45. The Truth About Finding Your Purpose
Do you ever feel like you're just going through the motions in life, lacking a sense of purpose or direction? You're not alone. As we enter a new year, many of us find ourselves re-evaluating our lives, taking stock of where we've been, and looking ahead to where we want to go.
But here's the secret: finding your purpose isn't about looking outside yourself for answers. It's an inside job. In this episode, we take a fresh look into the concept of purpose. We explore what purpose really means, why we often struggle to find it, and how our search for purpose can sometimes lead us astray.
Tune in this week as we share our own journeys with purpose and offer practical tips for discovering the purpose that already lies within you. We discuss how to stop looking for purpose in the wrong places, and instead, you’ll learn how to choose a purpose that aligns with your values and helps you live with real intention.
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What You’ll Learn from this Episode:
Why finding your purpose is a made up thing and completely optional.
How to stop looking for purpose outside yourself in things like career, relationships, and accomplishments.
Why you are already full of purpose, just as you are.
How to choose a purpose that aligns with your values and helps you grow.
The difference between purpose and goals, and why it matters.
How living with intention can help you find more meaning in the day-to-day.
Why calm and regulation are essential for living life on purpose.
Listen to the Full Episode:
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Full Episode Transcript:
Kelle Cobble: Imagine knowing exactly who you are, what you stand for, what's important to you, and what you're here to do in this life. Your purpose.
Nina Lynch: Yeah, this time of year we tend to re-evaluate our lives. Take stock, take inventory, look at where we've been, and look ahead at where we want to go.
Kelle: Yeah, that's why today we're talking all about purpose, including what purpose actually is, and we're going to fill you in on a little secret to finding your purpose.
Nina: Ooh, let's get going. This is Ambitious-Ish.
Burnout? Check. Daily overwhelm? Check. Resentment rash, stress, and a complete lack of well-being? Check, check, check! You’re not alone. We’re your hosts, Kelle & Nina, and we are here to help you feel calm, balanced, and empowered so you can redefine success, make choices that feel authentic, and ACTUALLY enjoy the life you work so hard to create. You ready? Let’s go.
Kelle: Hey, I'm Kelle.
Nina: And I'm Nina. As coaches, we get asked all the time to help people find more purpose in their lives. Their purpose. Like, what's the one thing that if you just knew what it was, it would change everything?
Kelle: Yeah, like, if you just knew your life's purpose, your guiding vision for your life, you would know how to make better decisions, find direction, have more meaning, prioritize your time, motivate yourself to work hard, know exactly what you should be doing.
Nina: We think having the right career or the perfect relationship or having kids or a calling will give us purpose, right?
Kelle: Yeah, we make finding our purpose so big, like, we need to figure this out. It can feel really heavy and hard to not know what your purpose is. Like, if you don't figure this out, your life won't have meaning.
Nina: We spend all this time looking for what will finally give our lives purpose, what will feel fulfilling, and that if we don't figure it out, we're doing it all wrong, right? Like maybe you thought you figured it out at one point when you decided on a career or when you got married and had kids. And then you reach a transition. You change jobs or your kids grow up and you're like, okay, now what? You feel a sense of loss of meaning and once again, you question who you are, what you're here on this earth to do.
Kelle: Yes, I struggled with my purpose when I was younger for a really long time. I did all the normal things that I thought I should do. I went to school and got good grades and went to university. I decided to study accounting, not because I thought it sounded like super fun or anything. Give me a break, right? Sorry, accountants.Love you.
But because I grew up with not a lot of money, and I never wanted money to be a factor in my life. I wanted to understand it, and I wanted to work with it. I graduated, passed the CPA exam, and worked as an accountant with a lot of numbers and spreadsheets. And I quickly realized, nope, this isn't it.
And then I just didn't care at all. I learned what I needed to learn and there was no longer a passion there. So I left accounting and started a career in pharmaceuticals. I never had aspirations to climb the ranks of a big pharma company. It was sort of a holding place while I figured out what was next.
So the purpose was all about career for me. And then I had kids and had the pleasure of being a stay-at-home mom with them for a bit, but that wasn't it either. It wasn't until I started coaching that I felt like, ah, okay, we're onto something.
Nina: Yeah, I think for me and a lot of the women we work with, we get to the point where we start to feel uneasy. Okay, that's an understatement. We start to feel chronically disappointed or frustrated or maybe even a little bored or depressed, maybe even a little hopeless, and we start to question things. And some of the questions we ask clients when we meet them are like, what do you want? What would you do if no one else's opinion on this mattered and you trusted your own opinion?
