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Why Life Purpose Isn’t a Job Title

Bright symbolic image representing life purpose beyond a job title, showing a person at a crossroads with paths leading to a city skyline and a natural landscape

When we hear the phrase “life purpose,” many of us instinctively think of a job.
We assume it must be something career-related, like being a doctor, an artist, a teacher, or an entrepreneur. Something you can put on a business card. Something that neatly sums up your identity.

But purpose isn’t a job title. And it isn’t something you can only live out if you’ve landed your dream role or turned your passion into a pay cheque.

In truth, purpose is much broader—and much deeper—than that.

Prefer to watch instead? Here’s a video version of this post:

Purpose is About Who You Are, Not Just What You Do

Your purpose isn’t confined to your work, even if you love what you do. It’s about how you show up in the world. It’s expressed through your values, your relationships, the way you move through each day, and the small acts that matter to you.

You can live a deeply purposeful life as a parent, a carer, a volunteer, a community builder, or an everyday presence in someone’s life. You can live your purpose in paid work, unpaid work, creative expression, quiet presence, or public leadership.

Purpose doesn’t always have to be grand. Sometimes, it’s humble and hidden—and no less powerful for it.

The Trouble with Job-Title Thinking

When we tie our purpose to a single role or identity, we risk losing sight of our deeper “why.”
What happens if that job ends? Or if you change careers? Or take time out to care for someone?
Does that mean your purpose disappears?

Of course not.

Tying your identity and sense of meaning too tightly to a role can leave you feeling adrift when life inevitably changes. But when you understand your purpose as a deeper thread running through your life, you become more flexible—and more resilient.

Your Purpose is Already in Motion

Often, people worry they haven’t found their purpose yet—especially if they don’t have a clear vision of what they’re “meant” to do.

But chances are, you’ve already been living parts of your purpose. In the things you care about. In the ways you’ve helped others. In the moments when you’ve felt most alive, most connected, or most true to yourself.

Your purpose may not be one thing. It may not have a name or a title. But that doesn’t make it any less real.

A Soulful Reframing

What if we stopped asking, “What is my purpose?”
And started asking instead:

  • What matters deeply to me?
  • How do I want to show up in the world?
  • What kind of impact do I want to have—whether visible or invisible?
  • What legacy do I want to leave in the lives I touch?

These questions invite us to look beyond job titles and toward the essence of who we are becoming.

Want to Explore Your Life Purpose in a More Soulful Way?

If you’re tired of trying to squeeze your life purpose into a job description, the Soulful Path to Life Purpose programme offers a different way forward.

This isn’t about finding the perfect career. It’s about discovering who you are, what matters to you, and how you can live in greater alignment with your truth—whatever your circumstances.

👉 Learn more about the Soulful Path programme here.

Purpose isn’t something out there waiting to be found.
It’s something within you, ready to unfold.

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The Disciple

Symbolic artwork of the Disciple archetype, featuring a bearded figure holding a lantern and an open book, surrounded by gears, celestial symbols, and silhouettes of mentors and learners, representing the journey of mastery, discipline, and guided learning

A Journey of Devotion and Mastery


Continuing our series on Alternative Archetypes, the Disciple is the fourth in the Wisdom and Insight path.

In a world that values speed, the Disciple teaches the quiet power of patience, reverence, and consistency. It’s about showing up, staying curious, and trusting the process—qualities that are as relevant in our personal lives as they are in creative, professional, or spiritual pursuits.

Whether you’re drawn to the role of student, apprentice, or lifelong learner, the Disciple may speak to something vital in your own journey.

Learn more….
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How to Live a A Life of Meaning

What does it mean to live a life that is truly our own? How do we move beyond inherited beliefs and external expectations to find meaning on our own terms? These are the kinds of questions James Hollis explores in A Life of Meaning, a book that speaks deeply to those on a journey of self-discovery, personal growth, and soulful purpose.

Hollis, a Jungian analyst and one of the most insightful writers on depth psychology, invites us to engage in a different kind of conversation—one that doesn’t promise easy answers but instead encourages us to sit with life’s uncertainties and trust in the unfolding of our own path.

