I used to believe that mission mattered most.
I used to believe that if I was working on a Very Important And Noble Cause, then all would be right in the world. I’d be using my time and energy in meaningful ways and derive significant fulfillment from my work.
I no longer believe that. This is one of the biggest shifts in my thinking in the last five years.
Why? Because it turns out that two other factors have a much greater impact on our day-to- day lived experience: activities, and people.
This is a tough topic to pin down, but I’ll offer a model that’s proven useful: ARM. It asserts that, for most people, the primary contributors to day-to-day fulfillment at work are, in order:
(1) Activities: literally, what do you do all day? Do you enjoy it?
(2) Relationships: who are you doing those things with?
(3) Mission: what’s all that pointed at?
To clarify, I am *not* saying that purpose is unimportant, or that it doesn’t contribute to our sense of fulfillment. What I am saying is that purpose (and it’s sibling, passion) is a concept so overblown in culture over the last 10-15 years that it offers little actual direction. Mission and purpose are the cherry on top of the fulfillment cake, not the cake.
If you want to go deeper on this, have a listen to this short (~11min) podcast I shared.