Stop Looking for a Lightning Bolt: Finding Your Purpose Through the Daily Grind
By Jordan — Discipline gets you there. Self-awareness keeps you there. ·
The 'Purpose' Trap
I get a lot of emails from people in their twenties and thirties who feel like they’re drifting. They’re sitting in an office in Tampa, or maybe a cramped apartment in New York, staring at the ceiling and asking, “Is this it? Where’s the purpose?”
We’ve been sold a lie. We think purpose is this grand, glowing lightning bolt that’s supposed to strike us while we’re meditating on a beach or having some cinematic epiphany. We think it’s a destination—a place we arrive at where suddenly every morning is easy and every decision is crystal clear.
Let me tell you something: when I got out of the Marines, I didn’t feel like I had a ‘purpose.’ I felt like I had a void. I’d spent six years being told exactly what to do, where to be, and how to act. When that structure vanished, I didn’t find a grand calling. I found a bottle, a dark room, and a lot of resentment. It wasn’t a lightning bolt that saved me; it was therapy, a shitty part-time job, and the decision to show up for myself even when I wanted to crawl back into bed.
Purpose isn’t something you find under a rock. It’s something you build in the dirt.
Get Comfortable with the 'Boring' Stuff
If you’re looking for purpose, stop looking at your hobbies and start looking at your friction.
What do you hate doing that you’re actually good at? What problems in your life or your community make you genuinely angry? Not the ‘internet outrage’ kind of angry, but the ‘this is broken and I want to fix it’ kind of angry.
When I started coaching, it wasn’t because I had a vision of being a ‘thought leader.’ It was because I saw guys coming out of service—men I’d served with—who were drowning because they thought asking for help made them weak. I was angry that we were losing good people because of a culture that prioritized optics over integrity.
That anger was my compass.
If you’re waiting for a passion, you’re waiting for a feeling. Feelings are fickle. Discipline—the ability to keep showing up to the work that matters—that’s the foundation. You don’t need a mission statement. You need to identify one thing in your immediate circle that needs fixing and dedicate yourself to the process of fixing it.
The Vulnerability Audit
Here’s where most people stall out. They try to find purpose while wearing a mask. They want a purpose that looks good on LinkedIn or sounds impressive at a dinner party.
If your ‘purpose’ is designed to impress other people, it’s not a purpose. It’s a performance. And you will burn out, I promise you that.
I spent years performing. I performed for my COs, I performed for my family, I performed for my peers. It’s exhausting. You can’t be self-aware if you’re too busy monitoring your image.
Take a hard look at your life right now. Where are you lying to yourself? What are you doing just because you think you ‘should’ be doing it? When you strip away the social pressure and the expectation of your parents, your partner, or your social media feed, what’s left?
Finding your purpose requires the courage to say, “I don’t know what I want, but I know I don’t want this.” That’s a start. That’s a massive start.
Tactical Action: The 30-Day Experiment
I don’t want you to quit your job or sell your car to ‘find yourself.’ That’s reckless, and I don’t deal in recklessness. I deal in results.
Here is your assignment for the next 30 days:
1. The Friction Log: For one week, write down every time you feel annoyed, bored, or frustrated by something in your daily routine. Is it your work? Your health? Your lack of community? 2. The 15-Minute Rule: Pick one thing that genuinely interests you—not something you think is ‘cool,’ but something you’re actually curious about. Spend 15 minutes a day on it. No phone, no distractions. Just 15 minutes of deep work or active learning. 3. The Accountability Check: Find one person—just one—who you trust to tell you the truth. Not a ‘yes man.’ Someone who will tell you when you’re full of it. Tell them what you’re working on and ask them to check in on you once a week.
Purpose isn’t a noun. It’s a verb. It’s the result of being disciplined enough to do the work and self-aware enough to know why you’re doing it.
Stop waiting for the sky to open up. The work is already in front of you. You’re just choosing not to see it because it looks like a grind. And newsflash: the grind is where the character is built.
If you’re feeling stuck, don’t just sit there stewing in it. You know where to find me. Send me a message, tell me what you’re struggling with, and let’s get to work. You’ve got more in you than you think, but you’ve got to be willing to look at the ugly parts to get to the good ones.
Let’s talk soon.