Purpose is not a thing you discover. It's built from the specific position you occupy.
Purpose is a direction that forms when your actual beliefs, your skills, and what the world allows you to do intersect in a way that pulls you forward. For many people, that intersection is shaped by race and identity in ways that are never named directly. You might feel pulled toward work that addresses inequality because of what you have seen or experienced. You might feel torn between what your family needs from you and what would light you up. You might feel the weight of representation, or the opposite,invisibility. That weight or that invisibility is not separate from your purpose. It is the ground it stands on.
The specific feeling underneath this search is the sense that your purpose should be smaller than your life, or simpler, or less complicated by the fact that you exist in a particular body with a particular history. That you should be able to separate your drive to do meaningful work from the knowledge of what that work means to you, specifically. You cannot. And it is worth understanding why, so you stop trying to erase that part when you think about what matters to you.
Why purpose and identity cannot be separated
Bowlby's attachment theory and later work by Fraley on cultural variation showed that the way we experience meaning is shaped by the relationships and communities we come from. Purpose is not an individual trait you carry around inside yourself like a trait. It is relational. It exists in the context of what you owe, what you have been given, what you have been denied, what you want to build, and what your presence means to the people around you.
When your race or identity has marked you as "other" in certain spaces, your purpose cannot be the same as someone who was never marked that way. That is not a limitation on your purpose. That is material information about what your purpose actually is. If you grew up in a context where your family's survival depended on your achievement in particular ways, your purpose is not separate from that history. If you grew up knowing that your opportunities were smaller because of how you would be perceived, your purpose is not untouched by that knowledge.
Some people feel called to work that explicitly addresses racial injustice or identity-based systems. Others feel called to work that has nothing to do with race or identity on the surface, but they are called to it more fiercely because they never had the chance to do it before, or because it allows them to step outside a narrow script. Both are real. Neither is more "pure" purpose than the other. What matters is that you stop treating your identity as noise in the signal and start treating it as part of the signal itself.
The actual work of building purpose in your context
Purpose becomes clear when you can name three things without contradiction. First, what you are actually good at and what you like doing. Not what you think you should like. Not what others are impressed by. What holds your attention. Second, what you believe the world needs or what you believe is worth protecting or creating. This is not the same as what the world tells you it needs. It is your assessment. Third, the specific constraints and assets of your actual position. If you are a first-generation college graduate, that changes what kinds of risk you can take and what kinds of work might stabilize your family. If you have inherited wealth, that changes it differently. If your presence in a particular field would mean something to people who come after you, that is an asset. If you are exhausted from being the only one in the room, that is a constraint.
The work is finding the shape that holds all three without requiring you to sacrifice one for the others. That shape will look different than someone else's. That is the point. A software engineer from a working-class background might build purpose around making tools that her community can actually afford. An artist from a wealthy family might build purpose around making work that is not designed to comfort rich people. A doctor who is part of a religious community might build purpose around bringing quality healthcare to underserved areas within that community. A researcher who is the first in their family to have this opportunity might build purpose around questions no one in their family could afford to ask. None of these is more "true" than the others. They are simply more true for the person living them.
The thing that usually blocks this clarity is the belief that your purpose should be self-evident once you are "authentic" or that it should feel the same as it feels for people whose position is different. It will not. It will feel more complicated. It will carry more weight because it carries more of you. That weight is not a sign you are doing something wrong.
What to look for and what to notice
Pay attention to what you find yourself angry about or sad about. Not in a vague way. Specifically. Scroll past a news story about a policy change that affects your community and notice whether you keep thinking about it. Notice whether you find yourself in conversations about it. Notice whether you have an instinct to do something about it. That instinct is information. Pay attention to work that makes you lose time. Not work you force yourself to do. Work where an hour feels like fifteen minutes because you are focused on something that matters to you in the moment. Pay attention to the people you respect and what they are doing. Not to copy them, but to notice what their work tells you about what you think is possible or valuable. Pay attention to what would change if you did not show up. This is not about ego. It is about the specific role you occupy. Your presence in spaces that have not had people like you before is meaningful in ways that are separate from what you accomplish. Some of that meaning is worth protecting.
Without this clarity, you will keep making choices based on what purpose is supposed to feel like in theory, rather than what it actually means to build something that fits your life. That becomes expensive over time.
The purpose values assessment at My Values will surface which aspects of work matter most to you and where you are and are not living them out. It is a place to start naming what is already true about your position.
How does race affect what career path is realistic for me?
Race affects opportunity, compensation, advancement, and how your work is perceived in concrete ways that research documents and that you likely experience directly. Your purpose is built with these constraints as part of the calculation, not separate from it. If you are a Black engineer considering work, you are calculating both the work itself and whether the environment will let you do it without constant code-switching. Both factors are real. Both belong in your decision.
Is it okay if my purpose is connected to addressing injustice related to my identity?
Yes. Purpose rooted in addressing systems that have harmed you or your community is not less authentic than any other purpose. It is also fine if your purpose has nothing to do with identity or activism. What matters is that you do not dismiss purpose as invalid because it is connected to your identity. That is often where the realest drive lives.
How do I know if I am choosing a path based on what I actually want versus what I feel obligated to do?
Obligation and genuine purpose can coexist, but they feel different. Obligation creates a tight feeling in your chest and makes you think in terms of what you "should" do. Genuine purpose feels like you are building something that matters to you specifically, even if it also serves others. You can honor both, but you need to know which is which. If you are only feeling obligation, the path will not sustain you.
Can my purpose change as I get older or as my circumstances change?
Yes. Purpose is not fixed at birth or at the moment you figure it out. As you gain power, resources, or different kinds of knowledge, what you are able to build changes. As your family structure or health changes, what you can sustain changes. A purpose that fits your twenties might not fit your forties. That is not failure. That is growth.