What would you do if you knew you couldn't fail? And usually when we're not working with a coach, you leave these questions unanswered in your head, right? They're like these open loops and you kind of start to feel confused and overwhelmed by them and maybe even ashamed. So you start to ask more questions, right Kel? Do I need a therapist, an executive coach, a relationship counselor, a parenting class, a personal trainer, a professional organizer, right?
Like maybe just a new planner, a vacation, breath work, Right? Some Botox, a Peloton, another glass of wine. Right?
Yeah, but here's the thing. The common denominator here is you. So why don't we start there? And when we say you're the common denominator, we don't mean you're responsible for everything, okay? What we're trying to explain is you're responsible for how you experience everything, for the space in your mind and finding where you have choice.
Where are you making choices? Where aren't you? Where can't you? What are you telling yourself is your obligation or duty? Is that true?
Taking responsibility for your thoughts and feelings and behaviors is a big part of living your life with purpose, on purpose, to get out of your very beautiful, unique version of autopilot and stop overriding what you know is true for you, to put everyone else's needs before your own. That's all a subconscious distraction, by the way. To respond to what the day throws at you with integrity, not taking on the weight of the world. This is a big part of what we call becoming proudly and confidently Ambitious-ish. So let's talk about what purpose actually is.
Kelle: Okay. Yes. Purpose is defined as the reason for which something is done or created or for which something exists. So purpose is your why and it becomes your how. It is not your what.
Nina: Yeah. If you googled how to find your purpose, you'd be told to identify things you care about, reflect on what matters most, recognize your strengths and talents, try volunteering, service, imagine your best possible self, cultivate positive emotions like gratitude and awe, and look to the people you admire.
Kelle: We've been taught over and over to look for purpose outside of ourselves, as if once you find this one magical thing that you'll know exactly what you were put on this earth to do and then it'll start shaping who you are.
Nina: And that leads right into the secret to finding your purpose.
Kelle: Which is what trips us up, right? Our brains tell us we need to find the one perfect thing. That there's only one answer. Which is also a lie, right? There are always more than two answers to literally any question.
Nina: Yeah, we're here to tell you the secret to finding your purpose. It's not outside of you. It's not a job. It's not accomplishing something like having kids.
Kelle: Okay, this is our opinion and you may not like this. You are going to want to argue with what we're about to tell you. Are you ready? Finding your purpose is a made up thing. At some point, someone just made it up.
Nina: Yeah, having a purpose is completely optional. And if you want to have a purpose cool but again the answer is not outside of you. Having a purpose, figuring out your purpose is an inside job. It's a decision you make.
Kelle: You are already full of purpose. You are enough and complete just as you are. Nothing you do can give you more purpose. Not a job, or a talent, or a calling, or a degree. No label, or certificate, or award, or recognition, or anything external can give you more purpose than you already have.
Nina: And this is where people get confused, right? Because we’ve been taught that we have to do something to prove that we matter. So we get the dream job and I’m thinking of a former client who worked her way up into this killer position in her firm. This organization that she had given so much of her time and energy to and she was like, “wait, why?” Do I need to really help these wealthy white men be more and more wealthy? What’s the point? What am I even doing? She had just a couple more years with teenagers at home and she was really questioning her purpose. What she was meant to be doing with her life. Her time.
Kelle: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And this is where we had to get clear with her on what purpose actually is.
Nina: Purpose doesn't come from crafting a story about success and identity and looking at all the things I've done and all the titles I've had and how much money I make and how my name's on that building and now I matter. All that outside validation from what other people think about how much you've accomplished feels really good. And you do feel like you matter when you're being recognized by other people. But the more you receive the outside validation, the more you become dependent on it for your sense of self. And it actually distances you from the ability to have a relationship with yourself and to love yourself.
Kelle: Yeah, your purpose is not a what, it's a who. And you are magical, you are incredible beyond belief, you are an amazing rock star. Your work is believing that, believing that you're enough, believing that you already matter, all you can matter. Purpose comes from looking inside yourself, peeling back the layers on you and your deepest desires. Yeah, beyond just existing in your basic human form, which has plenty of purpose in and of itself, it's who you are.
Nothing you do outside of this is going to make you a better human being or a worse human being.
