5 Reasons Why People Struggle to Find Their Purpose (And Why It Feels So Intimidating)
Updated October 2024
Most people fail at Living & Embodying their Purpose not because it is a hard thing to do per se, but rather because they feel the burden of rooted fears, peer pressures and psychological barriers.
Many highly sensitive people feel they are here to fulfill a specific Purpose, yet they first have to undergo a personal healing journey of Embodiment before they feel ready to go out in the world and live it. In this article you will find 5 common reasons why people abandon their life’s purpose or keep procrastinating on it.
Overcoming intimidation in pursuing your purpose
Picture someone that is living their Purpose.
They are happy, joyful, cheerful, passionate, you can sense their radiance from across the room. They are magnetic and you feel raptured by the subtle Energy (or Light) that emanates from them, even though you can’t directly see it and you don’t exactly know “what’s about it” that attracts you!
Maybe what they are doing is not related to what you do or your fields of interest, yet you’re naturally drawn to be more in their Presence (or read more of their books and hanging around more on their social media page). You want to know more about what they are doing. They seem to be so… on Purpose!
People who are living their Purpose are easy to spot in the crowd, firstly because they are still a minority (lamentably); secondly because they have taken the necessary steps to discover one Life’s Purpose and this makes them so charismatic and such beautiful, gentle, loving people to be around.
Now, that person may be you someday.
Maybe in the past you had an experience of feeling raptured when you were doing something you’re really passionate about. Those were stand-alone moments, though, and you haven’t yet found a cohesive way to waive your Inborn Passions together and create the unique fabric of your Life Experience, ignited by your Purpose!
I hope that this heart-written article will illuminate your day with some inspiration and tips for overcoming the fear of living your Purpose.
We will cover:
Why People Struggle to Find Their Purpose
What are the 3 most common fears to live a truly fulfilling Life
How to stop sabotaging your purpose and overcome challenges
A real story from my client whose fear stopped her from living authentically
A couple of words about myself
♡ Hi, I’m Sara Francesca (Instagram). I’ve been passionately coaching HSP women to find their Potential, Authentic Success & Purpose for 9+ years. On my page I talk about how you can live your Best Life while contributing to the co-creation of a Heart-based paradigm for New Earth. Learn to harness your sensitivity to THRIVE in this value-reversed world and embody New Earth Leadership.
Back to the useful info for you. 👇🏼 ☀️
Why People Struggle to Find Their Purpose
In a world brimming with opportunities and choices, the quest for purpose can feel like navigating a labyrinth, often leaving us more bewildered than enlightened.
Picture this: you wake up each day, surrounded by the noise of responsibilities, societal expectations, and the relentless pull of routine.
It’s easy to become trapped in the mundane, drifting from one obligation to the next, all the while feeling an unsettling void—a yearning for something more profound.
This disconnect between our daily lives and our innermost desires is a common thread woven through the fabric of many lives, and it’s this very struggle that keeps us from embracing our true Purpose.
The first challenge lies in the sheer weight of expectation. From a young age, we are bombarded with messages about what success looks like—whether it’s pursuing a certain career, achieving financial stability, or following specific steps to fit in what society calls “the norm”. These external pressures can create an internal conflict, leading us to suppress our authentic selves.
We often find ourselves asking, “Is this what I’m supposed to be doing?”, rather than exploring what truly ignites our passion.
Moreover, many people grapple with a profound sense of self-doubt. This inner critic can whisper insidiously, convincing us that our dreams are impractical or unworthy.
We often find ourselves asking, “Is this what I’m supposed to be doing?”, rather than exploring what truly ignites our passion.
We may have fleeting moments of inspiration, yet the fear of not being “good enough” stifles our attempts to pursue them. It’s as if we are caught in a cycle of self-sabotage, where our aspirations remain just that—dreams that fade into the background of our daily grind.
This disconnect breeds frustration and disillusionment, leaving some of us wonder if we’ll ever find that elusive sense of direction. For others, the quest for this elusive yet certain sense of Direction will foster their interest in personal & spiritual growth.
