The Five Blocks to Living a Life of Purpose

Kirk Souder
6 min readSep 11, 2019

The vast majority of the leaders we work with are in some way attempting to navigate these straits: the journey from a place of high traditional achievement, to a place of high purposeful achievement, aliveness, and meaning.

In the process of working with these leaders over the years, individually and in our workshops, we have encountered a repeating pattern of blocks so consistent, that we thought it would be of value to bring them forward here (given so many wanting to undertake this journey) and also to illuminate the deeper causal issue that lies underneath them all.

And to be fully transparent, these are blocks we’ve struggled with ourselves in our own journeys to experience lives and vocations of purpose and impact. Not only one or two, but most of the five blocks we are about to share. It is through having discovered our own ascent, and then being a sherpa to others, that we are able to share the potential pitfalls of the journey. In two weeks we’ll be working with about sixty inspired leaders in a purpose boot camp called Soul Purpose in NYC where we deconstruct these blocks to free these leaders and empower them to generate positive impact in the world.

Purpose Block #1: “I have to choose between purpose and prosperity — between what brings me alive and what keeps me alive.”

We have put this in the number one position because we have found it to be the most common and powerful block to people moving toward their inner calling and purpose. Somewhere along the human journey we turn a trend into an absolute truth — a law chiseled on some Rosetta Stone in the center of the universe. Yet, one quick look around the world unveils countless human beings proving everyday that this “law” — this polarity of choice — does not exist. These people are being brought alive in what they are doing, finding purpose, and making impact in the world, and all the while, also making a good living. And so why do we ignore all that evidence and choose the default belief that then creates the default life? It is a problem or perception, not of reality.

And there is another flavor of this block: it is the belief that these two things — business and service, or business and personal joy — shouldn’t come together. One should exist for the sole purpose of profit and sustenance, and the other for the sole purpose of joy, aliveness, and doing good. And so when our true calling emerges that requests them all to come together (and it eventually emerges in all of us!), we hit a wall. Part of us says “Yes!” to it all, and another part of us says “No — not possible. Those aren’t meant to come together.”

Purpose Block #2: “My purpose is ‘out there’ and finding it is a quest.”

This next block is a problem of direction as opposed to perception. Howard Thurman said, “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what brings you alive and go do it. Because what the world needs is more people brought alive.”

This is brilliant because it points us in the real direction for the discovery of our purpose: It is within, not without. And the beacon it uses within us to call our attention toward it is what brings us joy and a sense of aliveness. We recently did a google search around purpose and by far the #1 term that was searched on this topic was “Find Purpose.” So people can spend years trying to “find their purpose” as if it’s an elusive object, like the Holy Grail, to be finally found out there in the world. It’s not. It’s already within you. The task isn’t to find it, it’s to connect with it. And we connect with it by going inside to discover where our joy and aliveness actually resides.

Purpose Block #3: “I’ll have to leave my current company or position to pursue my purpose.”

Often times people make an assumption that a move toward purpose and meaning requires a move away from a chosen field or company that they’ve invested a lot of themselves in. It is true that there are instances when our calling brings us to an entirely new area. But there are just as many instances, if not more, where our calling finds a powerful intersection between personal purpose and company mission. When that happens, the energy and intention of personal purpose generates innovations and breakthroughs that both serve the aliveness of the individual and the business of the company. For this to happen though, we need to have the inner tools to be able to look at where we are through new eyes — eyes that are no longer fogged by the residue of previous experience, judgments, or conditioning.

Purpose Block #4: “I thought I knew exactly what I wanted, but it seems to be such a struggle and the universe does not seem to be cooperating at all.”

Is that a signal to double down on my efforts or give up? Or neither and to pivot? Many times when people first launch into this world of purpose and impact, their mind immediately latches onto a form of what it should be or needs to look like, frequently because that can create a sense of certainty, a plan, and the feelings of safety and control that can come with that. We call this “preference.” The challenge with this is that it becomes an object of attachment that inhibits the person’s ability to be available to and receive something even more in alignment with their inner purpose, more spectacular and perhaps even more impactful in the world.The key is to learn how to be aware of preference, hold it loosely with an open hand and mind, and allow and recognize other possibilities as they emerge.

Purpose Block #5: “I’ve got to figure this out and do this on my own.”

As leaders, most of us know that any project of substance is going to require collaboration with others. And yet, for some reason, when it comes to fulfilling our calling, we default to a “I’ve got to do this, or figure it out, on my own” approach. Perhaps it’s because our calling is so personal to us that we assume the implementation of it is also a solo job. But in fact, one of the wonderful precipitates of fulfilling purpose is to learn how to co-create with others and our universe in a state of flow and grace. To truly experience the power of intention, fully listening, and allowing. At Soul Purpose, we call this 360° Receptivity, and it is truly where the magic and joy happens, and where our original visions get so much bigger and more magnificent than we could have alone imagined.

Underneath it all

Underneath all the blocks, and the force that is incessantly building them, is one simple error in leadership. And the error in leadership, is again, not an outer issue. It’s an inner issue. It’s the assignment of the role of leadership inside us to the ego rather than a deeper, wiser, freer aspect of us, which we will call the True Self.

The ego has the best of intentions with regards to keeping us safe, comfortable, and away from anything it perceives as a potential risk. But with that alone as its lens, it makes for quite an incompetent leader as it pertains to taking the big leaps forward that expand our experience, growth, self-discovery, and creation. All the things that make a life worth living, and all things that inherently come when we say “yes” to our calling, and move out of our comfort zone, out of the familiar, and into the possibility of stumbling, messiness, and “failure.” All of these are known to the True Self (before the ego gets involved) as simply, learning. The ego puts forward all the blocks above as the illusion that it is keeping us safe, when it is actually keeping us from fully living and from fulfilling our unique destiny.

On the other hand, because the True Self knows full well that all these experiences are just a part of the ride toward fully living our true calling out in the world, it does not obsess with the illusion of the blocks. Instead, it resides in and continually invites us into the awe-inspiring vision of purpose, and a myriad of unimaginably rich creative possibilities on how to realize it.

While we teach in Soul Purpose how to clear the blocks between us and living our life of aliveness and meaning, underneath it all, it comes down to one simple choice. Inside of us, who is the master and who is the servant. Inside of us, who is leading?

— Kirk Souder and Licia Rester, Co-facilitators of Soul Purpose

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Kirk Souder

executive + leadership coach. Helping the transformation of leaders that they might transform their worlds. https://www.kirksouder.co