Read the full review here…

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What Does a Life of Purpose Look Like?

A mystical landscape at twilight with a glowing winding path, starry sky, illuminated tree roots, a floating lantern, heart-shaped crystal, and ornate compass, symbolizing a soulful journey toward purpose

We hear a lot about “living with purpose” these days—but what does that actually look like in everyday life? Is it about having a dream job, changing the world, or reaching some perfect version of ourselves?

The truth is, a purposeful life doesn’t always look dramatic. It isn’t reserved for those with lofty goals or clear-cut callings. In fact, a life of purpose can look quiet, grounded, and deeply personal. It’s less about what we do and more about how we live—rooted in clarity, alignment, and authenticity.

Prefer to watch instead? Here’s a video version of this post:

A life of purpose might look like…

  • Making intentional choices that reflect your values, even if they go against the grain.
  • Showing up consistently in your relationships, work, and community in ways that feel meaningful to you.
  • Letting go of roles, expectations, or identities that no longer fit, and giving yourself permission to evolve.
  • Trusting your inner compass, even when the path ahead isn’t clear or conventional.
  • Creating space for what truly matters, rather than being swept along by busyness or external pressures.

It’s about feeling connected to something deeper than just your to-do list. There’s a quiet contentment, a sense that your life reflects who you are becoming—not just what you’re achieving.

The Myth of the “One Big Purpose”

We often get stuck on the idea that our purpose has to be one big thing—some grand mission or singular passion. But most of us live out our purpose in small, cumulative ways over time. Through the way we care for others. Through the creative projects we tend to. Through the courage we show in healing, growing, and trying again.

Purpose doesn’t have to be loud or certain. It just has to be yours.

Building a Purposeful Life Takes Time

Purpose isn’t a lightning bolt moment—it’s a process of discovery, alignment, and transformation. It asks us to get honest about what truly matters, to explore who we are beneath the noise, and to reimagine how we want to live.

That’s not always easy work. But it’s deeply rewarding.

Ready to Explore What Your Soulful Life of Purpose Could Look Like?

If you’re feeling called to explore your deeper direction, the Soulful Path to Life Purpose programme offers a gentle yet powerful process to help you reconnect with your true self and design a life that reflects it.

Through a series of carefully crafted reflections, activities, and guiding insights, you’ll uncover your values, strengths, personality, and aspirations—and begin to align your everyday choices with the person you’re becoming.

👉 Find out more about the Soulful Path programme

Your purpose is already within you. Sometimes it just needs a little space to be heard.

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The Wanderer

What if the journey itself was the destination? The second of the Alternative Archetypes, The Wanderer speaks to the part of us that longs to roam – physically, emotionally, or spiritually – without needing all the answers in advance. In a culture that prizes stability and linear goals, the Wanderer follows a different compass: one tuned to freedom, wonder, and the quiet pull of the unknown.

Discover more

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How to Embrace the Energies of Spring

Spring, a season of renewal and awakening, arrives with a burst of energy and life. As the world emerges from the quiet dormancy of winter, the natural world becomes a vibrant display of growth and possibility. This season, characterized by blossoming flowers, longer days, and a sense of fresh beginnings, offers a powerful opportunity to realign with your life purpose. By understanding the energies of spring and engaging in activities that resonate with this time of year, you can harness the season’s vitality to propel your life’s journey forward.

The Energies of Spring

Spring is synonymous with rebirth and renewal. It’s a time when the earth awakens, and the energy shifts from the inward reflection of winter to the outward expression of growth and expansion. The seeds that lay dormant in winter now sprout, symbolizing new beginnings and the manifestation of potential.

In terms of life purpose, spring is a season for action, creativity, and planting the seeds of your future endeavours. The energy of spring is dynamic and forward-moving, encouraging you to take the insights and intentions cultivated during the winter and bring them into reality. It’s a time to reenergize, set new goals, and actively pursue the next steps on your path.

Optimal Activities for Spring

To fully engage with the energies of spring in relation to your life purpose, consider incorporating the following activities into your routine:

1. Setting New Goals and Intentions

Spring is the perfect time to set new goals and intentions. Reflect on the vision you cultivated during the winter and break it down into actionable steps. This might involve creating a vision board, setting specific, measurable goals, or establishing new habits that align with your life purpose. Spring’s energy supports the momentum needed to initiate change and progress.

