Jimmy Fallon spent ten days in the ICU with a serious hand injury. He read Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning. He had time to wonder, time to reflect, time to just be … and he left the hospital clear: his purpose in life is to help people laugh.
Ten days in the ICU and Frankl's masterwork on meaning. That's one way to get clear on your purpose.
Here's another: Just pick one and see what happens.
A six-year study out of Cornell tried something simple. Give people $400 to make any contribution they want. Could be anything—help their community, their family, even themselves. No strings. Just: what contribution do you want to make?
Eight weeks later, the results were unambiguous. People who made contributions scored significantly higher on every measure: well-being, sense of purpose, sense of belonging, feeling needed and useful.
The surprising part? It didn't matter what the contribution was. What mattered was picking something—especially something that helps someone else—and taking a concrete step toward it.
Many who chose healthcare careers did so for the meaning. The meaningful work itself hasn't changed—but perhaps your ability to feel that meaning has. One of the more difficult realities of working in bureaucratic organizations is that the reasons we do the work get buried under process, policy, and other administrivia.
As a result, you lose daily contact with the reasons you showed up in the first place. But Dr. Todd Kashdan notes we might have had it wrong from the start:
Meaning is not an epiphany delivered by a glacier hike or a silent retreat. Meaning is a small, deliberate contribution that you repeat until it leaves a mark. When people identify a purpose and then do one concrete thing for it, their minds stop gnawing on themselves. Attention moves from “How am I feeling?” to “What needs doing?”
Translation for work: You don't need cosmic clarity to have meaning. You just need to decide on a contribution you want to make right now and take a step toward it.
Could be mentoring someone who's struggling with something you've figured out. Could be fixing that one broken process everyone complains about. Could be helping your team get through this quarter without burning out. Could be building a skill you'll need for the work you actually want to do. Could be showing up fully for each patient you see.
Doesn't have to be heroic. Just concrete and repeated.
The research on purpose is clear: people with it face stressful situations with less negative emotion, show lower cardiovascular risk, experience slower cognitive decline, and are more adaptable during setbacks … not to mention the important motivational benefits that come with having purpose at work.
So if you're feeling unclear about what you're doing or why, or just want to have more clarity on your purpose, how about just picking a contribution you want to make and taking the first step?