Kelle: No matter what you do with your life, you cannot have more or less purpose than another person. We cannot emphasize this enough. Do not confuse having a purpose with something you have to do to earn your right to exist, your worthiness. You actually can't do anything to become more worthy than you already are.
Nina: Absolutely. And we're being redundant here because this has to be the foundation upon which to build. You believing that you're worthy and purposeful without having to do anything to prove yourself is where we start.
Kelle: Yes, you are worthy, you are already enough. If having a purpose is something you decide you want, and remember, having a purpose is completely optional, Let's talk about choosing a purpose. Remember, it's a choice.
Kelle: Yeah. Okay. I love having a purpose. I think it's fun to have a purpose. One of my coaches, Brooke Castillo, talked about having a purpose as a way to evolve more as a human being.
Like what's going to help you grow and evolve in your life? She talks about it in a way that we're accessing desires we're only dreaming about and they can be as big as we want them to be. The bigger, the better. And we like going big because the bigger we go, the more obstacles we have to overcome, the more discomfort we have to be willing to feel along the way, the more we expand our self-concept of what we're capable of. And that growth becomes our version of fun.
And remember, that's the reason we choose a purpose. That's the reason I choose to have a purpose. It's just for fun. It's just to get to know myself more, to continue to learn for myself what's important to me, what I want, what I'm afraid of, where I hold myself back, to peel back the layers on who I am. It's not for anyone else.
It's not to prove myself to anyone. It's just for me. Having a purpose for me allows me to have a deeper, more alive, more expansive experience of life. And if we're willing to look at and unwind these old stories and beliefs in our brain and really question them and rewrite them according to where we're going, not where we've been, that's where I want to go. All right.
What about you, Nina?
Nina: Yeah, I think purpose is about living life with intention on purpose, right? Not according to anyone else's expectations of you, your own shoulds, which are always questionable or the path of least resistance, which is always the path you're on, by the way. I think purpose is a feeling. It's my how and my why.
Kelle: Love it. All right, let's talk about how to choose a purpose.
Nina: Yeah, some people choose to have the most fun they can have, to be the best mom they can be. To share their wisdom. To be really rich. To help other people. To make the world more beautiful through art.
To be a rock star. To foster world peace. To be a teacher.
Kelle: Yeah, and to squeeze everything I can out of each day and live my life to the fullest. I have several friends who I think have this purpose, by the way. And one other one, to be happy. Pretty sure this is my dad's purpose. He's the most positive person I know.
No matter what's happening, he finds a way to spin it to make him feel happy. And if your purpose is to be happy, that's awesome. And I want to caution you to not ignore the fact that life is 50-50. When you coach with us, it actually goes higher, but we can talk about that later. You're going to experience about 50% positive emotions and 50% negative emotions.
And really, we always say that the point of life is not to be happy all the time. It's to experience the whole spectrum, the whole rainbow of emotions, positive, neutral, and negative.
Nina: Yeah, and choosing your purpose, it's really checking on your why. Why is this important to you? Not surface, but taking some time to delve deeper, continuing to sit with yourself and ask and answer questions that help you discover for yourself what you want your purpose to be, really who you wanna be.
Kelle: Yeah, and notice if you start to judge, like there's some morality check you need to do to see if your purpose is worthy enough. This is not for anyone else. It's just for you. No judgment from you or anyone else here.
Nina: And once you decide, once you pick what you want your purpose to be, you then form your identity around your purpose. So for me, that looks like setting big goals, being more emotionally resilient, watching where I'm holding back and being willing to feel the feelings I need to feel in order to do the things I want to do.
Kelle Cobble: And listen, we don't want to confuse purpose with goals. Goals are things we are going to do on purpose to get out of autopilot and create a future that feels different than our past.
Nina: Yeah, becoming a bestselling author is a goal, not a purpose. Becoming a partner in your firm is a goal, not a purpose. Making a million dollars is a goal, not a purpose.
Kelle: And remember, your purpose is a why. It's why you make the choices that you make. It's why you're working so hard on this particular thing. And it's why you're overcoming all the things you need to overcome, like feelings of guilt, your people pleasing, your procrastinating, your self-doubt, overwhelm, confusion, everything you identify that's holding you back from fully believing you are living into your purpose.
Nina: We've had several clients come to us for coaching because they're becoming empty nesters or they're investing in coaching for themselves as a gift to themselves for a big birthday. And a big part of that was transitioning to a new purpose.
