Over at HBR, John Coleman addresses three misconceptions about purpose:

  1. Purpose is only a thing you find.
  2. Purpose is a single thing.
  3. Purpose is stable over time.

 

My favorite quote from the article:

In achieving professional purpose, most of us have to focus as much on making our work meaningful as in taking meaning from it. Put differently, purpose is a thing you build, not a thing you find.

And regarding it’s ok to change your purpose:

This evolution in our sources of purpose isn’t flaky or demonstrative of a lack of commitment, but natural and good. Just as we all find meaning in multiple places, the sources of that meaning can and do change over time. My focus and sense of purpose at 20 was dramatically different in many ways than it is now, and the same could be said of almost anyone you meet.