On purpose, pressure, grace, and betting on yourself
By Dr. Raine Arndt-Couch, DSW, JD, LCSW, CCM, FCM
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my generation.
I’m an elder millennial, which means I’m part of that somewhat strange group of people who remember life before the internet was everywhere but also adapted quickly enough to spend most of our adult lives tethered to it. We called collect from payphones, drank from the water hose, and remember when the Sunday comics being in color felt like a small luxury. We also remember when the news was something you sat down to watch or picked up in the newspaper, not something coming at you from every direction all day long.
Now nearly anyone can reach us, at nearly any time, through any number of devices, while headlines, alerts, emails, texts, and notifications compete for our attention almost constantly.
But technology isn’t the only thing that changed. Many of us grew up with a pretty clear idea of what we were supposed to do with our lives: work hard, get a good education, build a career, be dependable, take the opportunity, keep moving up, give back, make a difference, and do something meaningful with all of that potential everyone kept telling us we had.
And, to be fair, a lot of us are doing exactly that right now.
We’re building careers and stepping into leadership roles while raising families, caring for aging parents, paying mortgages, managing school schedules, volunteering, mentoring, serving on boards and committees, and trying to stay connected to the people who matter to us. Some of us are still earning degrees or certifications. Some are changing careers, starting businesses, or taking on work that asks more of us than ever before.
We’re not looking back on the busy years from a comfortable distance. We’re in them. And somewhere in the middle of all of that, many of us have become very, very good at getting things done.
The payoff, however, has sometimes been a little more complicated. For all of the accomplishment, there also seems to be an awful lot of exhaustion, anxiety, burnout, overthinking, calendars without much white space, and an almost compulsive need to be productive even when we’re supposed to be resting.
I can’t be the only person who’s taken a day off and then felt strangely guilty about not accomplishing enough during my day off.
At some point, I started wondering whether some of the messages that once motivated us have quietly become another source of pressure. Even the idea of purpose, something that should help give our lives meaning, can start to sound like one more assignment we’re supposed to complete correctly.
When Did Purpose Become Another Assignment?
We talk quite a bit about finding our purpose. I like the idea of purpose. I’ve spent the entirety of my career in helping professions, and doing work that contributes to something larger than myself has always mattered to me (and still does).
But somewhere along the way, I wonder if we turned purpose into one more thing we’re supposed to achieve:
- Find your purpose.
- Live your purpose.
- Build a career around your purpose.
- Make an impact.
- Change the world.
That’s a lot of pressure for one lifetime.
Maybe purpose doesn’t have to be one enormous thing. Maybe it changes across seasons of our lives. Sometimes our purpose may be deeply connected to our work. Other times, it may have very little to do with our job title.
Maybe purpose can be raising good humans, taking care of someone you love, building something, teaching, creating, traveling, serving your community, or being a really good friend. Maybe for a season, purpose is simply getting your feet back underneath you. The harder part may be creating enough quiet to recognize when what matters to us has changed.
What If We Asked Ourselves the Miracle Question?
My fellow social workers will probably recognize the miracle question.
It’s one of those foundational ideas many of us learn early on: imagine that while you’re asleep tonight, a miracle happens and the problem that brought you here is resolved. You don’t know that the miracle happened. When you wake up tomorrow, what’s the first thing you notice that tells you something is different?
The point, of course, isn’t the miracle. It’s what comes next. What would be different? What would you notice? What would you be doing? How would you feel? What might someone close to you notice about you?
Questions like these help us move beyond the immediate problem and begin to understand what someone actually wants their life to look like. They give us clues about needs, priorities, goals, strengths, and possibilities that may be harder to see when we’re focused only on what’s wrong today.
We use that kind of thinking all the time with the people we serve, but I’m not sure we’re nearly as good at using it on ourselves. What if, every once in a while, we turned the miracle question inward?