Kelle: Yeah. They wanted help moving into the next version of themselves. And this is a lot of what we delve into in coaching, figuring out what you want in life, what's important to you, what your dreams are, and then it's figuring out everything you need to do to live into your purpose.
And when we do this, we get as specific as possible. And once we know what we need to do, we look at all the obstacles that might get in our way, including old thoughts, old beliefs and old stories.
Nina: Yeah, so a cool starting point might be, you know, what would our days and weeks feel like if we didn't put our careers at the center? You know, this is a big question for our clients. What if we traded our professional ambitions for a different kind of striving, for connection, community, curiosity, maybe even rest and relaxation. Ooh, is everyone feeling like that's too lazy? We lose our edge, right?
Our bonuses, our reputation. So we stay where we are. We tell ourselves we don't have a choice. Overwhelmed and frustrated, it feels terrible. Until we get to a point where we just can't anymore.
What we've been doing, how we've been living, is no longer working and we question what it's all for. Is all of this striving and pushing and achieving and misery worth it. This is how we meet a lot of our clients. They are Ambitious-ish. Ambitious-ish is about questioning your values and beliefs and making sure they align with how you're living your life and how you feel in your life today.
If you want to be more present with your family and have more connection with the people that are most important to you, what's getting in the way? If you want to have more balance in your life and feel more calm so you can actually enjoy the life you worked so hard to create, this could be your purpose. What exactly does that look like for you?
Kelle Cobble: Yeah, this is where we go in coaching.
Nina: So try this. Find a way to tell your story to yourself, to no one else. Your values will become clear. Record a message to your kids, do a life review or write your own obituary. That's an interesting one.
Start with the accomplishments you're most proud of and then go through the impact you've had and what you will leave behind. We love talking to clients about their iconic work, right? Think about what you have yet to do. Design the future for you and seek answers from her, not from anyone outside of you.
Kelle: So true. When you coach with us, this is where we begin. Kelle Cobble: We teach thought work and body work, which is going to help you create more awareness for what you're thinking and how you're feeling.
Nina: Yeah, a lot of what we talk about and teach are tools for up-leveling. We start by practicing self-awareness, and from there you can make choices and eventually create the life you want. Goal setting and purpose are all about crafting your future purposefully and intentionally. A future that feels different than your past.
So you can create a state of calm that is so important, right? It's not a luxury, not something people do who aren't ambitious or don't have goals. It's not something you wait to do until the kids are older. Calm regulation. It's foundational for health, mental, physical, spiritual well-being.
Kelle: Love it. To live from a state of regulation and calm.
Nina: Not constantly going and doing and overwhelmed. Avoiding and distracting ourselves from living life on purpose with purpose.
Kelle: A few things to remember here. Having a purpose, like a destination, is optional. You do not have to have a place where you're going in life, that kind of purpose, at all.
Nina: Purpose is your why and who and how.
Kelle: And your purpose can change as your life changes. Your purpose can absolutely change and evolve as you change and evolve.
Nina: Yeah and like we said earlier, purposes are not goals. You can have a lot of goals while continuing to fulfill your purpose. Goals are what you do to create a future that feels different than your past, to take action on purpose with intention.
Kelle: And there is no morality in your purpose. You do not have to have the purpose of world peace if that is not what's in alignment for you and who you are.
Nina: Yeah, so are you living your life on purpose, with purpose?
Kelle: What if you weren't in such a hurry to move on or get through it? Can you relax? Be in harmony? Be open? Just be today?
Ooooooh. Yeah, there is importance in today. Not so much in what happens to us, but in how we respond and why. There is purpose and meaning in today. Feel today's feelings.
Solve today's problems. Like your reason why and how you feel.
Nina: Let today happen instead of rushing through it.
Kelle Cobble: Don't worry about tomorrow. Trust that you can handle what tomorrow brings tomorrow.
Nina Lynch: Don't be in a hurry. We can't escape. We can only postpone. There is so much meaning and purpose and beauty in today, right now. By facing today to the best of your ability, you're setting yourself up to do more of that tomorrow.
Kelle Cobble: Yeah, living life on purpose with purpose from a regulated calm state, not survival mode, not from fear and scarcity, not from judgment or blame, but from self-trust, openness, and curiosity.
Nina Lynch: Ah, happy new year to that!
Kelle Cobble: Yeah, here we go 2025, bring it! Here we go! Thanks for being here! Yes, thanks for being here. See you next time.
Nina: Hey everyone, if you want more live access to me and Kelle, you have to join our email list.
