Maybe stop making work that deep

I was interviewed last week for a podcast opportunity, and at one point the interviewer asked me a question that made my brain do a full record scratch.

She asked, basically:

And listen, I know the expected answer.

This is the part where I’m supposed to say, “Yes, absolutely, I was put on this earth to do this work, every hard thing I’ve lived through led me here,” cue the soft crescendo music and the tears.

But that’s not what I said.

What I actually said was that, as someone who coaches people through burnout and career decisions, I encourage people not to put so much pressure on finding their purpose.

Because I think that pressure is part of what makes work feel so damn loaded in the first place.

I told her I do think I’m living in my strengths right now.

I do think coaching uses the parts of me I want to keep using in this season of life. The pattern recognition and plainspoken truth-telling. The ability to sit with someone in the fog and help them name what’s really going on.

But is it my life’s purpose?

I honestly don’t know.

And I’m not sure that question is as useful as we’ve made it, anyways.

The whole “find your purpose” thing sounds beautiful until you’re burned out, stuck, and trying to make a career decision with a nervous system that’s looking like 21-year-old hungover you.

Then it stops feeling inspiring.

In fact, it really just feels like one more test you’re failing.

You’re already asking:

• Why am I so tired?
• Why is this job everything I ever wanted but it feels wrong in my actual body?
• Why did I work this hard to get here if I don’t even want this anymore?

And then the purpose conversation shows up and adds a brand-new layer of pressure:

• Well, what if I leave the thing I was meant to do?
• What if I never find my real calling?
• What if I pick wrong and waste more time?

No one needs that kind of spiritual homework while they’re answering work emails from the toilet with their jaw clenched. Just saying.

The problem is that we’ve turned purpose into this single, shiny destination. Like somewhere out there is one perfect career path that will explain your whole life and make every bad season retroactively meaningful.

That’s a lot to ask from a job. And it’s a pretty brutal standard to hold yourself to when you’re already tapped out.

I told the interviewer that I believe we have multiple purposes.

We bring value to the world in more than one way. We also receive value in more than one way.

That reciprocity matters.

Because a job can use your strengths and still not be the whole point of your life. A career can be meaningful and still not deserve unlimited access to you. Work can matter without becoming the place you prove your entire reason for existing.

Read that again.

Especially if you’re the kind of person who has spent years being useful, impressive, reliable, available, and resentful that everyone else got so comfortable benefiting from it.

Did you read it again? Good.

So if you’re in that “what am I supposed to do with my life?” spiral, I would stop trying to find your purpose first.

Start smaller.

Start with fit.

Where are your strengths actually being used? Where are they being overused? Where are they being punished? Where are they being taken for granted because you’ve been good at something for so long that people forgot it still costs you energy?

That’s the part I’d look at.

Because “living in your strengths” and “being exploited through your strengths” can look very similar from the outside.

You might be the person everyone comes to because you’re calm in a crisis. Great.

But if your entire job has become absorbing everyone else’s panic, that’s not purpose.

That’s a role design problem.

You might be the person who can see ten steps ahead. Beautiful.

But if your workplace keeps ignoring the warning signs until everything becomes an emergency, that’s not your calling.

That’s a culture problem.

You might be the person who genuinely cares. I love that for you.

But if caring has become the reason you keep saying yes to things that make your life smaller, we need to be honest about what that care is costing.

This is why I’m not especially interested in helping people answer, “What is my purpose?”

I’m much more interested in:

• What kind of work lets you use your strengths without disappearing into them?
• What kind of role gives you energy back instead of turning your best traits into unpaid infrastructure?
• What kind of career decision would make your life feel like it belongs to you again?

That’s a better place to start.

If you’re in the middle of a career spiral right now, I don’t want you sitting there waiting for some grand purpose lightning bolt to hit before you’re allowed to make a move.

You may not need a new calling. You may need a cleaner diagnosis.

Is the problem the workload? The culture? The beliefs you’ve built around being useful? The choices that feel too risky to make? Or the fact that you have so little capacity left that every option feels threatening?

That’s where the decision gets clearer.

And it's why I’m running the Career Reboot Group Intensive on August 16th.

It’s for the person who’s done sitting in the fog, trying to decide if they should stay, redesign the role, or plan the exit while their brain keeps turning everything into one giant life-purpose crisis.

We’re going to slow it down and name what’s driving your burnout. We’re going to look at what’s fixable, what’s familiar, and what’s costing too much.

And you’ll leave with a clearer next move. Not a motivational poster. Just a simple next move you can implement right away.

If that’s the kind of clarity you need, I’d love to have you join me.

Because your job does not need to explain your whole life before you’re allowed to want something that fits.

Take care,

Tara