The Power of Purpose Finding Clarity in Chaos

Welcome back, Funela. Welcome. Hello, Ash. So today we are going to discuss about purpose. Yep. And purpose is really a central anchor and very important, which can keep a person grounded even in the most challenging situations.

Yeah, absolutely. And we might have a broad sense of purpose. We can talk about purpose in that way. And then that might break down in into, you know, more focused kinds of purpose. You know, I can think generally your purpose might be to support people and help people to live their best lives, for example. but that could break down further into the exact way that you want to do that, that maybe you want to go and become a doctor, you want to become a coach, maybe you have high value that you place on education and learning, you have strong feelings about how that should happen or how that needs to happen. So you become a teacher. So that's your purpose. but then again, that might break down into all sorts of other related purposes within that may be attached to goals. so yeah, we can think of it at a sort of macro and micro level, I guess. And even just on the level of, you know, my purpose is to survive the day. That's a very basic sense of purpose. But what do you add to that? Do you survive the day with a sense of meaning? Do you survive the day with a sense that you've supported other people, that you've connected with other people?

Yeah. Yeah, I feel what you've said is absolutely very, very meaningful. Yeah. And in the small things in the most kind of minutest of the things we can we are doing on a day-to-day basis, like connecting with others in those moments where we create a purpose. I guess now you and me, yeah. We are talking about this issue of the we're talking about purpose. Yeah. But there's a bigger purpose is the transforming.

We've got a collaborative purpose.

We have got a collaborative purpose. How you're connecting with people at your workplace, yeah, at your in your at your in your personal space for a shared meaning. Yeah. Yeah. For shared goals and that is a huge driver. And you said that its purpose is not like always a s a really a big thing, but it is the it's the smallest of the areas of our life where we put focus on where we create meaning for ourselves and for others. Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah.

And I suppose for animals who are less complex than human beings, the purpose might attach more to the nuts and bolts of survival, and that's important for us too. But yes, you mention perhaps these higher purposes that are more collaborative, where we're trying to do something that maybe doesn't just impact our immediate environment, but has a sort of ripple effect. And if we have good intentions which are backed up by, you know, self-management, emotional intelligence, social intelligence, resilience, environmental management, the these ripples can start to create something more positive. Maybe we're not going to change the whole world, but we're going to do something. And that's going to make us happy. That's going to give us a sense of meaning. Yeah.

I think John Di Martini, one of our spiritual teachers, used to say that more the more inspiring your purpose is, the greater is the power and the meaning, the greater is the power and the meaning of your life. It is usually for our own health and well-being if we have a purpose, purpose-driven life, it really is kind of a super supercharger that keeps you charged. Every day you get up in the morning, you know, you are you have something to look forward to, you have something to go for.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, absolutely. We all have to work. We all have to find a way to eat and have shelter and have those basic needs met. But then apart from that, what's our life about? What are our values in that? What do we want to create? And I think earlier on, you know, thinking about the negative things that happen, you know, we can say that's the bad side of human nature or that's the negative side of human nature. But okay, what's the positive side? What can we do? We don't just have to accept oh, bad things will always happen. We can tackle that. We can think about that. We can think about how do we take this horrible thing that is stress and distress and try and look at it in a different way. And we can't banish stress, but can we do something about it? Can we be positive in that? And that's a really great purpose.

And that's what you said, it's is the transforming. Yeah. The stress is a part of life. Yeah. And stress is even good for us to push us. Yeah. But it's only the stress which becomes toxic, which becomes chronic, yeah, which can be eroding our own sense of well-being. So how do we transform that is important. So for me, that this became a big purpose because when I found myself in the healthcare living with this amount of stress, yeah, I said, well, this is not kind of healthy. No. This is not healthy and this is not what I've signed up for. But then I over a period of time, over the last decade or so, I developed skills to be able to transform that stress into something much, much bigger. Yeah. And now I want to do it for other not only in the healthcare, but we see according to the Gallup studies that as you mentioned earlier, 45, 45% of people in other industries are feeling stress or burnt out at any given day. That is quite that is quite huge.

Yeah, that's enormous. And I feel like what you're sharing with me there, Ash, is your vision, which is an amazing thing to have, and it is related to purpose. There's something in you saying you can realise, oh, this isn't what I signed up for. Because essentially, when we head out in any kind of endeavour, we do have some kind of a vision. We might not have spent a lot of time on it, but we have some sense of what that's going to be. And hopefully that's generally a positive vision. But if that becomes compromised, if something else is going on with that, what is that? And how can we get back to that more positive vision and sense that we can build on and increase that vision? Yeah. So all of the techniques that we've discussed will help. But I think it is important and it's related to values as well, to just stay connected to the vision that you have, to your best vision.

And also your purpose and your vision is something which might evolve with time. Of course. Yeah. And it's it's not that it is written on written in stone. But as your experiences evolve in life, so is your is your purpose going to be.

Yeah, there may be things you can do that you never imagined you could do. There may be whole areas that you can go and educate yourself in and experience that you didn't know existed.

Yeah.

And I think also that's a place where we'll keep coming back around to coaching and how that can help. I think it's important. There's a lot that you can do for yourself, but there's something very special about sharing a space with someone else who's there, who's a neutral party who wants to support you. That's their purpose. They want to support you in achieving your vision, in supporting yourself. And coaching sessions are a wonderful place where you can build your vision and explore that. Because day to day we can maybe we're going home and we're grumbling and moaning about our hard day, and we're talking to friends about issues at work or talking to colleagues about issues at work. Where do we get to go and expand a positive vision of something? And that's important. And if you can do that, then you can actually maybe bring that into conversations at work. So they become a bit less heavy and you start to maybe encourage people in their own visions. Because we can't stay shut down. We can't just think, oh, things are bad and they can't ever get any better. Because then they won't, because that's just a rigid belief. Things are bad, they can't get any better. People can't be better than we are, we're stuck with that. Well, maybe we're not. You know, if you look at all of the progress that humankind's achieved, why can't we do things differently? Why can't we change how we behave soci socially and even emotionally? Why can't we change how we are towards one another? You know, surely we can keep evolving in that sense. We have in terms of technology, we have in all sorts of ways.

Yeah. Yes, Manila. And I think the other most important thing, what I felt is bringing an external eye. Yeah. Something we are not able to see to that with that clarity, bringing an external coach really could give that perspective which might be so meaningful. Yeah. And the other thing is having a collective purpose. Yeah. Because that really connects us together in a shared sense of a mission. And that is really a huge charger for us to take it even much further and much with much wider scope.

For sure. And that can look different ways for different people, can't it? I mean, you may feel you're a very socially gregarious person, you like to be around a lot of people, and may or maybe you're not, maybe you prefer working on your own, but there's still connection that you need and that will help you with the outside world. So it's it's finding your best place with that. It's finding what you need.

Yeah. Well Funilla, thank you so much for sharing these incredible insights. I would look forward to your our discussion in the last chapter in our next talk. And thank you. Thank you very much. Thanks so much, Ash.

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