Kelle: Yes, we’ll come to your email box every Tuesday and Thursday.
Nina: You can ask us questions, get clarity and get coached.
Kelle: We offer monthly free email coaching when you’re on our list and you’re the first to know about trainings, events and other free coaching opportunities.
Nina: Just go to kelleandnina.com. That’s K E L L E and nina.com to sign up.
Kelle: Thank you so much for listening to today’s episode of Ambitious-Ish.
Nina: If you’re ready to align your ambitions with your heart and feel more calm, balanced, and connected, visit https://www.kelleandnina.com/ for more information about how to work with us and make sure you get on our list.
Kelle: See you in the next episode!
Nina Lynch: Yeah, this time of year we tend to re-evaluate our lives. Take stock, take inventory, look at where we've been, and look ahead at where we want to go.
Kelle: Yeah, that's why today we're talking all about purpose, including what purpose actually is, and we're going to fill you in on a little secret to finding your purpose.
Nina: Ooh, let's get going. This is Ambitious-Ish.
Burnout? Check. Daily overwhelm? Check. Resentment rash, stress, and a complete lack of well-being? Check, check, check! You’re not alone. We’re your hosts, Kelle & Nina, and we are here to help you feel calm, balanced, and empowered so you can redefine success, make choices that feel authentic, and ACTUALLY enjoy the life you work so hard to create. You ready? Let’s go.
Kelle: Hey, I'm Kelle.
Nina: And I'm Nina. As coaches, we get asked all the time to help people find more purpose in their lives. Their purpose. Like, what's the one thing that if you just knew what it was, it would change everything?
Kelle: Yeah, like, if you just knew your life's purpose, your guiding vision for your life, you would know how to make better decisions, find direction, have more meaning, prioritize your time, motivate yourself to work hard, know exactly what you should be doing.
Nina: We think having the right career or the perfect relationship or having kids or a calling will give us purpose, right?
Kelle: Yeah, we make finding our purpose so big, like, we need to figure this out. It can feel really heavy and hard to not know what your purpose is. Like, if you don't figure this out, your life won't have meaning.
Nina: We spend all this time looking for what will finally give our lives purpose, what will feel fulfilling, and that if we don't figure it out, we're doing it all wrong, right? Like maybe you thought you figured it out at one point when you decided on a career or when you got married and had kids. And then you reach a transition. You change jobs or your kids grow up and you're like, okay, now what? You feel a sense of loss of meaning and once again, you question who you are, what you're here on this earth to do.
Kelle: Yes, I struggled with my purpose when I was younger for a really long time. I did all the normal things that I thought I should do. I went to school and got good grades and went to university. I decided to study accounting, not because I thought it sounded like super fun or anything. Give me a break, right? Sorry, accountants.Love you.
But because I grew up with not a lot of money, and I never wanted money to be a factor in my life. I wanted to understand it, and I wanted to work with it. I graduated, passed the CPA exam, and worked as an accountant with a lot of numbers and spreadsheets. And I quickly realized, nope, this isn't it.
And then I just didn't care at all. I learned what I needed to learn and there was no longer a passion there. So I left accounting and started a career in pharmaceuticals. I never had aspirations to climb the ranks of a big pharma company. It was sort of a holding place while I figured out what was next.
So the purpose was all about career for me. And then I had kids and had the pleasure of being a stay-at-home mom with them for a bit, but that wasn't it either. It wasn't until I started coaching that I felt like, ah, okay, we're onto something.
Nina: Yeah, I think for me and a lot of the women we work with, we get to the point where we start to feel uneasy. Okay, that's an understatement. We start to feel chronically disappointed or frustrated or maybe even a little bored or depressed, maybe even a little hopeless, and we start to question things. And some of the questions we ask clients when we meet them are like, what do you want? What would you do if no one else's opinion on this mattered and you trusted your own opinion?
What would you do if you knew you couldn't fail? And usually when we're not working with a coach, you leave these questions unanswered in your head, right? They're like these open loops and you kind of start to feel confused and overwhelmed by them and maybe even ashamed. So you start to ask more questions, right Kel? Do I need a therapist, an executive coach, a relationship counselor, a parenting class, a personal trainer, a professional organizer, right?
Like maybe just a new planner, a vacation, breath work, Right? Some Botox, a Peloton, another glass of wine. Right?
