Purpose job? Or Life on Purpose?

I thought I was bad at commitment.

From Six Sigma to photography. Photography to publishing. Always searching for the "right" job that would finally click. Professional restlessness. Or so I told myself.

But I'm tired of that story. What if I wasn't failing to commit? What if I was simply refusing to squeeze myself into spaces that were never intended for the things I care about?

Here's the trap I believe we've fallen into: We expect our jobs to provide financial security, emotional fulfilment, a sense of identity and purpose, a feeling of belonging and hope, PLUS a reason to get out of bed in the morning.

It’s impossible. And it's exhausting.

I spent years searching for the right job, the one where everything would fall into place. I applied for purpose-driven roles that were honest about their poor pay. I would have taken any of them. I wrote resume after resume for these roles.

Some of those jobs are probably purposeful. But there aren't enough of them. The waiting list is longer than our working lives. These are shooting star positions: rare, brilliant and gone before you can catch them. Not all of us can make it through that door.

So what should we do? Keep waiting? Or keep competing with hundreds of other talented people for the few roles that promise both meaning and survival?

Here's what 'finding your purpose' really means in practice: Keep looking. Keep optimising. Believe that the next role will be the one. While you're searching, stay productive. Keep consuming. Stay inside the narrative that work is where meaning lives. → Have we outsourced our sense of purpose to the very structures designed to extract value from it?

I finally got one of those jobs: I worked as a learning facilitator at a school that had genuinely reimagined education. It worked. The pedagogy was brilliant. The mission was authentic. However, the pay was so bad that it demotivated everyone from the outset. That's when I realised that underpayment isn't just about money. When you don't feel valued, you begin to doubt your own worth. The work that matters most is compensated least. Yet we're expected to be grateful for the opportunity.

I have done a lot of it. Most of the people who showed up were genuinely interested and motivated. However, most of them didn't want to step outside their comfort zone and do any actual work. This meant that the workload was too high for those who were fully committed. These people were overworked and burnt out. Meanwhile, half the group was getting in each other's way. Moving forward? Difficult.

These structures make me furious. Not because people don't care, but because we've built systems that waste people's care.

But then I found something different: I applied for an unpaid volunteering position at the School of Moral Ambition. The hiring process was rigorous. Others thought it was asking too much for unpaid work. I thought it was genius. They were filtering for energy. For commitment. They were looking for people who wanted to build something, not people who were just looking for credentials or free time. I didn't get the job because of the location. But the process showed me that serious unpaid work can exist if we treat it seriously.

Alex McCann calls this "the death of the corporate job", which is not the end of offices, but rather the collapse of what they promised to represent. The paycheque still comes. But the sense of purpose may never show up.

Here's the reframe. Let the job pay the rent. Give it 40 hours. But stop asking it to feed your soul. We finally see the pattern. What if we're not meant to define ourselves by our jobs? What if trying out different roles — from Six Sigma to photography to publishing and beyond — isn't a failure? What if that's simply part of being human?

I'm good at turning my thoughts into action. I'm good at getting others excited about what they are capable of doing. After sharing a post asking, 'What if motherhood wasn't a career break?' and seeing how much it resonated, I realised that I wanted to change things on a larger scale. I am doing this now by sharing my reflections on hope, imagination and courage. On 'what if' instead of 'what is'. So I'm building it: The Radical Hope Club. It's a space where hope isn't a private feeling, but a collective force. 

But here's the question that really matters: What does that project actually do? Not how it makes us feel. What changes does it bring about? This is where I had to be honest with myself. It's easy to be idealistic without being ambitious. To care deeply while achieving little. To build community while avoiding the harder work of building power.

The Radical Hope Club isn't just about feeling less alone (though that matters A LOT). It's about supporting those who are trying to achieve something. Some of us will lead campaigns. Most of us won't. However, all of us can amplify, connect, provide resources and recognise those who do.

This is what 'living on purpose' actually looks like: You stop waiting for shooting star positions to open up. You stop asking corporations for meaning. You stop treating volunteer work as a weekend hobby for the uncommitted.

Purpose isn't something you find or achieve. It's how you orient yourself. And that orientation doesn't wait for permission, funding, or the perfect role.

Here's what I want you to notice:

If you've been searching for purpose in job titles and coming up empty, you're not failing. You're seeing clearly. The question isn't "What's my purpose?" It's "How do I want to move through the world?"

That's not a job. That's a practice.

And it starts by recognising the story you're inside and deciding whether you want to keep reading it or start writing your own.

Stay curious. Stay courageous.