[00:00:00] Purpose is an active commitment to accomplish something meaningful to the self and of consequence to the world beyond the self. Purpose is intention that is stable and a consequence of something outside of yourself.
Welcome to the Make Up Your Mind podcast. I'm your host Jahleane Dolne, and I'm here to help you make up your mind - literally and figuratively. I'm a motivational speaker, content creator, subconscious mindset coach, and the founder of The Postgrad Playbook- the only coaching platform and resource center for post-grads and 20 somethings to release mindset blocks and take action towards their chosen career , no matter how, quote unquote, unconventional that might look.
As an expert recognized by Afrotech, LinkedIn news,, and more, I help you identify what you actually want, release what's keeping you stuck, and have a game plan to take action with clarity, confidence, conviction, and ease. Here we cover all things, paving your own way and how that looks personally and [00:01:00] professionally. Get ready to finally make up your mind.
Let's get started.
Hi. Well, welcome to the very first episode of Make Up Your Mind . I honestly can't even believe that I'm saying that. It feels so surreal and I've been thinking about launching Make Up Your Mind for such a long time that I can't believe the day is actually here.
I'm so excited just to be having deeper conversations about things that truly do matter, but I don't feel like are talked about nearly enough. And. I'm excited to witness how the show grows and evolves over time. And thank you so much for tuning in and deciding to be a witness to that.
So as you've seen from, the episode title, for the very first episode, we're going to be talking about all things finding, discovering, and also living in your purpose. I felt like that would be the absolute perfect first episode because if you're following [00:02:00] the PostGrad Playbook on Instagram, about a month ago, I posted a reel that absolutely popped off at the time of filming this episode right now.
It's almost at 700, 000 views. The reel, if you haven't seen it, it says, if you're in your twenties and realize your current job, isn't it here are six questions to figure out what you actually want to do.
And from there, I list about six questions for career fulfillment. With this getting so much traction, it tells me two things. First, , it really resonated and second that this is something that so many people are truly struggling with.
So I wanted to make sure that I could really do my due diligence in this topic because there truly is so much to say. I feel like As a society, our relationship to the word purpose, it can feel almost elusive, right? It can feel very complex, as if it's difficult to grasp and bring down to reality because it is such a personal journey [00:03:00] that you will have with your own purpose. How purpose shows up in your life is so powerful that, so many people spend their whole life searching for it. Many find it and many don't. And I hope through today's episode, you're able to get a lot closer to yours.
And as we dive in today, I definitely want to preface this by saying I completely 100 percent understand that a lot of people don't find their purpose in their work. A lot of times people find purpose within their communities, their families, their relationships, and in a lot of areas besides what that can look like professionally.
But for the purpose of this episode, we're looking at. Purpose fulfilled work and that's the context that I'm speaking about it in
Taking a big step back for a moment.
My relationship with finding my own purpose, it took a very long time. For some backstory, I am a child of immigrants. And if you're a child of [00:04:00] immigrants or you grew up around any, or maybe your parents ascribed from the same relief in a lot of immigrant communities, the rhetoric is that you should grow up to be a doctor, lawyer, or engineer. That is exactly what success looks like. And deviation from that is simply not success at all. That kind of culture really did inform the decisions I made for myself academically
so from the many choices that I had of being either a doctor, a lawyer, or an engineer, I decided that the doctor route would be best for me. Also, looking back at it, Which, plot twist, did not work out, at the time, it was glaringly obvious to everyone around me and even myself, but I was too afraid to admit it. It wasn't until I went through an event in college that completely shook up my world at the time.
So while I was in school, I was very involved outside of being a biology major. I was a cheerleader and [00:05:00] I was a tour guide and there was one sunny day I remember I was sitting with my friends on the beach. UC Santa Barbara is right on the beach if you haven't been there. And I get a message from my coach to go to practice. At the time it was the beginning of the school year and the year prior we had gone to Daytona Nationals. If you've seen the Netflix documentary cheer, you're going to know exactly what I'm talking about.
We had gone to Daytona Nationals and we are trying to go again this year, but I definitely had some tumbling that I had to work on.
So I, I get a message from my coach like, Hey, come to open gym. And you know, I leave my friends and the sunset behind, bike over and we get to gym.
So I started training and getting to work on a lot of my tumbling and There was one pass I was going to go take and I had just taken such a critical misstep and Immediately clean tear my ACL
it was very crazy to experience. And from there on out, my cheerleading career was over. And if you've ever been through a life [00:06:00] changing injury, you know that your life just completely shifts from there.
So from that ACL tier, my cheerleading career was 100 percent over, and at the same time, my life went through a major pivot, where a lot of the things that I was used to doing, like cheerleading, being a tour guide, and all the extracurriculars and social activities I like to do, I wasn't able to do anymore.