Yeah, but here's the thing. The common denominator here is you. So why don't we start there? And when we say you're the common denominator, we don't mean you're responsible for everything, okay? What we're trying to explain is you're responsible for how you experience everything, for the space in your mind and finding where you have choice.
Where are you making choices? Where aren't you? Where can't you? What are you telling yourself is your obligation or duty? Is that true?
Taking responsibility for your thoughts and feelings and behaviors is a big part of living your life with purpose, on purpose, to get out of your very beautiful, unique version of autopilot and stop overriding what you know is true for you, to put everyone else's needs before your own. That's all a subconscious distraction, by the way. To respond to what the day throws at you with integrity, not taking on the weight of the world. This is a big part of what we call becoming proudly and confidently Ambitious-ish. So let's talk about what purpose actually is.
Kelle: Okay. Yes. Purpose is defined as the reason for which something is done or created or for which something exists. So purpose is your why and it becomes your how. It is not your what.
Nina: Yeah. If you googled how to find your purpose, you'd be told to identify things you care about, reflect on what matters most, recognize your strengths and talents, try volunteering, service, imagine your best possible self, cultivate positive emotions like gratitude and awe, and look to the people you admire.
Kelle: We've been taught over and over to look for purpose outside of ourselves, as if once you find this one magical thing that you'll know exactly what you were put on this earth to do and then it'll start shaping who you are.
Nina: And that leads right into the secret to finding your purpose.
Kelle: Which is what trips us up, right? Our brains tell us we need to find the one perfect thing. That there's only one answer. Which is also a lie, right? There are always more than two answers to literally any question.
Nina: Yeah, we're here to tell you the secret to finding your purpose. It's not outside of you. It's not a job. It's not accomplishing something like having kids.
Kelle: Okay, this is our opinion and you may not like this. You are going to want to argue with what we're about to tell you. Are you ready? Finding your purpose is a made up thing. At some point, someone just made it up.
Nina: Yeah, having a purpose is completely optional. And if you want to have a purpose cool but again the answer is not outside of you. Having a purpose, figuring out your purpose is an inside job. It's a decision you make.
Kelle: You are already full of purpose. You are enough and complete just as you are. Nothing you do can give you more purpose. Not a job, or a talent, or a calling, or a degree. No label, or certificate, or award, or recognition, or anything external can give you more purpose than you already have.
Nina: And this is where people get confused, right? Because we’ve been taught that we have to do something to prove that we matter. So we get the dream job and I’m thinking of a former client who worked her way up into this killer position in her firm. This organization that she had given so much of her time and energy to and she was like, “wait, why?” Do I need to really help these wealthy white men be more and more wealthy? What’s the point? What am I even doing? She had just a couple more years with teenagers at home and she was really questioning her purpose. What she was meant to be doing with her life. Her time.
Kelle: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And this is where we had to get clear with her on what purpose actually is.
Nina: Purpose doesn't come from crafting a story about success and identity and looking at all the things I've done and all the titles I've had and how much money I make and how my name's on that building and now I matter. All that outside validation from what other people think about how much you've accomplished feels really good. And you do feel like you matter when you're being recognized by other people. But the more you receive the outside validation, the more you become dependent on it for your sense of self. And it actually distances you from the ability to have a relationship with yourself and to love yourself.
Kelle: Yeah, your purpose is not a what, it's a who. And you are magical, you are incredible beyond belief, you are an amazing rock star. Your work is believing that, believing that you're enough, believing that you already matter, all you can matter. Purpose comes from looking inside yourself, peeling back the layers on you and your deepest desires. Yeah, beyond just existing in your basic human form, which has plenty of purpose in and of itself, it's who you are.
Nothing you do outside of this is going to make you a better human being or a worse human being.
Kelle: No matter what you do with your life, you cannot have more or less purpose than another person. We cannot emphasize this enough. Do not confuse having a purpose with something you have to do to earn your right to exist, your worthiness. You actually can't do anything to become more worthy than you already are.
Nina: Absolutely. And we're being redundant here because this has to be the foundation upon which to build. You believing that you're worthy and purposeful without having to do anything to prove yourself is where we start.
Kelle: Yes, you are worthy, you are already enough. If having a purpose is something you decide you want, and remember, having a purpose is completely optional, Let's talk about choosing a purpose. Remember, it's a choice.
Kelle: Yeah. Okay. I love having a purpose. I think it's fun to have a purpose. One of my coaches, Brooke Castillo, talked about having a purpose as a way to evolve more as a human being.
