Why Am I Here? Discovering Your Core Purpose

Dec 4, 2025

While "Who am I?" grounds a leader in authenticity, the next critical question in the Reconnect phase is "Why am I here?". Finding clarity on your personal and professional purpose is fundamental to achieving both short- and long-term goals and maintaining high levels of motivation.

Many successful leaders find themselves asking if their sacrifices were worth it later in life, feeling lonely or trapped after their career success has been driven primarily by the expectations of others. Indeed, a survey found that 50% of leaders were not totally clear about their purpose in life. When leaders lose their sense of purpose, they lose their way.

Understanding and Activating Your Purpose

The decision to clarify your purpose helps you regain focus, feel fulfilled, and prioritize your time effectively.

The Problem of Value and Role Disconnect: Leaders can lose their way when they feel disconnected from their roles because they cannot realize their three key values. This misalignment, coupled with an unclear or diluted organizational purpose, can lead to demotivation.

The Trap of Staying Safe: Once leaders achieve success and financial security, they often choose to remain safe and comfortable, avoiding the risk of losing what they have. This avoidance of new challenges can lead to feeling trapped, bored, and losing a sense of purpose.

The Energizers and Drains Technique: To identify misalignment, leaders can list activities or aspects of roles that either energized or drained them over the last decade. If the number of drains currently outweighs the energizers, it is an indicator that the leader needs to change the way they perform their role or how they live their life.

The "In Service Of" Perspective: This question redirects a leader's focus away from themselves and onto the people they serve. Clarifying who you are in service of today and who you want to serve in the future (e.g., family, clients, community) helps restore perspective when a leader feels lost or confused.

The Legacy (Eulogy) Exercise: Thinking deeply about what you would want mourners, your family, friends, and colleagues, to be saying about you at the end of a long, purposeful, and fulfilling life. Writing a full eulogy or a poem describing the rich life you want to have lived can help you reconnect with your purpose.

The Creative Visioning Approach: By asking the question, "If I had no limitations whatsoever, how would I choose to live my life over the next five years, using the experience and skills I have gained...?" and then drawing the answer without using words, leaders can tap into their creative thinking and find clarity.

Sharing and Accountability: After articulating the vision verbally, it is critical to share it with others (friends, boss, associates). Sharing builds momentum, and asking others to help hold you accountable is essential for achieving your dreams.

Conclusion: Reclaiming Your Destiny

Living a life driven by purpose leads to higher resilience and a sense of fulfillment, ensuring that when you look in the mirror, you know you are making a difference.

The clarity gained from this discipline enables you to design an ideal role charter that includes all your energizers. This proactive step defines what you will say yes and no to, helping you maintain focus and move closer to your chosen destiny. The commitment to this self-coaching step is the act of reclaiming your personal and professional dreams.

3 Essential Self-Coaching Questions

Which of my top three values is currently not being met in my role, and what small change can I make tomorrow to honor it?

Based on the 'Energizers and Drains' exercise, what low-energy task can I proactively remove or delegate this week?

If I were asked today, "Who am I in service of?", does my calendar for the next two weeks accurately reflect that priority?

Additional Frameworks and Concepts to Explore

Ikigai (A Reason for Being): A Japanese concept that guides individuals to find their purpose by finding the intersection of four primary elements: what you love, what you are good at, what the world needs, and what you can be paid for. This holistic model is a powerful tool for aligning professional life with personal values.

BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal): Coined by Jim Collins, this is a long-term goal that is so clear, compelling, and challenging that it acts as a powerful unifying force and a focal point for all efforts. Establishing a personal or team BHAG helps crystallize the long-term vision of Why Am I Here?

Future Pacing (NLP): A technique from Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) where you vividly imagine yourself in the future having already achieved your desired goal or purpose. This visualization technique helps the mind connect with the future reality, making the present actions required to achieve the goal feel more urgent and attainable.

Gap Analysis: A process that compares your current state (where you are now) with your target state (where you want your purpose to take you). Identifying the gap helps break the overwhelming task of "finding purpose" into smaller, manageable areas that require new skills, resources, or behavior changes.