Purpose Isn’t Prime Delivery
Instant Gratification, Risk, and the Reality of a Purpose-Driven Life
(mellow music fades in)
Welcome back to the Design+ Podcast, where we get vulnerable, dig deep, and talk honestly about work, career, and designing your ideal lifestyle so you can live an unboxed life as a creative, individualist, free-spirited human.
I’m your host and career guide, Miriam Raquel Sans — Raquel for short — and today I’m doing something a little spicy:
I’m challenging the way we talk about purpose.
Why I’m Challenging “Purpose-Driven Lifestyle” (Even Though It’s My Whole Thing)
I love talking about:
Purpose
Intentional living
Designing a lifestyle that actually fits you
Using your gifts, values, and skills in a way that feels meaningful
This is literally my business, my work, and what I believe in.
But.
There’s a distortion that creeps in when we mix “purpose” with:
Instant gratification
Urgency
Timeline expectations
Productivity culture
We start to believe:
“If I just find the right degree, right program, right coach, right job, I’ll discover my purpose and everything will click… fast.”
And that’s where it gets dangerous.
Because you cannot build a purpose-driven life if you’re unwilling (or unable right now) to:
Make hard choices
Take real, sometimes uncomfortable risks
Delay gratification
Sit with not-knowing for longer than feels comfortable
Without that, purpose becomes another consumer product: something we try to buy, hack, or rush.
My Story: Debt, Degrees, and Desperation for Answers
I use myself as Exhibit A.
My first 10 years of “career building”?
I made decent money but didn’t prioritize saving.I was laser-focused on:
Paying back my college loan
Digging myself out of debt (twice)
Going back for a master’s program I ultimately didn’t finish
I went into that master’s thinking:
“This will define my path. This will give me clarity. This will fix it.”
But once I was actually in it, I realized:
“Oh… this is not my path.”
Instead of pausing, I:
Carried a heavy mix of emotional, mental, and cultural burden
Put myself under pressure to fix it quickly
Tried to change my path immediately: “Just get me to where I’m supposed to be… now.”
I wasn’t:
Saving
Preparing for future “rainy days”
Asking: “Can the courses I’ve taken still be useful somewhere else?”
Slowing down long enough to explore smaller, lower-risk steps
I was risk-friendly, very willing to jump, and I didn’t yet have kids, a partner, pets, or other caregiving responsibilities. So on the outside it looked flexible.
On the inside?
It was urgency, shame, and the belief that:
“By now, I should’ve figured it out. By now, I should be in the career.”
Sound familiar?
The Problem with “By Now”
From the moment we’re little, we’re handed a quiet script:
Go to school
Choose a major
Get the job
Start the career
Be fulfilled
Have it “all lined up” pretty quickly after graduating
No one puts it on a PowerPoint slide, but it’s in:
Family expectations
Cultural messaging
Social media comparisons
Corporate ladders and timelines
Add to that:
Amazon same-day shipping
3-minute microwave meals
“Life hacks” and “optimize everything” content
…and suddenly we’re expecting our hearts and healing to move on Amazon timelines.
We want:
Instant clarity
Instant confirmation
Instant relief from the discomfort of not knowing
But inside, there’s:
Unprocessed family patterns
Cultural expectations
Emotional wounds
Nervous systems that have never had real rest
And those things don’t move at Prime speed.
Three Things That Actually Shape a Purpose-Driven Path
Instead of instant answers, purpose requires three things that are… not super sexy:
1. Time
Nature doesn’t rush.
Trees take years.
Seasons move in cycles.
A yoga pose only becomes a pose once you’ve actually breathed in it for a while.
You don’t “land” in a career, a calling, or a lifestyle just because you put your legs in the right shape for two seconds.
It’s repetition + breath + staying.
2. Inner Self-Awareness
This is the hard, sometimes annoying part:
Who am I under all the expectations?
What do I actually value — not what I was told to value?
How do I want to live, work, rest, contribute?
This often means:
Revisiting family stories
Looking at cultural pressure
Admitting where we’ve made choices for money, image, or survival — not for truth
It’s not about beating ourselves up. It’s about telling the truth so we can choose differently.
3. Your Relationship to Risk
Ask yourself:
Where am I willing to take a risk right now?
Where am I not willing, and that’s okay?
What feels like a responsible stretch versus self-betrayal?
Your risk tolerance is shaped by:
Responsibilities (kids, elders, pets, bills)
Health
Support systems
Identity and safety in the world
There is no one-size-fits-all leap. There are small, personal, intentional edges.
