When Does Purpose Become Pressure? Escaping the Purpose Trap | Ep. 306
episode
PLAN GOAL PLAN | Goals, Transformation for Women, Mindful Time Management, Balance, Working Moms
17 min
1 speaker
2 chapters
transcribed 1 month ago
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How does Mara's story illustrate purpose turning into pressure?
I want to start with someone I know, and I'm going to call her Mara. Mara is really good at what she does. She lights up in a meeting. She is the person who does extra reading, who feels called to the work in a way that most of the people around her don't. She has a career that means something, a title that reflects her values, and a reputation for doing the important stuff. Y'all, she is also quietly one of the most exhausted people that I know. Not in the way that burnout looks from the outside. She's still showing up. She's still delivering. She's still saying yes to the right things. She took a long weekend in the spring and got some sleep, protected her time. But she came back and it wasn't long before she started feeling the same way again.
And what she described to me wasn't tired. It was a lower register hum. A sense that no matter what she accomplished, she was somehow coming up short. And not against her boss, not against the deadline, but against herself. And against some sort of internal standard that she couldn't quite name. Yet she couldn't also stop it. So when I asked her what would make her feel like her day had been enough, she paused for a long time. She didn't have an answer. That's where I want to start today. Y'all, the month of August, we are talking about the concept of purpose. And today I'm going to be talking about the purpose trap, when purpose becomes pressure. But then next week, we're going to roll into the purpose void.
What do you do when you hate your goals, but you feel nothing? And then finally, we're going to wrap up talking about purpose as practice, not a destination. So if purpose is something that you've struggled with, if it is something that you have either had, but it came with pressure or maybe felt like you've never quite been able to grasp this concept of purpose, This month is for you, so let's do this. Welcome to Plan Goal Plan, a podcast where ambition meets balance. I'm Danielle McGue. I'm a professor, speaker, mom, recovering overachiever, and self-leadership coach for high-achieving women. At the intersection of research, practice, and play, I discovered a path to planning and goal-setting that's bold, balanced, and sustainable.
Together, we'll reclaim your time, empower your goals, and create a life where you thrive at work and at home. Grab a pen. Let's get started. Okay, I want to bring this back to the example I started out with about Mara. Mara's experience is a lot more common than what we talk about. And I think that the reason that we don't talk about it is because it doesn't look like a problem from the outside. It looks like purpose. It looks like drive and it might even look like success. but something's gone sideways. And that's what today's episode is about. So there's a particular version of exhaustion that I've been noticing in women that I work with. And it doesn't neatly fit into burnout, at least not the way that we usually describe it.
Burnout usually has a recognizable shape. You're running on empty. Your demands are outpacing the resources that you have. Everything feels heavy. Rest helps. You sleep, you recharge, you come back with a little bit more in the tank. But there's this other thing where rest really doesn't touch it. You can do the long weekend, the digital detox, the yoga retreat, and you can come back and you can feel essentially the same. And the problem isn't that you're depleted. The problem is something closer to demoralization. And that's the feeling that no matter how much effort you're putting in, you can't close the gap between where you are and where you feel like you're supposed to be. And there's a version of demoralization that's even harder to see.
And it's the one that happens when you care deeply. When you're not stuck in work that feels meaningless. When, in fact, you've built a life and a career that you believe in. And that's where I want you to go today. Because for a lot of the women that I work with, for a lot of high-achieving women... Purpose isn't the anecdote to burnout, it's oftentimes the mechanism.
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Chapters
2 chaptersSpeakers
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