Like what's going to help you grow and evolve in your life? She talks about it in a way that we're accessing desires we're only dreaming about and they can be as big as we want them to be. The bigger, the better. And we like going big because the bigger we go, the more obstacles we have to overcome, the more discomfort we have to be willing to feel along the way, the more we expand our self-concept of what we're capable of. And that growth becomes our version of fun.
And remember, that's the reason we choose a purpose. That's the reason I choose to have a purpose. It's just for fun. It's just to get to know myself more, to continue to learn for myself what's important to me, what I want, what I'm afraid of, where I hold myself back, to peel back the layers on who I am. It's not for anyone else.
It's not to prove myself to anyone. It's just for me. Having a purpose for me allows me to have a deeper, more alive, more expansive experience of life. And if we're willing to look at and unwind these old stories and beliefs in our brain and really question them and rewrite them according to where we're going, not where we've been, that's where I want to go. All right.
What about you, Nina?
Nina: Yeah, I think purpose is about living life with intention on purpose, right? Not according to anyone else's expectations of you, your own shoulds, which are always questionable or the path of least resistance, which is always the path you're on, by the way. I think purpose is a feeling. It's my how and my why.
Kelle: Love it. All right, let's talk about how to choose a purpose.
Nina: Yeah, some people choose to have the most fun they can have, to be the best mom they can be. To share their wisdom. To be really rich. To help other people. To make the world more beautiful through art.
To be a rock star. To foster world peace. To be a teacher.
Kelle: Yeah, and to squeeze everything I can out of each day and live my life to the fullest. I have several friends who I think have this purpose, by the way. And one other one, to be happy. Pretty sure this is my dad's purpose. He's the most positive person I know.
No matter what's happening, he finds a way to spin it to make him feel happy. And if your purpose is to be happy, that's awesome. And I want to caution you to not ignore the fact that life is 50-50. When you coach with us, it actually goes higher, but we can talk about that later. You're going to experience about 50% positive emotions and 50% negative emotions.
And really, we always say that the point of life is not to be happy all the time. It's to experience the whole spectrum, the whole rainbow of emotions, positive, neutral, and negative.
Nina: Yeah, and choosing your purpose, it's really checking on your why. Why is this important to you? Not surface, but taking some time to delve deeper, continuing to sit with yourself and ask and answer questions that help you discover for yourself what you want your purpose to be, really who you wanna be.
Kelle: Yeah, and notice if you start to judge, like there's some morality check you need to do to see if your purpose is worthy enough. This is not for anyone else. It's just for you. No judgment from you or anyone else here.
Nina: And once you decide, once you pick what you want your purpose to be, you then form your identity around your purpose. So for me, that looks like setting big goals, being more emotionally resilient, watching where I'm holding back and being willing to feel the feelings I need to feel in order to do the things I want to do.
Kelle Cobble: And listen, we don't want to confuse purpose with goals. Goals are things we are going to do on purpose to get out of autopilot and create a future that feels different than our past.
Nina: Yeah, becoming a bestselling author is a goal, not a purpose. Becoming a partner in your firm is a goal, not a purpose. Making a million dollars is a goal, not a purpose.
Kelle: And remember, your purpose is a why. It's why you make the choices that you make. It's why you're working so hard on this particular thing. And it's why you're overcoming all the things you need to overcome, like feelings of guilt, your people pleasing, your procrastinating, your self-doubt, overwhelm, confusion, everything you identify that's holding you back from fully believing you are living into your purpose.
Nina: We've had several clients come to us for coaching because they're becoming empty nesters or they're investing in coaching for themselves as a gift to themselves for a big birthday. And a big part of that was transitioning to a new purpose.
Kelle: Yeah. They wanted help moving into the next version of themselves. And this is a lot of what we delve into in coaching, figuring out what you want in life, what's important to you, what your dreams are, and then it's figuring out everything you need to do to live into your purpose.
And when we do this, we get as specific as possible. And once we know what we need to do, we look at all the obstacles that might get in our way, including old thoughts, old beliefs and old stories.
Nina: Yeah, so a cool starting point might be, you know, what would our days and weeks feel like if we didn't put our careers at the center? You know, this is a big question for our clients. What if we traded our professional ambitions for a different kind of striving, for connection, community, curiosity, maybe even rest and relaxation. Ooh, is everyone feeling like that's too lazy? We lose our edge, right?