One last thing to mention is societal narrative. We tend not to realize how deeply we are conditioned by the set of rules, norms and expectations built by society.
We all are. Wanting to “fit-in” is a survival strategy and we can’t help it.
It takes long years of shedding layers through inevitable inner work and personal breakthroughs to imagine something for ourselves that is not “the norm”, yet it’s closer to our Heart expression.
In recognizing these struggles, we can begin to illuminate the path forward and realize what are the common reasons for failing to live our Purpose.
3 Common Reasons for Failing to Live your Purpose
Many people struggle with understanding the fear of living their purpose, and this fear can manifest in various ways. Here are 3 reasons for procrastinating living in your Purpose that I have found to be most common among my highly sensitive and highly empathetic clients.
You don’t give yourself “permission to”
One significant barrier is the “lack of allowance”. Deep down, we often question, “How can I allow myself to be that happy?”.
Cultural conditioning teaches us phrases like "lucky at cards, unlucky in love.", or “It’s not fair to have it all”. These mindsets instil the idea that someone may be fortunate in one area of life but unfortunate in another.
They perpetuate the belief that happiness and success are limited, and that if you had only a little bit of it, like maybe you’re lucky enough to have a kid and you love parenting, then that is enough and it’s not moral to ask for more. Through applied Quantum Kinesiology testing, I found this unconscious belief to be true in many clients, due to our common cultural conditioning.
Therefore, you stop to look for something else in Life. You don’t allow yourself to truly follow your Bliss & Purpose. You stop along the way. It is best not to “ask for too much” and be content with what you have already.
But following your Purpose is not asking for too much!
But following your Purpose is not asking for too much!
Otherwise your Heart wouldn’t desire it.
Living on Purpose is receiving and claiming the AbunDance in all Life aspects that deep down you know you deserve and long for.
Don’t stop your quest just because you’re happy with one or a few areas of your Life. If you keep feeling the internal pull to expand more, allow yourself to dive deeper and see what else is miraculously awaiting for you on your most aligned path.
A non-permission mindset keeps us trapped, believing we don’t deserve more joy and more fulfilment. A liberating mindset, instead, says: “YES, AND…”
2. Procrastination resulting from not taking responsibility
Another prevalent issue is procrastination, stemming from a reluctance to take full responsibility for our lives. When we show up for others— be it parents, partners, or societal expectations — we neglect our own desires.
Something that I’ve noticed among my clients is they get delusional about their initial goals and desires. I say, it is ok to change your goals as you grow and shift the Vision you had for yourself.
The more you discover the talents inside yourself and the more you allocate time to playfully pursue your passions, the more you’ll change as a person.
Living authentically means stepping out of the old molds we have created. It means being fully in the present moment and owning the self-responsibility to make choices that will impact our future. The procrastination of putting ourselves on the Purpose Quest is covering up a deep-seeded hesitation to fully engage with Life.
Ask yourself: what could go wrong? If I allow myself to live my Purpose, and to live it now (not procrastinating), what could go terribly wrong?
Ask yourself: what could go wrong? If I allow myself to live my Purpose, and to live it now (not procrastinating), what could go terribly wrong?
The answer might be frightening because it requires a change, and all change is frightening to our comfortable nervous system, designed to continuously carry on our homeostasis (a sense of balance of mind-body-spirit, at the heart of health).
Fear is in all of us. There’s nothing inherently bad with it.
Fear is a wall to the expansion of the Heart.
I’m not telling you to ignore your fears and act like if they wouldn’t exist. In my programs we learn to give them a space, but not to be “governed” by them.
In that way we can outgrow our imposed limitations and bloom in our Purpose.
3. Humility is a great value, but we lack of it
Lack of humility also plays a critical role in why people struggle to find their purpose. Though it’s an unpopular notion, humility is essential for growth and success. You can read this scientific study to understand why, even though applying common sense would be enough to understand why we need more humility.
Humble individuals tend to perform better because they have a realistic understanding of their strengths and weaknesses. They recognize their limitations and remain open to learning. Also, they are likely to be less attached to the final results of their actions, as they don’t feel like they have to “show off” or to gain any kind of status. Therefore, they more authentically proceed on the path of their purpose.
