Hello,
I'm Mervi Eskelinen!
An artist, nerd and sorcerer, dedicated to make world softer and better for everyone, and to get you to make more art. Make art, change the world!
Why you do what you do?
At first you were told to pursue your passions. It proved to be more difficult than you initially thought. But then, all of a sudden, the story shifted and suddenly you were supposed to have a purpose. A purpose for doing what you do. A purpose for your job, a purpose for your business, a purpose for your creations. You have now been presented with a new problem. Passion is not enough, nor is being good at it, or having the experience. You have to be able to tell why you do what you do.
A few months ago I wrote about 10 questions to answer for personal branding. As someone pointed out in the comments, the fourth question is very important: Why do you do what you do? The question isn't only important for personal branding. It applies to anything you do. Why do you blog? Why do you knit? Why do you do your work? Why?
The question of why you do what you do is a hard one to answer. What makes it harder is the fact that not all the answers are as noble as you might hope. It's not always about a higher purpose. More often than not the reason is something as cold as money or as harsh as pure survival. You do your work to pay your bills. You blog because you heard it's a great way to get the word out. You knit, because you are good at it and you like doing it. While it would be awesome to have a reason such as beautiful as helping others or saving the world, that's not always the case. More often, the reason for doing what you do is because it is a means to an end.
My motivation for writing this is not to depress you. This is to remind you that if you don't have a higher purpose for what you do, that's quite okay. Most people don't ever have one, some sugarcoat their reasons and some find a purpose on the way. That part is the trick. Those who have found a purpose, something other than money or duty or survival, have found it by doing and stumbling. They have tried, they have failed. Somewhere along the line, there was a moment of a coincidence, a little luck, a friend with a vision, another with a problem. And there, the higher purpose revealed itself. They found themselves providing a way for people connect with others or helping others to find their purposes. Most often none of those purposeful people started with a purpose, at least not with the one they ended up to have.
Whatever you are doing right now and however you feel about doing it, write down you reasons for doing it. Don't try to come up with the perfect reasons, the pretty and glittery. Write down your real reasons. If your reasons don't seem good enough, think what you can do about it. Can you find a new thing to do, something you'll do for other reasons? Can you decide to feel better about your reasons? Can you adjust? There's always something you can do. However, there's no shortcut to a purpose. In the beginning your reason is survival. You are good(ish) with doing something, so you do it in order to pay your rent and other life. Then you struggle, try different things or keep doing that first thing. There's always struggle. If you luck out, all that struggle will help you to figure your purpose out. Hopefully, you will find that purpose good enough for you.
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