Our bonuses, our reputation. So we stay where we are. We tell ourselves we don't have a choice. Overwhelmed and frustrated, it feels terrible. Until we get to a point where we just can't anymore.
What we've been doing, how we've been living, is no longer working and we question what it's all for. Is all of this striving and pushing and achieving and misery worth it. This is how we meet a lot of our clients. They are Ambitious-ish. Ambitious-ish is about questioning your values and beliefs and making sure they align with how you're living your life and how you feel in your life today.
If you want to be more present with your family and have more connection with the people that are most important to you, what's getting in the way? If you want to have more balance in your life and feel more calm so you can actually enjoy the life you worked so hard to create, this could be your purpose. What exactly does that look like for you?
Kelle Cobble: Yeah, this is where we go in coaching.
Nina: So try this. Find a way to tell your story to yourself, to no one else. Your values will become clear. Record a message to your kids, do a life review or write your own obituary. That's an interesting one.
Start with the accomplishments you're most proud of and then go through the impact you've had and what you will leave behind. We love talking to clients about their iconic work, right? Think about what you have yet to do. Design the future for you and seek answers from her, not from anyone outside of you.
Kelle: So true. When you coach with us, this is where we begin. Kelle Cobble: We teach thought work and body work, which is going to help you create more awareness for what you're thinking and how you're feeling.
Nina: Yeah, a lot of what we talk about and teach are tools for up-leveling. We start by practicing self-awareness, and from there you can make choices and eventually create the life you want. Goal setting and purpose are all about crafting your future purposefully and intentionally. A future that feels different than your past.
So you can create a state of calm that is so important, right? It's not a luxury, not something people do who aren't ambitious or don't have goals. It's not something you wait to do until the kids are older. Calm regulation. It's foundational for health, mental, physical, spiritual well-being.
Kelle: Love it. To live from a state of regulation and calm.
Nina: Not constantly going and doing and overwhelmed. Avoiding and distracting ourselves from living life on purpose with purpose.
Kelle: A few things to remember here. Having a purpose, like a destination, is optional. You do not have to have a place where you're going in life, that kind of purpose, at all.
Nina: Purpose is your why and who and how.
Kelle: And your purpose can change as your life changes. Your purpose can absolutely change and evolve as you change and evolve.
Nina: Yeah and like we said earlier, purposes are not goals. You can have a lot of goals while continuing to fulfill your purpose. Goals are what you do to create a future that feels different than your past, to take action on purpose with intention.
Kelle: And there is no morality in your purpose. You do not have to have the purpose of world peace if that is not what's in alignment for you and who you are.
Nina: Yeah, so are you living your life on purpose, with purpose?
Kelle: What if you weren't in such a hurry to move on or get through it? Can you relax? Be in harmony? Be open? Just be today?
Ooooooh. Yeah, there is importance in today. Not so much in what happens to us, but in how we respond and why. There is purpose and meaning in today. Feel today's feelings.
Solve today's problems. Like your reason why and how you feel.
Nina: Let today happen instead of rushing through it.
Kelle Cobble: Don't worry about tomorrow. Trust that you can handle what tomorrow brings tomorrow.
Nina Lynch: Don't be in a hurry. We can't escape. We can only postpone. There is so much meaning and purpose and beauty in today, right now. By facing today to the best of your ability, you're setting yourself up to do more of that tomorrow.
Kelle Cobble: Yeah, living life on purpose with purpose from a regulated calm state, not survival mode, not from fear and scarcity, not from judgment or blame, but from self-trust, openness, and curiosity.
Nina Lynch: Ah, happy new year to that!
Kelle Cobble: Yeah, here we go 2025, bring it! Here we go! Thanks for being here! Yes, thanks for being here. See you next time.
Nina: Hey everyone, if you want more live access to me and Kelle, you have to join our email list.
Kelle: Yes, we’ll come to your email box every Tuesday and Thursday.
Nina: You can ask us questions, get clarity and get coached.
Kelle: We offer monthly free email coaching when you’re on our list and you’re the first to know about trainings, events and other free coaching opportunities.
Nina: Just go to kelleandnina.com. That’s K E L L E and nina.com to sign up.
Kelle: Thank you so much for listening to today’s episode of Ambitious-Ish.
Nina: If you’re ready to align your ambitions with your heart and feel more calm, balanced, and connected, visit https://www.kelleandnina.com/ for more information about how to work with us and make sure you get on our list.
Kelle: See you in the next episode!
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