Men's Lifestyle November 8, 2026 0 Comments

Lost in Life? Discover the Surprising Path to Purpose That No One Talks About

Ever found yourself wandering down life’s path, clock ticking, achievements stacking up — yet feeling as lost as a compass in a storm? I’ve been there too. When you’re younger, it’s like life’s scoreboard is all about the zeros in your bank account, the titles you can slap onto your resume, or that house you’re sprinting toward. Nothing wrong with that hustle, right? But then, outta nowhere, a nagging little question sneaks in: What am I *really* striving for? And man, that question? It hits way harder than nailing a PR at the gym. It’s less about reps and sets, more about the core of who you are — and figuring that out might just be the toughest workout you ever do. So, whether you’re crushing life or just trying to find your footing, let’s unpack that elusive purpose together and see if we can’t turn wandering into a deliberate climb. LEARN MORE.

Wondering how to find your purpose when you feel lost? There comes a point in a lot of men’s lives when the question changes. When you’re younger, the focus may be on how much money you can make, how successful you can become, whether you can buy a house, earn a certain title, or finally reach whatever number you’ve decided means you’ve made it. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with wanting those things. But eventually another question can begin to creep in: What am I actually striving for?

That question can be a lot harder to answer. I know because I had to answer it myself.

When Success Was Mostly About Money

When I was around 25 years old, I was working in sales for a Fortune 500 company. I was making decent money for someone my age and, at least on paper, moving in the direction I thought I was supposed to go.

Then one morning, while riding Chicago’s 151 Sheridan bus downtown, I opened the newspaper and learned that the company I worked for was making major cuts. My office was going away. That was an interesting way to find out your career was about to change.

There had been plenty of talk about being a “family” at work, of course. Corporate America loves that word right up until somebody starts carrying boxes to the elevator. Suddenly I had a decision to make. I could try to find another sales position and keep doing what I had been doing, or I could listen to something that had been quietly pulling at me for a long time.

I wanted to help people. The problem was that wanting a different life and knowing how to build one are two completely different things.

Sometimes You Don’t Get a Sign

I didn’t have a pile of money waiting for me. Nobody handed me a business, and there wasn’t some family safety net underneath me if everything went sideways. I had already spent years putting myself through school, and at one point I was working two jobs at the same time, one at a grocery store and another doing shitty customer service work, just to keep the rent paid while going to class.

There was no abracadabra here. What I had was a growing sense that the direction I had been moving in no longer fit me. Somewhere underneath all the fear was another thought: this is what you’re supposed to be doing, so figure it out.

That thought didn’t magically make things easier. It just gave me a direction.

The Voices We Carry With Us

Part of figuring out where you’re going means dealing with the voices you’ve picked up along the way. Some of those voices encourage you, while others can follow you around for years.

When I was younger, I attended Glenwood, a residential school outside Chicago for kids coming from difficult or unstable circumstances. There was a teacher there whom I’ll call Mr. Potter. I wasn’t exactly an angel as a kid, and I spent my share of time getting into trouble.

At one point, Mr. Potter told me that I was never going to amount to anything. Funny how one sentence can stick with you.

Years later, when I was 25, unsure what I was doing and trying to build an entirely different life, some version of that voice was still hanging around. Maybe you’ve got one too. It might belong to a parent, a teacher, a coach, an old boss, or an ex. Or maybe the voice doesn’t belong to anyone anymore because you’ve repeated it to yourself so many times that it now sounds like your own.

That’s one reason understanding what you’re striving for matters. Sometimes we’re not pursuing what we genuinely want. Sometimes we’re trying to prove somebody wrong.

The Glenwood Creed

There was something else I carried with me from Glenwood. Painted on the administration building was the Glenwood Creed, a set of ideas about responsibility, effort, character, education and the kind of person you were expected to become.

I walked past those words over and over again as a kid. At the time, I couldn’t possibly have known how much they would stay with me, but they did.

One of the central ideas behind the Creed was that a life is built through what you think, what you do and what you’re willing to work for. That idea stayed with me long after I left Glenwood, and years later something happened that brought it all back.

A Life of Significance and Worth

When I eventually began an MBA program at Indiana Tech, I attended orientation and encountered language in the university’s mission about helping people move toward a life of significance and worth. Those words hit me because, even though the language was different, the underlying idea felt incredibly familiar.

Build something worthwhile. Become something. Make your life count.

Looking back, I realized something about that 25-year-old guy riding the bus downtown. I thought he was striving for money, and part of him absolutely was. But money wasn’t really the whole thing. He wanted his life to mean something.

What Are You Really Chasing?

Psychologist Alfred Adler spent a lot of time thinking about human striving, but you don’t need to know Adlerian psychology to recognize the basic idea. Most of us are moving toward something. That something might be money, security, respect, freedom, love, status, peace, family or a career.

For some people, the goal may be much simpler: waking up in the morning without hating the life they’ve built.

The important part isn’t pretending material success doesn’t matter. Money matters. Security matters. Being able to pay your bills matters. The deeper question is whether the thing you’re chasing is actually taking you toward the person you want to become.

You can succeed at a goal and still discover that you chose the wrong goal.

Safe Isn’t Always the Same as Meaningful

One of the hardest things about changing direction is that staying where you are can feel safer. Sometimes it genuinely is safer, but safe and meaningful aren’t always the same thing.

People are also watching how you live your life. Maybe they’re your children, nieces or nephews. Maybe they’re friends. Maybe it’s somebody at work who would never tell you they pay attention to how you handle difficult things.

What are they seeing? Are they watching someone continually postpone his life because he’s afraid of uncertainty, or are they seeing someone willing to make thoughtful choices about the kind of person he wants to become?

That doesn’t mean quitting your job tomorrow or blowing up your life because a motivational quote told you to follow your passion. It means paying attention to whether the life you’re building still feels like yours.

You Don’t Have to Know Yet

One of the things I tell men I work with is that it’s okay if you don’t know your purpose right now. You do not need to have your entire life figured out by 25, 35, 45 or 55.

But don’t stop asking questions. What gives you energy? What continually pulls your attention? What kind of work feels meaningful even when it’s difficult? What would you pursue if you weren’t constantly worrying about how it looked to everybody else? And what are you currently sacrificing for the life you’re building?

Sometimes purpose arrives as a grand revelation. More often, I think, we discover it by noticing the direction we’ve already been leaning.

Choice Matters

Psychiatrist William Glasser developed Choice Theory, which focuses on the choices people make as they try to meet important needs in their lives. Obviously, we do not control everything that happens to us. I certainly didn’t control whether the company I worked for closed my office.

What I did have some control over was what happened next.

That distinction matters. You may not get to choose every circumstance in your life, but you can still ask yourself what you are going to do with the circumstances you’ve been given. Sometimes that one question changes a hell of a lot.

So What Are You Striving For?

Maybe you’re striving for wealth. Maybe you want to build a company, earn a promotion, buy a home or become financially independent. There’s nothing inherently shallow about any of those goals.

The important thing is to go underneath them and ask why you want them. What do you believe having them will give you? Does the way you’re pursuing them fit the kind of man you want to become?

At 25, I probably would have told you I was striving to become successful. Looking back now, I think I was striving for something much bigger. I wanted a life that mattered to me. I wanted significance and worth.

All these years later, I’m still striving. The difference is that now I have a much better idea what I’m striving for.

Maybe that’s worth asking yourself too: What are you striving for? Listen to the podcast on what are you striving for here.