2. Engaging in Creative Expression

With the creative energy of spring in full bloom, now is the time to channel your creativity. Whether through writing, painting, music, or another form of artistic expression, allow yourself to explore and express the ideas and inspirations that come to you. Creative work during this season can help solidify your purpose and communicate it to the world.

3. Taking Action on Your Plans

Spring is a season of action. Take the plans and ideas you’ve developed and start implementing them. Whether it’s launching a new project, starting a new routine, or taking the first steps toward a long-term goal, spring’s vibrant energy will support your efforts. Remember, even small actions can lead to significant progress when consistently pursued.

4. Connecting with Nature

Spring’s beauty is best appreciated in the natural world. Spend time outdoors, whether it’s walking in a park, gardening, or simply sitting in the sun. Connecting with nature during this season can ground you in the present moment and inspire a deeper connection with your life purpose. The act of planting seeds or tending to a garden can also serve as a powerful metaphor for nurturing your own growth.

5. Renewing Relationships and Connections

Just as spring revives the natural world, it’s also an ideal time to renew relationships and social connections. Reconnect with friends, family, or colleagues who inspire and support your life’s purpose. Spring’s social energy encourages collaboration, networking, and the strengthening of bonds that can help you on your journey.

6. Detoxifying and Cleansing

Spring is traditionally a time for detoxification and cleansing, both physically and mentally. Consider adopting practices that help you clear out the old to make way for the new, such as a spring detox diet, decluttering your living space, or engaging in mindfulness practices that clear mental fog. This cleansing process can create space for new ideas and opportunities aligned with your life purpose.

7. Cultivating Optimism and Positivity

The brightness of spring naturally fosters a sense of optimism and positivity. Embrace this energy by focusing on what is going well in your life and celebrating small victories. This positive outlook can help you stay motivated and aligned with your life purpose, even when challenges arise.

Conclusion

The energies of spring offer a dynamic and invigorating opportunity to align more fully with your life purpose. By embracing the season’s rhythms of renewal, growth, and action, you can take the insights and intentions nurtured in the winter and bring them to life. As the world around you blossoms and expands, let this season inspire you to move forward with clarity, creativity, and purpose. In doing so, you align not only with the natural cycles of the earth but with the deeper purpose that guides your life’s journey, setting the stage for continued growth and fulfilment in the seasons to come.

Check out our earlier post on How to Align with Nature’s Rhythms for a more Purposeful Life

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Unlock Your Inner Wisdom: Explore Personality and Archetypes

The Journey of Soul Patterns

What if the key to understanding yourself was already within you? What if the patterns that shape your life—the way you think, feel, and act—weren’t random, but part of something deeper… something meaningful?

Every choice you make, every challenge you face, and every dream you hold is woven into the fabric of your unique journey. But how often do we pause to truly understand these patterns? To see ourselves clearly? To embrace who we are and step into who we are meant to become?

Welcome to Soul Patterns

Soul Patterns is more than just another self-help guide or personality test—it’s an invitation to explore the essence of who you are. This journey of self-discovery is designed to help you unlock the power of your inner wisdom, providing insight into the forces that shape your life and guide your path.

At the heart of this journey are two powerful tools: personality types and archetypes.

Understanding Personality Types

Personality types offer a structured lens through which to understand your strengths, your challenges, and the ways you naturally engage with the world. By gaining insight into your personality, you develop a greater sense of clarity—clarity on how to navigate relationships, work environments, and life’s big decisions with confidence and self-awareness.

When you truly understand your personality, you no longer feel lost or uncertain. Instead, you can embrace your natural tendencies, work with them rather than against them, and step forward with renewed purpose.

The Power of Archetypes

Archetypes take us even deeper. These universal symbols and timeless narratives resonate across cultures and history, offering profound insights into our personal journeys. Archetypes allow us to recognize the patterns that have always been present, guiding us toward growth, meaning, and transformation.

