Purpose Isn't Found. It's Revealed When You Stop Performing

Last time, we talked about values and beliefs, how most of us live from a template we didn't design, absorbing what mattered to everyone else until it became our default.

Your beliefs shape what you think is possible. Your values decide what you prioritize. And together, they quietly script the life you end up performing.

So if those beliefs and values were inherited, what does that mean for your purpose? It means the purpose you think you're chasing might not even be yours.

The Illusion of Purpose

People love to talk about finding purpose, as if it's lost somewhere, waiting for you to stumble across it after the right podcast or retreat. But purpose isn't something you find. It's what becomes visible when you stop performing someone else's values.

For years, I performed. I was the responsible one, the steady one, the woman who made everything work. I thought that was purpose, to hold it all together. It wasn't. It was programming.

The Slow Reveal

Purpose doesn't reveal itself when life finally makes sense; it appears in the quiet after you stop pretending it does.

I have looked at purpose from many worthy angles. In the end, for me, for King Tide, purpose isn't a destination or a job title. It's a state of alignment between what you believe, what you value, and how you live. It's what rises naturally when your inner truth stops fighting your outer performance.

This understanding came partly from living it and partly from existential philosophy. Sartre wrote that we're "condemned to be free", that our purpose isn't given to us, it's created through our choices. Beauvoir took it further: freedom only becomes real when we live authentically, when we stop hiding behind roles and take responsibility for who we're becoming, and when we recognize that our freedom connects to others'. That choosing ourselves authentically not only frees us, it models freedom for those watching.

That's exactly what I was doing without knowing the philosophy, peeling back the roles, facing the freedom, choosing even when the choosing felt terrifying. Reading them later didn't teach me something new. It gave me language for what I'd already started living.

I've been assembling my purpose these past years, grasping at pieces of it while old and new beliefs fought it out in my head, while my values were being rewritten and redefined. Purpose didn't arrive all at once. It showed up slowly, quietly, as I gave it space to breathe, as I stopped feeding the self-doubt, the guilt, and the noise of all my supposed mistakes.

And the hardest part wasn't finding purpose. It was owning it. Letting it define me. Letting it be part of me without apology. Even now, it still feels sacred, fragile, raw. It's not something I talk about easily.

And maybe that's how it's supposed to be. Purpose doesn't shout. It waits. It reveals itself in the pauses, in the moments you stop fixing, stop performing, and start listening.

That's the un-skippable work. You can't rewrite your beliefs while you're still afraid of what they protected. You can't choose new values while you're clinging to the old ones out of habit. You can't access your purpose while you're still performing someone else's definition of it.

It takes time. Silence. Dissonance. The uncomfortable space between who you were and who you're becoming. But that's where purpose lives, beneath the noise, waiting for you to stop pretending long enough to hear it.

The Cost and the Clarity

Living from your real values doesn't come free. People sometimes leave or sometimes you leave. You doubt yourself. Your old life stops fitting.

It's not rebellion. It's realignment. You don't have to burn everything down like I did. But the people who benefited from your compliance will still call it selfishness.

I'm still in that tension: still rebuilding, still being told I'm reckless, still doubting myself. But there's a peace that wasn't there before, the kind that comes from no longer performing.

What I Know Now

The doubt that follows isn't proof you're wrong, it's proof you're growing.

And once you see the gap, you can't unsee it.

Purpose isn't the reward for getting it right. It's what rises when you start choosing what's real.

For the Ones Who Are Ready

If you're reading this and something inside you is shifting , that quiet click of recognition, you're already closer than you think.

You don't need a roadmap. You just need to start noticing where you're still performing someone else's values. Notice what feels forced. Notice what drains you. Then, piece by piece, choose truth instead.

It won't feel like finding purpose. It'll feel like remembering yourself.

Anchor Thought: Purpose isn't something you search for. It's what finally surfaces when your beliefs and values start belonging to you.