What You Need to Know About Passion and Purpose

On your path towards passion and purpose, I’d like to encourage you to think about terminology.

Yes, really!

When I talk to people, they often use the words passion, purpose, and path somewhat indiscriminately:

“How do I find my passion?” “What’s my purpose?” “What’s my path?”

Without asking follow-up questions, it’s not immediately clear what they mean and where they feel they need help. Contrast this with someone who asks: “What’s wrong with my car tire?”

This question is much more self-explanatory, mostly because we all have a similar understanding of what a car tire is. This examples shows…

What I’ve learned (not least due to my legal background) is that definitions are incredibly important in life. Without getting clear on what we’re actually talking about, it’s easy to miss the mark.

For instance, when I someone asks me about the distance to Berlin, I’m thinking about flights to the German capital. Someone who lives near Berlin, New Hampshire, might have a different reaction to that question.

Misunderstandings can also occur when it comes to the…

Because passion, purpose and path point to different aspects of doing what you love, it’s helpful to learn to distinguish between them.

If you don’t love your work and you’re not quite sure why, this differentiation might help you get clearer on where the problem is. ⚠ Perhaps you need to find all three, or maybe you only need to work on one of them.

Let me give you an example:

Let’s take a woman who loves to write. It really pains her to see how many girls worldwide don’t have the opportunity to get a good education. In her day job, she creates copy for a car rental company. She doesn’t feel completely satisfied at work but why? What exactly is missing?

To answer that question, let’s look at the…

Apart from passion, purpose and path, other related terms could also be more clearly defined (such as the term “calling”). My decision to limit this article to 3 Ps is to keep the scope manageable.

When it comes to the distinction between passion and purpose, different authors define them in rather similar ways. A commonality is that purpose is seen as something about the world at large and as more important than passion.

In his book Ego Is the Enemy , Ryan Holiday makes a compelling case for purpose over passion. He also describes the difference between the two as follows:

“Passion is about. (I am so passionate about ______.) Pur­pose is to and for. (I must do ______….)”

Jeremy Haselwood put it this way:

“ Passion = What’s so meaningful to you that you crave it…; an inward impact

Purpose = What you were put on this earth to do; an outward impact”

Or, in the words of Micah Redding:

“Finding your passion is about finding what you love to do, finding your purpose is about finding something you care about changing in the larger world.”

When it comes to purpose, Micah Redding also encouraged the reader to think about a “meta-purpose” that’s contributing to things on a larger scale. While I hadn’t heard the term “meta-purpose” before, I think it’s a great description of a purpose beyond a purpose.

• Passion refers to what you love doing (for instance, writing or teaching)
• Purpose relates to your deeper reason for doing it, to your why (for instance, in order to empower young people to create the lives they want) and
• Path refers to how you bring it into the world (often, we can find a fourth “P” here: Profit and the question of how to make one’s work financially sustainable).

Well, the woman gets to write a lot (Passion) and she’s making a living doing it (Path/Profit) — but she isn’t doing work that’s in alignment with her purpose.

Contrast this with a man who feels most alive when he teaches groups of people (Passion), who has a heartfelt desire to protect the environment (Purpose) and who takes on a job as an accountant at Greenpeace (Path/Profit).

This man is expressing his purpose and bringing it into the world in a way that financially sustains him — but not in a way that he loves.

With all that being said, let’s move on to…

Grab a pen and paper. 📝Then, take a moment to go through the following process.

(If you want to get the most out of this or if you're afraid of getting stuck, get the "Taking Action Worksheets" and begin by filling those out.)

• What do you love to do? What lights you up?
  This question points towards your passion. For instance: "I love expressing myself through writing. I love speaking in front of people."
  
  
• Think of some cause you care about. Why do you care about them? Why is this important to you?
  This question points towards your purpose. For instance: "I deeply care about animal rights because I want to protect animals who can't protect themselves. I also really care a lot about justice in general because I want a world that's fair for everyone."
  
  
• How are you going to express your passion and purpose? How will you make this happen?
  This question points towards your path. For instance: "I wish I knew!!!"
  
  
• Based on your answers to these questions, what do you need to focus on?
  For instance: " I'm somewhat clear on my passion and purpose, I just really don't know what to do about it. So I guess I really need to focus on my path." If you're unclear about multiple things, I'd suggest starting with exploring your passion (since it's typically the easiest out of these three).
  
  
• What's one small thing that you could do to explore your area of focus?
  Make this small. For instance: "Hmm, since I love writing and don't really know how to bring it into the world, I could start a blog. Or, actually, to make this more doable, I could just share my writing as a post on Facebook."
  

To connect more deeply with your passion and purpose, figure out what you’re actually looking for. Is it more enjoyment of a task (passion)? Or are you looking for more meaning (purpose)? Or is it about finding a way to bring your passion and purpose more fully into the world (path)?