You Made Your Purpose a Destination. That Is Why It Keeps Failing You.
Careers built to arrive somewhere break on arrival. The career research points to a better way: run purpose as a direction you live.
Two Careers, One Wound
Two professionals come to me with the same ache, though on paper they look like opposites.
The first spent ten years chasing one target (like the title, the company, the number)-reached it, and cannot understand why the good feeling drained away within weeks.
The second never found their one true calling and carries a quiet shame that they have somehow failed in their career.
Different stories, same wound underneath. Both were taught that purpose is a place you arrive at, and a career built to arrive somewhere will break on you whether you reach it or not. The fix is not a better destination. It is a different way of running the whole career.
The Three Ways We Define Purpose at Work
Amy Wrzesniewski and her colleagues found that people hold one of three views of their work. Some see it as a job, a way to pay for the rest of life. Some see it as a career, a ladder of promotions and standing. And some see it as a calling, work that is part of who they are. People who feel their work is a calling report the greatest satisfaction with their jobs and lives.
Take a moment to consider how most people see their calling. It’s often where careers quietly stumble. Many imagine it as the one big thing they were meant to do, something they need to find. Others tie it to a specific goal: becoming CEO, building a company, winning an award. Some set it as a singular mission by which they will be judged throughout their working lives. But these ideas turn purpose into a finish line or a destination, something to reach someday. That outlook, more than any particular goal, is what holds people back, because defining your calling as a final destination makes it feel like a never-ending race. Something you can’t win if you miss it or if you finally achieve it.
Why a Destination Runs Out of Fuel
Tie your meaning to an outcome, and the evidence turns uncomfortable. Tim Kasser and Richard Ryan found that people who build their working lives around money, image, and status report lower well-being than people who aim at growth, contribution, and getting good at the work. Many of the prizes we are taught to chase are the ones that leave us empty once we hold them. And the wins we do land do not last. Philip Brickman and his colleagues, in one of the most-cited studies in psychology, compared big lottery winners with ordinary people and found that the winners were not meaningfully happier. We get used to our promotions and titles far faster than we expect, and the high point that was supposed to complete us settles back to normal within weeks.
There is one more trap hidden inside the phrase “find your calling.” Paul O’Keefe, Carol Dweck, and Gregory Walton found that people who believe an interest is something you locate, fix, and wait for give up sooner when the work gets hard, because the struggle feels like proof they chose wrong. People who believe interest is something you grow keep going. So hunting for your purpose as a fixed thing to be found is itself one reason people quit the road early.
The Reframe the Career Research Already Made
Here is the shift, and it is not a nice thought to tape to a wall. It comes straight from career studies. Ryan Duffy and his colleagues looked at people who felt they had a calling and asked a sharper question than whether they had one. They asked whether these people were actually living it, week to week. Simply having the calling predicted very little. Living it was what carried the link to job satisfaction. They titled a companion paper as plainly as the finding deserves: when it comes to a calling and a satisfying life, it is not about having it; it is about living it.
Read that as a career instruction. The journey is the purpose. A destination is only a way to measure that the journey was worth taking, a marker that tells you the direction was right. So the real question is not whether I arrived, but whether I am still walking the line I chose. If you spent your years doing work that stretched you, served people, and pointed toward something true, then even without the exact title you named, you did not fail in your purpose. You delivered on it.
A Framework for Running Your Career as a Journey
None of this is permission to drift. It is a better way to steer, and it has a shape. Douglas Hall spent decades studying the people who do well over the course of a long career, and he found they run what he calls a protean career, one steered by two things they own rather than by a title someone hands them: their own direction and their own values. That is the backbone. Four moves put it to work.
Set the north star, not the finish line. Name the direction your work should serve and the values it must honor, then let that compass, not one job title, choose your next step. A compass keeps working even after a single destination is reached or lost, which is exactly why Hall found that values-led, self-directed careers last.
Score by milestones, not by a someday verdict. Each quarter, ask whether you moved along the line, built a skill, served someone, earned a relationship. When you reach a destination, treat it as a checkpoint that confirms the direction, then pick the next step from there.
Live the calling, do not just hold it. A calling you carry but never act on does nothing for you. So turn purpose into this week’s work. Look at the last five days and ask what you actually did that expressed the direction you claim. If the answer is nothing, you are only holding the calling, not living it.
Read difficulty as the road, not a wrong turn. When the work gets hard, that is not a sign you chose the wrong path. It is usually a sign you are on something real, and the people who treat interest as something to grow are the ones who stay long enough to get good.
Why This Is the Whole Idea Behind RISEUP@work
This is why we built RISEUP@work around the journey and its milestones rather than a single finish line. A career run as a practice, a north star plus honest milestones plus the next real step you actually live, is what the protean and calling studies show grows into both stronger performance and a more satisfying working life. RISEUP exists to give a professional that system: the direction, the diagnostics to check whether this quarter truly moved the line, and the community and mentorship that keep you living the work instead of only naming it.
Stop questioning whether you’ve found your purpose, as if it’s a hidden object with your name on it. Instead, ask yourself if you’re truly living it. Guide your career toward something that serves and resonates with you, take honest next steps, and trust the milestones to show you’re on the right path. Keep moving forward on this journey, and you’re already living the purpose you seek.
About the author: Dr. Deepak Bhootra is the Founder and CEO of RISEUP@work. He spent three decades as a senior leader within Fortune 100 companies across four countries, earned a doctorate studying what truly drives professional satisfaction and commitment, and has spent 13 years as an ICF-certified coach in more than 1,500 coaching relationships. RISEUP@work turns that experience into a career progression platform, built for the growth that begins after you are hired. It is live and welcoming early adopters at riseupatwork.com.
Ready to run your career as a journey instead of a chase? Join RISEUP@work and start building.