What I was able to continue doing was my schoolwork. And over time, continuing to do biology over so long, I realized, this is just not for me .
I really didn't find any enjoyment in it for a very long time under the surface, right? This was something I was observing but wasn't willing to admit to myself. It wasn't until I was still in my recovery period and I went to my career counselor to talk about postgraduate programs to figure out what I actually wanted to do. My career center counselor basically called me out on my bluff. He could tell that my heart wasn't in it. for [00:07:00] the first time. I had to confront that this is not what I wanted to do, and if I proceeded down this path, there was nothing good that was going to come out of it internally for me. So then came a lot of internal reflection, like, what is my purpose?
How do I figure that out? I went ahead and I looked at all the things that I genuinely did enjoy, which is being a tour guide, being a cheerleader. I loved speaking to people.
I loved helping people. I loved teaching people. I loved performing in some ways. And a lot of those skills translated into a career in business. So even though I had a biology degree, I'm like, okay, now's the time to pivot into something that's going to be a lot more aligned. And even though business, necessarily wasn't my purpose.
Teaching, educating, performing, helping, those things were my purpose. And that was the first step for me to even figure it out. Unfortunately, it took an injury to slow down, but we might all run into points in our lives where we have to [00:08:00] be truly, truly honest with ourselves.
So that brings me again into what purpose is. Once again, it can be seen as very elusive, very abstract, and you might just happen to stumble upon it. I resorted back to actually looking at the definition. And one of the best ones that I found was from a Stanford professor and researcher named William Damon. And basically his work for years and years and years, he studied the development of purpose and what that looks like from a scholarly and also a scientific point of view. So Damon says, and I quote, purpose is an active commitment to accomplish something meaningful to the self, and of consequence to the world beyond the self.
Okay, I'll say that again because I know it's sort of a mouthful. Purpose is an active commitment to accomplish something meaningful to the self and of consequence to the world beyond the self. So that's broken down into [00:09:00] three things really.
So the idea of purpose is something that is active, which is different from the dreams that you might have because dreams are just dreams. They live in your dreams. You're not actively working towards it. Purpose is walking the walk and making a commitment to something over a very long period of time.
On the same note, since it's over time, this can't be a one time act. One time acts might contribute to the overall purpose, but the purpose itself cannot be a one time act
So for example, I put out Instagram reels to further the mission of the post grad playbook But that Instagram reel isn't my purpose My purpose is through the post grad playbook Which is helping you all take up space in the chosen careers that you want to have
the second part of this definition that I love is that Purpose is a commitment to accomplish something that's meaningful to the self. To the self, that means to you, not to your parents, not to society, not to your friends. [00:10:00] Purpose is an individualized experience, something that's meaningful to you.
Hence why biology and science could have never worked out for me because , even though it has great meaning, it wasn't my purpose. It didn't have that specifically for me. That was not my zone of genius. That's not where I could thrive. Even though it was incredibly meaningful to the community I grew up in, it would give me a lot of status, it wasn't meaningful to me. So if it's not meaningful to you as an individual, that's not your purpose.
No matter how sexy that might look or how good you might look on paper
with that title or that mission.
And the last part of the definition that I love is the part that says it's of consequence to the world beyond the self.
Purpose is intention that is stable and a consequence of something outside of yourself. So you have to find something that's meaningful to you and add something to the world. I think that all in all, this will be pretty easy to find just because Gen Z and Millennials [00:11:00] tend to be very community focused anyways.
When you're rooting yourself in your work or in your purpose, automatically others are included in that.
So now that we have the definition of purpose down pat in the most concise and real way that I've ever seen it I think one common mistake that people make with understanding what purpose is thinking that their purpose has to be all that they do for work or their purpose is a profession. Your purpose is not a profession. Your purpose is a through line that you're able to accomplish through a profession, through many professions, probably.
Your purpose is the reason why you do what you do. So, for example, when I think about my purpose, even creating the post grad playbook, it's not to be a founder, it's not to be a coach, right? My purpose isn't being a coach. My purpose is to help others take up space and I'm able to accomplish that through being a founder, through being a coach, through being a content creator and sharing the information that I have available to me [00:12:00] and having the characteristics of being a teacher, being an educator, a performer,
having those interpersonal relationships. Those are just titles that I'm able to accomplish that through. I would even say like crafting a personal mission statement is probably one of the easiest ways to help you figure out your purpose and then have jobs or instances or scenarios that fall in line so that you're able to walk in more fulfillment every single day .
Like I mentioned what I believe my through line to be is helping others take up space at its most basic level. That's what it is. So, when you're thinking about your own mission statement, and how that looks like for you, a great rule of thumb is to focus on the effects that you want people to have after encountering you, or what do you want to achieve?
The product to be from your work. How would you want people to feel? What is the end result? And from there, that is what you do
Also, I will say that when it comes to discovering your purpose, just like chill out.
