get unstuck & find your purpose

the art of unbecoming everything your heart wants

What if I don’t have a purpose?

There. I said it. Said one of the many questions that eat away at my very being when I have been left alone for too long with my thoughts.

Because when I came across the journal prompt, “what is your purpose? why are you here? how is it bigger than you?”, I stared at the page for a long time. Blank. Nothing came out. And that scared me more than I’d like to admit.

For most of my life, my identity has been built on who i was for other people. The classic archetype of being the eldest daughter I suppose. I was good at being who people needed, but not at being who I needed. I chased goals that weren’t really mine because someone I loved wanted them to be. I built a life that looked right because the world told me it should feel right.

As an adult, I look around at the things I worked so hard for and feel nothing. Not emptiness exactly, but a kind of numb. It’s not that I am not proud—I am very much proud of my accomplishments— but when I see them as the stepping stones for my life, the only words I can muster are this isn’t the life I want. Like the color has drained from it all. The achievements still shimmer, but they don’t glow the way they used to.

That is where the question of purpose sits and molders. You spend so long building your identity around others that when you finally have space to ask who you are alone, the silence is sickening. It’s realizing you’ve been so focused on becoming someone that you never stopped to ask if it was you.

When I was little, I wanted to be a marine biologist, to spend my days near the ocean, helping animals, doing something that felt alive. Until I was told it wasn’t practical — that it wouldn’t pay enough, that dreams like that were lovely but not sustainable. so I pivoted.

I then wanted to be a surgeon—a pediatric neurosurgeon, specifically. I liked the idea of doing something impossibly hard, something that would mean something. I wanted to help people in a way that mattered. Until, again, I was told how hard that life would be, how much it would take from me, how I wouldn’t like it.

So I did what made sense: I earned a decent degree and went corporate chasing a lucrative career in the data world. It’s stable, respectable, safe. But my heart is not here. I think i’ve lived most of my life in between wanting the safety of a small life but craving the electricity of a big one.

Purpose seems to comes easy to some people. They just know. They feel called to something. To teach, to raise a family, to serve. They have a direction that feels solid beneath their feet. I’ve never had one clear thing that felt like my reason for being here.

My career dreams morphed over and over, but when I look at their core, something never changed: I wanted to do something big. I wanted to make a difference in the world. I’ve always felt this pull toward something bigger. The kind of life that demands more of you. That asks you to take the risk, make the move, speak the truth, even when your voice shakes.

At some point, we all reach the edge of who we’ve been. You can only hold up the mask for so long before it starts to suffocate you.

But doing what’s right for you doesn’t always feel good. We’d rather choke on no air, struggling to breath in a box than feel the pain of change. Choosing yourself can feel like betrayal. That the moment of standing in the middle of everything you built and realizing you don’t want it anymore, and disappointing the people who once defined you, carry heartbreak.

Growth rarely feels like freedom at first. And the right path isn’t always the peaceful one.

Because before you can know your purpose, you have to let every version of you that was built to please others die. You have to face the silence that comes when there’s no one left to tell you who to be.

To chase purpose is to let yourself unravel. To let your heart break over what you thought you wanted, and still trust that something truer is being built in the wreckage. Purpose is about becoming. It’s the process of listening when everything familiar falls away, and daring to follow the faint tug of what feels alive, even when it terrifies you.

To know yourself and trust yourself without external validation—that’s where purpose lives. It’s you vs you. It’s an ever-evolving framework of knowing yourself at the deepest of levels

I had to let go of everything everyone expected me to be as an adult, and in my career, to start chasing what I had passion for. It doesn’t feel clear or linear. I still don’t know entirely what my purpose is, and maybe I never will.

What I do know is that I want to live a life that feels big and meaningful. One that stretches me, scares me a little, and demands that I keep choosing what feels alive over what feels easy.

Where I was/am—successful, comfortable, stable—should have been enough. But it wasn’t. Because it wasn’t mine. I had built a life that looked good on paper but left me uninspired and restless, boxed in by the version of myself I thought I had to stay to keep everyone proud.

Comfort can be its own kind of cage. That the things that once made you feel safe can start to suffocate you when you’ve outgrown them. Your purpose is acknowledged everytime you let go of what’s safe to make room for what’s true.

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how to find your purpose and rebuild yourself

You have to start by understanding the person beneath the noise

know your values and beliefs
what do you stand for when no one’s watching? what makes you angry, what breaks your heart, what makes you feel alive?

write down what you believe about love, success, money, freedom — not what you’ve been told — what you actually believe. the point isn’t to have all the answers; it’s to start recognizing when you’re living out of alignment with your own truths. your values are the quiet rules you already live by. make sure they’re yours.

define the pillars of your identity
who are you when you’re not performing? what roles do you play, and which ones do you actually want?

visualize your dream version of you. not the highlight reel. the daily version. how do they move through the world? what energy do they give off? what do they tolerate, and what do they walk away from? if you don’t know who that person is yet, start by removing everything that feels false. identity often reveals itself by subtraction.

audit your actions and habits
what you do every day is the loudest thing about you.

your behaviors (discipline, creativity, how you speak to yourself) are the proof of what you believe you’re worth. if your actions aren’t reflecting your desires, change them. do one small thing each day that aligns with who you say you want to be. it’s about congruence.

examine your environment
who you’re around, what you consume, and where you spend your time shape your mind more than you realize.

do your surroundings inspire or drain you? do the people around you challenge you to grow, or keep you small? curate your environment with intention — even if it means outgrowing people, places, or routines that once fit. your world should reflect the future you’re walking toward.

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there’s a japanese concept called ikigai, or your reason for being. it sits at the intersection of what you love, what you’re good at, what the world needs, and what you can be paid for. But I think it’s more than that. It’s about alignment—when your inner world finally matches the outer one. When how you live reflects who you are.

Purpose comes in the decision to live a life that feels like your own and chase your values.

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