Living a purposeful life despite challenges (real story)
Hear what happened to a client of mine.
She was interested in the Quantum Healing aspect of my work, as she’s been miserably living with insomnia for over 20 years and nothing would get her out of that trap. As she starts telling me about her Life story and turning moments, two things popped out to me.
One, she’s been traumatized as a child with something concerning her sleep - and she wouldn’t want to admit it to herself up until that point.
She needed to understand and release the multiple energetic, emotional and mental layers of that trauma in a very safe setting for her nervous system (the individual session where I was holding safe space for her and guiding her gently). There was no magic pill, no allopathic nor natural, that would put her to sleep until trauma was so unconsciously alive in her Body.
The second thing that stood out was something about how she obviously had let go of her Purpose and tucked it away from her for Fear. She tells me about a specific experience she had when she was young, right before becoming a mother, that she can still recall in great detail.
She remembers how that experience made her feel: joyful, happy, safe, at home… basically on Purpose. This happened in a moment when she was following closely the practices of a specific Spiritual Community, being physically present in that space. Her Heart loved being there much more than with her husband!
But, she didn’t trust it.
She didn’t have the guts to make an important choice that would have changed the trajectory of her Life in the most beautiful way - and put her on her Purpose’s main road.
She felt the societal pressure of marriage and the in-laws. Moreover, to justify the fear trap she was already into, something happened with that specific spiritual guru that showed her “that was a dangerous path” and that “you can’t really trust those gurus”.
It is certain there is a lot going on in disguise under many “spiritual” or “healing” community, but if you intuitively sense that a certain place is not authentic for you after a certain event, you can just leave.
She was free to leave and find another setting where she could continue to explore her Purpose, what made her feel alive.
Upon some deeper Quantum Alignment sessions, we found out she’s actually embodying Angelic Consciousness, meaning her “job” or purpose on Earth was to be a gentle light to other humans, not certainly to live gripped in fear, resentment and disappointment.
Fast forward to today, about 30 years after that experience, when she comes to my office, I meet a person that has been emptied out from the inside. She’s very thin, hyper-vigilant and in constant anxiety, and she can’t find ONE reason of Joy in her Life (even though she’s a grandmother now). And, she cannot sleep.
Her sleeping problem is not even the real problem.
Her sleeping problem got worse over the years because the Divine Intelligence of her Body is desperately trying to call her attention to deeply seeded fears, traumas and subconscious programs that are taking her totally away from what her Life was meant to be.
I received a Message that she was meant to be a Lightworker in this lifetime. She was meant to heal & guide others and be a devotee on the Spiritual Path. That’s why she was feeling at home when she had that brief experience with that Guru.
That’s why she even had that experience in the very first place: she was following her calling, intuitively at first.
But she refused it for her all Life and ended up being a fairly depressed, anxious, closed off and resented person (did I mention alone?).
How sad is that?!
And how many people do that?
Her sad story unfortunately is very common.
For generations and generations, this is what we’ve been doing collectively: hiding from following our true Purpose, fitting into a system or a culture which has now shown itself to be toxic and unsupportive of Life.
Why do we give away our power this way?
If you want to know how to break free from purpose paralysis and overcome the challenges in finding personal fulfilment, you are invited to explore my page about the Quantum Alignment individual Program.
The journey to finding our purpose is not a linear one; it’s a beautiful tapestry woven from our experiences, challenges, and triumphs. Embracing this journey, with all its complexities, can ultimately lead us to a Life filled with meaning, joy, and authenticity.
May the Blessing of Knowing always Enlighten your Existence,
-Sara Francesca
♡
I’m Sara Francesca and I wrote this article with love & care to help fellow Highly Sensitive Beings find Peace, Prosperity & Purpose, while living connected to their Mission on Planet Earth. I am a Social Entrepreneur and all of my courses and programs contribute to grow a non-lucrative initiative called The Human-Nature Preservation Fund.
Total Time for creating this article : 7h.
