How I found, lost, and rediscovered my purpose

Why reaching your goals won't make you happy.

I want to tell you a story about purpose in three parts.

Let’s start.

Part I: The trap of the social script

Most of us start our lives on autopilot.

It’s not because we’re lazy. It’s because we’ve been trained to follow “The Script.”

You know the one: Get the degree. Get the job. Get the promotion. Make some money. And so forth.

I followed the script perfectly until I was 28. From the outside, my life looked fine. Inside, I always felt that something was missing.

I was doing everything right, yet I often woke up with a quiet sense of dread.

My days were a blur of busyness that really led nowhere. I felt like I was living someone else’s plan.

Why was I doing what I was doing? What’s the point of everything?

I started looking into the future and thought, “How long can I keep going like this?”

Eventually, the emptiness got too loud to ignore. I decided I needed to find a worthy purpose.

I made a commitment to myself: Only pursue things that make you feel like you’re living a worthy life.

I started writing because that’s what I was gravitating towards. I can’t explain exactly what made me start writing.

I just had a feeling inside myself that said, “You need to write.”

As soon as I started, I got a lot of energy out of the practice.

When I wrote my first book, Win Your Inner Battles, time disappeared.

The dread I felt before also disappeared. I woke up every morning with so much drive to work on the book that I forgot about everything. I was naturally motivated and disciplined.

The book was so important to me that I just sat down and wrote every single day without fail.

That book lit a fire under my belly that lasted nearly a decade. From 2015 to 2024, I rode that momentum. I was writing and building. I had a direction.

Then, I hit a ceiling.

Part II: The achievement addiction

When my career started, a common idea began to take shape in my mind.

I told myself, “The end goal is to have a book deal with a big publisher.”

This is just a more sophisticated version of the Social Script. It’s the need for external status.

I made it my mission to get a “real” deal. In 2022, I signed with Portfolio Penguin for The Stoic Path to Wealth. It felt like an accomplishment in itself.

The book came out in 2024. It sold well. It was translated into 25 languages. I out-earned my advance before the book even hit the shelves. On paper, it was a success.

But here is the reality about big accomplishments: They don’t change you.

I expected to feel different. I didn’t even know what kind of different.

This is a common theme among all of us. We get a goal in our head and then we say, “If I achieve that, everything will be different!”

How?

We don’t know because our minds simply can’t think that far ahead.

Instead of feeling “different,” I felt normal. And after the book launch, I felt lost.

I had spent so long chasing that specific mountain that once I climbed it, I didn’t know what to do.

I had achieved financial independence. I had my books out.

And for the first time in years, I wanted to quit.

“What was the point if you just feel the same?” I thought.

I considered shutting down my website. I realized that I had confused purpose with milestones.

When you run out of milestones, you start to decay.

Part III: The easiest way back

In June 2025, everything changed. My wife was pregnant.

We were living frugally in a one-bedroom apartment. If I wanted to be the father I intended to be, I had to move.

I spent six months in scramble mode. Finding a house, buying it, renovating it. It was intense and consuming.

And by December of that year, the project was finished.

On the first night in our new house, the old “drifting” feeling started to creep back in. My house had everything I dreamed of.

And you guessed it, I still felt the same. Sure, I felt proud of everything. But I was still the same person, looking for a creative outlet.

This time, I recognized the problem immediately. It was the post-achievement void.

But this time, I didn’t let it spiral. I sat at my desk in our new home and asked myself one question:

“What is the easiest way for me to get back into meaningful work?”

The answer just popped up in my mind in that instant: Write a daily letter to your son until he is born.

I started writing about my mistakes, the lessons I’d learned from the people in my life, and the things I wish I knew earlier.

I wasn’t writing for an audience or to make money. I was writing my truth.

Instantly, the fire was back. It felt like 2015 again.

I realized that I didn’t need a bestseller to feel purposeful. I just need to do work that energizes me and has an impact on someone else.

Because if I just do things for myself, I won’t feel good about it. There must be some kind of impact on others, too.

That’s often the missing link.

Conclusion: Build a project that never ends

Goals are useful for direction, but they are a terrible foundation for happiness.

If your identity is built on what you achieve, you will always crash after the win.

You will become addicted to the next “high,” needing a bigger goal and a louder round of applause just to feel okay.

Purpose is not an achievement. Purpose is process.

It’s the process of becoming someone better than you were yesterday. It’s waking up and knowing you are working on something that matters to you… even if nobody claps.

You will still hit your milestones. You will still have wins. But those are just side effects.

The point is the work. It’s like you have an endless project that never ends.

When you stop trying to “arrive” and start focusing on the build, life feels full.

Even on ordinary days.

Well, isn’t that the point? To feel like you have a full life, especially on ordinary days.