Have you ever found yourself doing all the right things
meeting expectations
keeping routines
staying productive
showing up day after day
yet feeling strangely flat while doing it?
Or perhaps the opposite
holding a big vision
talking about what could be
thinking long term
yet feeling disconnected from the reality of your day-to-day life or work?
For some people, life becomes overly procedural.
For others, it becomes overly aspirational.
Both are uncomfortable.
Routine without meaning feels like motion without direction.
Vision without grounding feels like inspiration without traction.
And in both cases, the issue isn’t capability, discipline, or ambition.
It’s purpose.
How We End Up Here (and Why It’s Not a Failure)
Most people don’t lose purpose because they stop caring.
They lose it because life becomes demanding.
From a psychological and neurological perspective, routine is not laziness.
It’s a load-management strategy.
When life gets complex or overwhelming, the brain naturally looks for ways to simplify:
- It automates behaviour through habits
- It narrows attention to what’s immediately in front of us
- It prioritises predictability over possibility
This is well supported in research on habit formation and decision fatigue, popularised by thinkers like Roy Baumeister and Charles Duhigg. Habits reduce the number of decisions we need to make, conserving mental energy so we can cope.
Routine helps us survive complexity.
But there’s a trade-off.
The Efficiency Trap
Long-term thinking, reflection, and meaning-making rely heavily on the prefrontal cortex.
This part of the brain is powerful, but it’s also energy-hungry.
When we are under sustained pressure:
- Workload increases
- Responsibilities stack up
- Uncertainty becomes constant
the brain shifts into a mode of doing, not connecting.
Psychologists refer to this as attentional narrowing. Our focus contracts around tasks, timelines, and immediate problems. The future shrinks. Context fades.
This is why people can be:
- Highly competent
- Highly productive
- Highly reliable
and still feel disconnected.
Purpose isn’t lost.
It’s deferred.
Why This Feels Safe, But Slowly Drains Us
Asking “why” introduces uncertainty.
It can lead to:
- Change
- Risk
- Identity shifts
- New decisions
So when life is demanding, the nervous system often chooses:
- Manageability over meaning
- Stability over growth
This is protective in the short term.
But over time, it leaves us functioning without feeling fulfilled.
Life Without Purpose Feels Episodic
Think about classic TV shows like:
- Friends
- NCIS
- CSI
- The Big Bang Theory
- Law & Order
Each episode follows a familiar pattern.
There’s comfort in knowing what’s coming.
But at the end of the episode, everything resets.
You can watch these shows for a while.
Eventually, you get bored.
Life without purpose feels similar.
Days repeat.
Effort resets.
Nothing accumulates into progress.
Purpose Is the Through-Line
Then came shows like:
- Breaking Bad
- The Wire
- Mad Men
- The Sopranos
- Succession
These shows still have structure and rhythm.
But there’s a through-line.
Characters evolve.
Consequences matter.
Each episode moves the story forward.
Purpose is that through-line.
Without it, life becomes episodic.
With it, effort compounds.
Why Purpose Connects Performance and Wellbeing
Last month we explored wisdom, the ability to choose the right action in the present for the benefit of the future.
Purpose answers the question:
“In service of what?”
Performance without purpose creates output but not fulfilment.
Wellbeing without purpose creates comfort but not vitality.
Research across psychology and neuroscience consistently shows that a sense of purpose:
- Improves resilience under stress
- Increases persistence during challenge
- Enhances intrinsic motivation
- Buffers against burnout
Viktor Frankl observed this decades ago. People don’t suffer most from hardship, but from hardship without meaning.
Purpose doesn’t remove difficulty.
It makes difficulty worth engaging with.
The Missing Truth: Purpose Requires Space
Here’s the essential piece we often miss.
If routine is the brain’s response to overload, then purpose does not arise by thinking harder, planning more, or adding reflection tasks to an already full mind.
Purpose arises when the brain has space.
Neuroscience helps explain why.
When cognitive load reduces, a network in the brain called the Default Mode Network becomes more active. This network is associated with:
- Sense-making
- Identity
- Narrative
- Values
- Future imagination
It doesn’t activate under pressure.
This is why:
- Ideas come in the shower
- Clarity appears on walks
- Insight arrives while driving or resting
Purpose isn’t forced into existence.
It emerges when different parts of the brain reconnect.
When the prefrontal cortex is chronically overloaded, long-range integration drops. We lose access to context, meaning, and future orientation.
In simple terms:
You can’t feel purpose when your mind is stuck managing the present.
Why Breaking Routine Helps (When Done Right)
The goal isn’t to abandon routine.
Routine is essential.
The goal is to create moments that reduce cognitive demand and allow integration.
This is why purpose often returns during:
- Deep conversations with friends
- Time in nature
- Travel and novelty
- Exercise and flow-inducing sports
- Great films, stories, or music
- Moments of play or stillness
Even small disruptions matter:
- Taking a different route
- Changing a daily habit
- Working from a new environment
- Doing something slightly unfamiliar
These moments lift our gaze from our feet back to the horizon.
They allow meaning to resurface.
What This Means for Teams and Organisations
Teams lose purpose when:
- Everything becomes urgent
- Reflection disappears
- Delivery eclipses direction
Purpose doesn’t come from slogans or posters.
It comes from moments where people reconnect effort to impact.
High-performing teams that never slow down eventually lose direction.
Teams that periodically reconnect regain momentum.
A Closing Reflection Exercise
Take five minutes.
No planning. No fixing.
Reflect on these questions:
- Where in my life or work am I functioning well, but unsure why I’m doing it?
- What routines currently support me, and which ones may be crowding out reflection?
- When do I naturally feel more connected to meaning or perspective?
- What is one small way I could create space for that this week?
Purpose doesn’t need to be discovered all at once.
It needs room to re-emerge.
Understanding Your Character Strengths
Purpose doesn’t exist in isolation.
It’s expressed through character.
Each of us carries the same core character strengths, but we don’t express them equally. Some come naturally. Others take effort. Some emerge under pressure. Others fade when we’re overloaded.
Understanding which strengths you lead with, and which ones need more conscious attention, helps you:
- Recognise why certain situations energise or drain you
- Understand how you naturally create meaning and direction
- Avoid overusing strengths in ways that quietly work against you
This is why at ShareTree we use Charametrics, a character profile designed to help people understand how their strengths show up across work, relationships, and life.
When you understand your character, purpose becomes clearer.
Not because you force it, but because you’re working with your natural design rather than against it.
If you’re curious, completing your Charametrics profile can offer a deeper lens into how purpose, wisdom, and other strengths are already operating in you, and where they may be out of balance.
Many people are not lost.
They are over-functioning without foresight.
Routine keeps life moving.
Purpose gives it direction.
That’s where performance and wellbeing meet.
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