The Myth of the Lightning Bolt: Why Purpose Usually Starts as a Whisper

There’s a popular idea that purpose arrives in a flash. That one day, the skies will open, something inside you will click, and you’ll finally know exactly why you’re here. We imagine purpose as a lightning bolt, sudden, dramatic, absolute.

But that’s a myth. A beautiful one. A comforting one. And a deeply misleading one.

For most people, purpose doesn’t arrive with clarity. It arrives with tension. Confusion. A quiet pull toward something you can’t quite explain. It doesn’t announce itself. It lingers. It repeats.

It shows up in the things you care about more than you should. In the things that frustrate you when no one else seems to notice. In the moments that bring you alive in small, quiet ways. It lives in the ideas you return to when your guard is down. In the conversations that stay with you long after they’re over. In the kinds of help you offer without being asked.

That’s what purpose usually looks like at the beginning. Not a mission. A pattern.

And yet, so many people stay stuck, not because purpose isn’t there, but because they’re afraid to choose wrong. They keep waiting to feel certain before they move. And the longer they wait, the heavier the choice becomes. Eventually, the idea of purpose stops being inspiring. It becomes pressure.

Because if you’re told that your purpose is the single most important thing you’ll ever discover, then the fear of choosing the “wrong” one can paralyze you.

The truth is, most people aren’t waiting for clarity. They’re waiting for certainty. And the more they wait, the more disconnected they become from the signals that were there all along.

Purpose doesn’t come before the action. It comes through it.

Here's a story about a woman who once who believed she hadn’t found her purpose. She worked in HR, and she was great at it, but she didn’t feel lit up by her title. It didn’t sound visionary. It didn’t feel like the kind of thing people wrote books about.

But every time we talked, she circled back to the interns she mentored. She told stories about helping people find their footing. She stayed late for career coaching, offered feedback no one else wanted to give, and helped her coworkers navigate difficult conversations. She even started writing posts online about burnout and imposter syndrome, just because she cared.

Still, she told me she hadn’t found it.

It wasn’t until she let go of what she thought purpose was supposed to feel like that something clicked. She stopped looking for the lightning bolt and started seeing what had been there the entire time: small, repeated acts of service, empathy, and presence. She didn’t need to wait for her purpose. She’d already been living it. All she needed to do was name it and build around it on purpose.

What kept her stuck wasn’t a lack of meaning. It was the pressure to make the “right” choice.

This is what we miss when we over-romanticize purpose. We think it’s something final. Something pure. Something you either find or you don’t. But purpose isn’t a destination. It’s a relationship. It’s built through the decisions you make when you follow what matters, even when it doesn’t make sense yet.

You don’t need to get it right. You just need to respond to what already calls to you.

Maybe it’s a conversation you can’t stop thinking about.
Maybe it’s a problem you feel irrationally obsessed with fixing.
Maybe it’s something that feels small but keeps resurfacing.

These aren’t distractions. They’re signal.

Your purpose isn’t missing. It’s just quieter than you expected. It’s not absent. It’s just been muffled under the weight of what you thought it was supposed to feel like.

So let go of the lightning bolt.
Listen for the whisper.
And choose to act on what’s already true.

Not because you’re certain.
But because you’re finally willing to respond.