By identifying the archetypes that shape your thoughts, desires, and behaviours, you step into a larger narrative—one that connects you to something greater than yourself. These symbolic blueprints help you see your life’s purpose more clearly, empowering you to move forward with intention.

Embracing the Journey

Through Soul Patterns, you’ll uncover your personality type and the archetypes that influence you. You’ll reflect on how these insights impact your relationships, your work, and your personal growth. More importantly, you’ll learn how to align your life with your true nature—living more authentically, with purpose and intention.

This journey isn’t about changing who you are; it’s about fully embracing yourself. Your strengths, your gifts, and your unique way of seeing the world are already within you, waiting to be recognized. By understanding the deeper forces that have shaped your story, you open yourself to new possibilities and a more fulfilling future.

A Guided Exploration of Self-Discovery

Each week, Soul Patterns delivers a new module, each building upon the last. With engaging articles, practical exercises, and creative explorations, you’ll have the tools to dive deep into self-reflection—at your own pace, in your own way.

So, ask yourself:

  • What if you could see yourself more clearly?
  • What if you could tap into the wisdom that’s already within you?
  • What if you could live with greater self-acceptance, clarity, and confidence?

The answers aren’t out there. They’re inside you, waiting to be uncovered.

Join the Soul Patterns Journey

This is your invitation to step into a transformative journey into the heart of who you are. If you’re ready to unlock your inner wisdom and live a life aligned with your true self, Soul Patterns is here to guide you.

Are you ready to embrace the patterns that shape your soul? Join us and begin your journey today.

More information

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Introducing the Alternative Archetypes Project

Mixed media-style artwork of archetypal figures in a sacred circle, with textured robes in teal and earth tones, standing around a symbolic patterned centre under a golden sun-like mandala

Reimagining Who We Can Become

What if the roles we’ve been handed by our culture no longer reflect who we are—or who we are becoming?

Many of us feel that the maps we were given to navigate life are out of date. The dominant archetypes -The Hero, The Leader, The Hustler, The Influencer- may have served a certain era, but they don’t speak to the deep longings many of us carry now. Longings for meaning, connection, soul, and sustainability. Longings to live in ways that feel rooted, real, and life-giving—not just for ourselves, but for the world.

This is the starting point for the Alternative Archetypes project.

Over the coming weeks and months, I’ll be exploring a series of new archetypes—images of possibility that offer gentler, wiser, more imaginative ways of being in the world. These archetypes aren’t about personality types or job titles. They’re deeper than that. They’re soul patterns. Invitations. Inner guides.

Each one offers a doorway into a different kind of life path—one that might not be reflected in the dominant culture but is deeply needed now.

Why This Project, and Why Now?

We are living through times of rapid change, deep uncertainty, and what many call a crisis of meaning. The old stories—about what makes a good life, a successful person, a worthwhile path—are fraying at the edges. More and more people are sensing that the conventional roles we’re encouraged to play aren’t the full truth of who we are.

In these times, we need new guiding images. We need archetypes that honour the inner life, that celebrate slowness, community, ecological wisdom, creativity, service, and radical honesty. Archetypes that make space for grief and joy, for solitude and connection, for not knowing and deep listening.

The Alternative Archetypes project is my small offering toward that larger cultural shift.

The Roots of the Work

This project has grown from years of reflection, deep reading, and personal exploration into how we might live more meaningful, connected, and soul-aligned lives. It’s grounded in archetypal psychology, eco-spirituality, and a belief in the anima mundi – the soul of the world.

It’s also been shaped by my own life experience: by questions that wouldn’t go away, by feeling out of step with dominant values, and by a longing to honour both the inner and outer landscapes we inhabit.

Who This Is For

This project is for those who feel out of step with the dominant culture.
For those who have always sensed there was another way.
For those who are weary of endless striving and long for something slower, deeper, more soulful.
For creatives, carers, rebels, mystics, elders-in-the-making.
For anyone standing at the edge of an old story, wondering what comes next.

What to Expect

Each archetype will be introduced on the website with a symbolic image and a brief written overview—just enough to give you a taste of its energy and essence.