Instant Gratification vs. Small, Honest Steps
I’m not against taking action. I’m against forcing your life to deliver a clear, complete purpose report on demand.
Instead of:
“This one degree / job / coach will give me my answer.”
Try:
“What’s one small, real step in the right direction?”
Examples:
Instead of going straight into another expensive degree, maybe:
Pay for one class
Take a short certification
Audit an online course
Budget for a single coaching session to explore possibilities
Instead of job-hopping endlessly for clarity:
Talk to people already doing the work you’re curious about
Shadow someone for a day
Freelance or volunteer in a low-stakes way
These are pieces, not the whole picture. And that’s okay.
The Butterfly in Your Hands
I use this metaphor in the episode:
Imagine holding a butterfly in your hands.
You think:
“If I keep it here, it’s safe.”
“If I hold tight, I know where it is.”
“If I don’t let it go, I’m in control.”
But butterflies are meant to fly:
To find other butterflies
To be in the wind and the sun
To do… butterfly things
When we grip too tightly to our path, our next step, or our identity, we:
Stop trusting the process
Try to own what can’t be owned
Strangle the very thing we say we love
Your path is not meant to be pinned down and kept perfectly still.
It’s meant to be walked, created, adjusted, abandoned, returned to.
When the Truth Is: “Now Is Not the Time”
One of the most honest things I say in this episode is this:
If you are not ready, willing, or resourced to do deep emotional and mental work right now…
it might not be the moment to pile “find my purpose” on top of your life.
Not because you don’t deserve it.
But because sometimes:
You’re in survival mode.
You’re carrying a lot (family, health, money, caregiving).
Your nervous system is already maxed out.
In those seasons, chasing big, purpose-sized clarity can:
Feed urgency
Intensify shame
Make you feel even more “behind”
Instead, it might be more supportive to:
Focus on stabilizing (income, housing, health)
Create micro-moments of self-connection
Let “purpose” simmer in the background, not sit on your neck
My Own Sabotage: Moving Too Fast, Pushing Too Hard
I share honestly that I:
Quit my job
Took a kind of sabbatical
Got my yoga teacher training
Started working in yoga spaces
Changed jobs multiple times in one year
Worked two or three jobs at a time
All in the name of:
“I’m going to figure it out now. I’m going to get the most clarity, the most answers, the most everything.”
What did it lead to?
A lot of self-imposed hurt
Rage, frustration, and denial
Needing deep work around:
Family
Culture
Identity
My relationship to money and worth
Therapy and coaching helped.
But none of it was instant. None of it was clean.
The Cocoon: Creating Space Instead of Forcing Clarity
So what do you do instead of panicking and binge-buying programs?
You create a cocoon for yourself.
Ask:
How can I give myself time, even in small pockets?
How can I build tiny pockets of calm, slowness, and quiet?
How can I make room to:
Feel desperate without letting desperation drive every decision?
Question the urgency voice instead of believing it blindly?
Cocoon doesn’t mean isolation forever.
It means:
More grace
More patience
More honesty about where you’re actually at
Less “should,” more “here is what’s real for me right now”
Purpose as a Life, Not a Job Title
One more thing I underline:
Your job is one piece of your purpose.
It is not the whole thing.
Purpose shows up in:
How you live your values
How you care for yourself and others
How you move through the world
What you devote energy and attention to
My own business:
Is not built to be a multi-million-dollar franchise
Is intentionally small, intimate, and authentic
Is rooted in:
Spirituality
Yoga and Eastern philosophies
Nature-honoring perspectives
Multicultural, global ways of seeing
Most of what I currently create — podcasts, blogs, a lot of my content — is free.
Money matters, of course. But for me, money is one part of the equation, not the core motivator.
You get to design your own equation.
Your Invitation (and Your Challenge)
So here’s the challenge I leave you with:
Question the idea that one thing will “give you your purpose.”
Notice where instant gratification is running the show.
Ask yourself what kind of risks actually feel right for you right now.
Create even a tiny bit more space — a mini cocoon — to feel, process, and listen.
And then:
Look for small wins
Take smaller, truer steps instead of massive, panic-fueled leaps
Let your path unfold, not just be forced into existence
Remember:
You’re not behind.
You’re in process.
And if you’re floundering, in limbo, or feeling like you’re in between worlds — you’re not broken.
You’re just in the part of the story where the butterfly is still in the cocoon.
Give it time.
Give yourself time.
Until next time —
be well, be gentle with yourself, and let things take the time they need. 🦋
