don’t think it’s an issue. You go about your day believing everything is ok, but one day you notice that the wall feels cold and clammy and mould has started to grow. Trouble is…by the time you come to notice it, the harder it is to remove it as it’s already taken hold. It’s been slowly, surely and covertly doing its thing.
Well that’s how it feels anyway. Apologies…that makes it sound rather dramatic doesn’t it?
So as I’ve started to become more aware of this missing jigsaw puzzle piece, I’ve started to try and figure out which bit is missing.
It ain’t ‘family’. I’ve been fortunate that it was family that prompted me to take time out, and it has been family that surrounds me constantly. Maybe you could argue that one can have ‘too much’ family…I’ll leave that for all to contemplate. Particularly as we all emerge, blinking and bleeding from the trials and tribulations of metaphorical lockdown cage fighting.
It ain’t ‘space’. I live in a wonderful part of the world and have acres of space to wander around whenever I wish. Now that we have a dog, this has possibly become somewhat of a chore, but nevertheless, the space I’m surrounded by never ceases to take my breath away.
It ain’t ‘health’. I’m not exactly a picture of middle aged perfection, and there’s a lot I could do to improve my weight, diet and fitness, but it’s not a cause for overt concern, nor something I’m yearning to pursue with triathlete perseverance. That shit just nags away at the back of my mind constantly…as I’m sure it does for many others.
It ain’t ‘marriage’. I’m in a balanced and equal relationship with my wife. For sure there are occasions when we want to rip each others throats out, but in the main we bob along, supporting and lifting each other when each dips a little lower below the plumb line.
So, after considering a wide range of potential missing ‘purpose’ pieces, I’ve come to conclude that – much as it might feel a little clichéd and pathetic – my missing purpose relates to work.
Which is simultaneously obvious and ridiculous.
It’s not surprising that my body might miss it. The circumstances of my ‘step away’ were such that I needed some significant time off, but once the body and mind settle back into it’s natural rhythm, it isn’t unexpected that the thing that has consumed 30 years of creative cranial application isn’t missed just a little bit by my brain.
In contrast, I find it rather annoying that something that we decide to do, in order to feed ourselves, protect our family and supply us with material goods buries itself into our core and demands of us when we are in a position to step away from it.
Initially, I thought it was the ‘creative challenge’ bit that was missing, but I’ve been doing lots of creatively challenging bits and pieces throughout the last year or so, be it mentoring, educating or even delivering against more recent design briefs. That stuff isn’t lacking.
Maybe it’s the adrenaline bit? The stomach flips that accompany a tricky client meeting or the sweaty palms when you face a challenge you genuinely haven’t got a scooby how to start or the heart palpitations that kick in when you are asked to present to a room full of expectant faces. Maybe it’s that?
That stuff is a bit like alcohol in reverse. Instead of the delightful drink induced happy state, followed by a roaring hangover, your experience the anguish beforehand and the delightfulness afterwards.
I think it’s that. And I’ve realised that I miss it.
The plate spinning. The controlled chaos. The shifting sands.
Actually. I lie. I’m not sure I always ‘miss it’ per se. I think I just might need it. Like a diabetic needs insulin. I don’t choose to want it. I’ve been preconditioned to need it to be complete. It’s so much a part of how I operated (whether I wanted to or not) that my DNA has been mutated to rely on it.
But this might presume that I need to go back to my ‘old life’ to secure the purpose that drives me right?
Maybe. Maybe not.
I’ve spent a bit of time thinking about this and I’ve ended up visualising it (‘cos that’s all I ever do!) in a way that makes sense to me.
Partly influenced by a life ‘priority’ model that was shared with me by Chris Johnson when I first started blabbering on about recalibration, and partly by some recent Chemistry homework that my youngest daughter had to complete (stuff to do with ions and electrons which even after the third time of trying I’m still pretty clueless about).
Anyway, I digress.
The model is essentially three concentric rings. The central ‘core’ are the few things or values that are essential to my life. Not in a Maslow’s kinda way, but specific to me and what makes me tick. The next ring outwardly are values that are less important but still key. Secondary order values. And the third ring is filled with tertiary order values. The further out you get the less important they are, but they are not unimportant…if you get my drift?
Now I don’t plan to divulge the values in my inner rings as it were, but this bit about plate spinning or work adrenaline is something that orbits in the third ring I think. Depending on how I’m feeling, it might orbit a little closer into the second ring…possibly an elliptical orbit…but it tends to live in the 3rd circle of me. I visualise it as a chemical element (although I’m probably visualising it wrong given my track record in Chemistry), with the core made up of pretty solid protons and neutrons, and a orbiting populous of electrons that circle in closer or more distant orbits.
So it’s less about it being a critical missing middle part of the jigsaw puzzle and more about it being a useable external attribute that I can exploit, harness or ignore as my life insists or requires at any particular point in time. If I’m to take the Chemical analogy further (and probably make any chemists out there wince), it may be that some days I’m a Carbon atom with an active ‘work adrenalin’ electron whizzing around, and others I’m a Boron (how apt!) or even a Beryllium atom on a particular lazy day! I think I’ll stop before I offend the whole scientific community!
So you could call it transferable or moveable purpose if you will?
Sounds a bit odd, but it helps me to understand when I need to prioritise this aspect – and more importantly recognise that it is influencing my mood or needs to be ‘energised’.
So maybe it’s not true purpose per se, but a purpose atom. Maybe I’ve always had purpose, but it’s the energy around the purpose that needs attention or that I’m finding may be missing from time to time?
Reframing stuff is useful. Trying to understand the structure and layering of these missing pieces and their natural hierarchy helps to deal with things. It adds priority to stuff you forget you’ve always had and kicks the angry, distracting stuff into the weeds where they belong…on the periphery rather than occupying the frontal lobe of our consciousness.
Makes sense to me.
And that’s the point isn’t it?