These tasters are invitations to imagine what’s possible. If one sparks something in you—a sense of recognition, curiosity, or creative energy—trust that. Follow the thread.

The full, in-depth explorations (including the origin story, core traits, light and shadow sides, daily applications, and a contemporary fairy tale) will be included in the Alternative Archetypes book, which is currently in progress.

The archetypes will be grouped into themes such as Wisdom & Insight, Creative & Expressive, Healing & Service, Community & Connection, Earth & Eco-Spirituality and Change-Oriented. Some may speak directly to you. Others may challenge you. All are invitations to consider who you are becoming—and what kind of world you want to help create.

Where to Begin

The first archetype is now live on the Alternative Archetypes page. I invite you to read it and see what stirs in you.

Visit the Alternative Archetypes page

Each week, I’ll be adding a new archetype with a shortened version of what will appear in the full book once published.

To receive a gentle round-up at the end of each month—including the archetypes added and reflections on the deeper philosophy behind the project – sign up for my monthly Alternative Archetypes newsletter.

Sign up for the monthly Alternative Archetypes newsletter

This is an unfolding journey. I hope you’ll come along.

In Closing

We are in a time of great unravelling – and great possibility. The stories we tell about what it means to be human matter. They shape what we value, what we strive for, and how we treat each other and the Earth.

The Alternative Archetypes project is my way of offering new stories. I hope they help you see yourself – and the world – a little more clearly. And I hope they remind you that your way of being, no matter how unconventional, may be exactly what’s needed right now.

Visit the Alternative Archetypes page

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What Are Archetypes? Unlock Their Power for Self-Discovery & Growth

A celestial, ethereal digital painting of multiple goddess-like figures floating in a cosmic space filled with swirling light and energy. The central figure, bathed in warm golden light, wears flowing, translucent robes and has long, wavy hair. She is surrounded by other mystical beings in shades of blue, purple, and white, each with their own distinct presence and aura. Some figures appear more grounded, while others seem to dissolve into the luminous mist. Symbols, orbs, and intricate glowing patterns weave through the background, enhancing the divine and archetypal essence of the scene.

Discovering the Power of Universal Patterns

Have you ever felt drawn to certain characters in books or movies—ones that resonate deeply with your own experiences or inner struggles? Maybe you’ve always admired the wisdom of Yoda, the courage of Frodo, or the quiet strength of a caregiver. These aren’t just fictional figures; they represent archetypes – universal symbols and patterns of behaviour that exist in the human psyche.

The concept of archetypes was developed by Carl Jung, a pioneering psychologist of the 20th century. Jung noticed recurring themes, characters, and symbols across cultures and throughout history – whether in mythology, religion, or art. He believed these archetypes form part of the collective unconscious, a deep reservoir of shared human experiences. Figures such as the Hero, the Sage, and the Caregiver symbolize fundamental human drives, emotions, and life paths.

Why Do Archetypes Matter?

Unlike personality types, which require analytical reflection, archetypes speak to us on an intuitive, symbolic level. They act as mirrors, reflecting different aspects of who we are and what we aspire to become.

By identifying the archetypes that resonate with us most, we can gain insight into our strengths, motivations, and potential life paths. Are you the Rebel, challenging the status quo? The Creator, seeking to manifest beauty? Or perhaps the Leader, embodying responsibility and the desire for order? Recognizing our archetypal patterns helps us understand why we are drawn to certain roles, struggles, and aspirations.

Archetypes in Everyday Life

Archetypes don’t just exist in stories—they appear in the way we navigate the world. We embody them in our work, relationships, and creative pursuits. They help us make sense of our desires, challenges, and inner conflicts. When we connect with our personal archetypes, we gain clarity on how to move forward with a stronger sense of authenticity and purpose.

Discover Your Archetypal Patterns

Understanding your archetypes can be a powerful tool for self-discovery. It allows you to:
✅ Recognize your innate strengths and values
✅ Understand your personal motivations and challenges
✅ Align your life choices with your deeper purpose

If you’re ready to explore the archetypes that shape your soul’s journey, check out the Soul Patterns mini package. It will guide you through identifying your own archetypal influences, helping you gain deeper insight into your unique path.

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