Through a lot of [00:13:00] the research that I did find through looking at these articles, I did see that most young adults developed a sense of purpose over time. So if you don't figure it out today, right after this episode, that is totally fine. I think the biggest thing is just going out and experiencing life as it is, but really being intentional and taking stock of what you enjoy personally and how that serves society at large. And from there, you can find jobs, careers, professions, volunteer opportunities, or ways in your personal life that that fits into it.
So once you understand what that overarching sense is I would suggest that you go back to the real and look At some of the questions and a really journal on them and figure out what does a fulfilling career look like for you?
especially if you are in the midst of a career pivot and In this initial one, I have six, but I linked another video to it that has 14. What I'll do is in the show notes of this episode, I will link a blog post that has all 14 listed. But just to [00:14:00] have an idea, some of the questions are what did you like to do as a kid?
What about this activity was your favorite part? Whose career do you envy? What about it would you like? What do you naturally gravitate toward in your free time? What have you put off to the side as quote unquote too impractical to pursue? And lastly, what about your current career do you want to stray away from?
And I think that's one of the best starting points in addition to the other questions to really , kickstart this and start to live in what you figure out is your authentic meaningful purpose.
I was looking at the comments on this reel and I thought it was really funny because someone said, the problem with this is it leads me towards some arty entrepreneurial career, which I would be effing horrible at. And you know what? No one's telling you to quit your day job, right? No one's telling you to do any of that.
I don't think if it is leading you towards a career that you don't even think you'd be good at, if you [00:15:00] enjoy it, There is no harm in doing it on the side or doing it as your escape But I think that if you feel like you're falling in the same boat No one's telling you to quit your day job. You can do it on the side and keep your day job and have that sense of fulfillment on the side,
but there are ways to incorporate what you believe your purpose is into the different avenues of your work.
There was another comment on this post that said well I answered the questions and damn I've always known what I wanted to pursue But there is always that but IDK in the back of my head or it's not the acceptable career choice My family would want me to choose And that is very, very, very difficult.
And I, I totally hear you on that given my personal experience. It can be so difficult to go against the grain and pave a way of your own. I think at the end of the day, if you're falling into this boat, which I very much so did, I think you need to consider, , if you want to live for yourself or if you want to live for other people.
I remember coming across, some work by the [00:16:00] author Bronnie Ware, who was a end of life and palliative care nurse. And throughout her whole career, what she did is she tended to a lot of people who were just about to pass on. And throughout the time of her work, she was surveying all of her patients and came up with a list of five of the top regrets of the dying.
and The number one regret of the dying was, I wish I had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the lives of others expected of me. And when I was going through my major transition, I had come across this and it really disrupted my worldview and how I wanted to live my life. And I think that that's something you should consider if you are if you're in that boat.
I 100 percent understand that when I say Yes, you should go after your purpose wholeheartedly because you don't want to live a life of regret. I understand that is 100 percent easier said than done.
As humans, we are hardwired to want to be a part [00:17:00] of a community. When we were in the caveman days, If you weren't part of the pack, that literally meant you were fending for yourself and your survival was at stake. So we're hardwired to be that way. And when it comes to setting yourself apart or going against the grain, that inherently goes against our human nature.
We want to conform. We want to be a part of our community. And we don't want to do things that might set us up as a target. So just know that when I do say go find your purpose and live in a way that's most authentic to you, even if that's not traditionally conventional, know that I understand there's a lot that goes into it.
A big part of the post grad playbook and what we're going to be diving into in Make Up Your Mind is how our beliefs are embedded in our subconscious mind and how that really affects everything that we do on a both conscious and a subconscious level. Our subconscious mind runs about 95 percent of [00:18:00] the show.
It's our inner beliefs, our deepest fears, our imagination, the core of who we are. Is in our subconscious mind and when it comes to paving your own way and stepping out and doing this big beautiful bright career or something that is a lot more aligned with you, all those fears that are embedded within your subconscious are going to come out.
The self doubt, the fear, the worrying, the perceived lack of worthiness, and not feeling good enough, it's all going to come out, but there are so many ways to rewire and move forward confidently. And when you step out of this perceived group, And when you step out of the pack, , it's scary. Your nervous system literally enters fight or flight.
Your heart might start to race. Your cheeks might start to flush. You might start getting hot. You literally enter a state of fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. It's completely against your nature. So just know when I'm saying this. I understand [00:19:00] it's a lot easier said than done. Let's just say that.
So that wraps up the very first episode of make up your mind. Thank you so much for listening. If you resonated in any way, or if you have any questions, go ahead and send me a message on Instagram at the post grads playbook. I respond to DMS. Also, make sure you're signed up for the newsletter.
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And as always, I am rooting for you. I will speak to you next week. Bye bye.