If you woke up tomorrow and some of the franticness had quieted, what would be different? Maybe you’d have more time or less on your calendar. Maybe you’d be doing different work, or simply doing the work you already do differently. Maybe you’d spend more time with your family, call a friend you keep meaning to call, go somewhere, create something, or rest without feeling like you needed to earn it first. Maybe you’d simply feel lighter.
That doesn’t mean something has to be terribly wrong with your life today. Maybe you wanted the leadership position you now have. Maybe earning another degree was incredibly important to you. Maybe you worked for years to reach a particular professional milestone. None of that becomes meaningless simply because you eventually find yourself wanting something different.
We understand this when we’re working with clients. Needs change. Circumstances change. Priorities change. A plan that made perfect sense six months ago may not be the right plan today. Yet somehow, when it comes to our own lives, reassessment can feel like failure.
There’s a certain comfort in continuing to pursue the next logical thing:
- another promotion
- another credential
- another opportunity
- another responsibility
There’s always something available to fill the space.
And in a world moving at what often feels like the speed of light, space itself has become a bit of a luxury. There’s very little natural pause built into our lives anymore. We have to create it.
Sometimes that pause gives us an answer. Sometimes it just gives us a better question. Maybe I’m tired. Maybe I need a vacation. Maybe I need a change. Maybe I don’t actually want that next opportunity. Maybe this thing I’ve gotten very good at doing doesn’t bring me the same joy it once did. Maybe I don’t know yet.
Those aren’t always comfortable realizations, but I’m increasingly convinced they’re important ones.
Betting on Yourself
“Bet on yourself” is one of those phrases that usually comes with a big story. Someone quits the stable job, starts the company, makes the move, goes back to school, or takes the risk everyone told them not to take.
I know those stories because I’ve lived versions of them. More than once, I’ve stepped into something new without knowing exactly where it would lead. I’ve gone back to school, changed directions, taken opportunities outside my comfort zone, and, most recently, walked away from a familiar path and took a leap of faith on myself.
Those decisions can be exciting, but they can also be uncomfortable, uncertain, and sometimes downright scary. While the big leaps tend to make the better stories, I’m learning that betting on yourself doesn’t always have to be quite so dramatic.
Sometimes it looks like:
- trusting your own assessment that something isn’t working anymore
- saying no to an opportunity that looks great on paper
- admitting that the thing you worked incredibly hard to achieve isn’t the thing you want forever
- making room in your calendar before you know exactly what you’re going to do with the room
- spending the afternoon with your family and not checking your email
- doing something because it sounds fun, with no strategic value, no networking potential, no continuing education credits, and no bullet point for the résumé
For people who’ve spent a lifetime equating forward movement with progress, some of those choices can feel surprisingly risky.
I know I’m still learning. I still like accomplishing things. I still want to contribute. I still get excited by new ideas, projects, opportunities, and the possibility of making something better than it was before.
I don’t believe the answer is to stop striving. I think the answer may be to get a little more intentional about what we’re striving for and to make sure we’re still somewhere in the equation.
Give Yourself Grace
There will always be more work. There will always be another problem worth solving, another opportunity to consider, and another person who could use our help. For many of us, service is part of who we are, and I don’t think that has to change.
But perhaps we can include ourselves among the people worthy of our attention.
I’ve talked before about giving yourself grace, and I think that matters here too. We’re often much better at extending grace to other people than we are at offering it to ourselves. We can recognize someone else’s effort, see how far they’ve come, and remind them that they don’t have to have everything figured out. Yet when it comes to our own lives, we can be remarkably unforgiving.
We look at what still needs to be done instead of what we’ve already done. We focus on where we thought we’d be instead of where we actually are. We convince ourselves that needing rest means we’re falling behind, or that changing direction somehow diminishes everything it took to get us here.
Maybe grace is allowing ourselves to hold both things at once: gratitude for what we’ve built and honesty about what we need now.
Every once in a while, take inventory:
- What would I want to feel different?
- What’s giving me energy?
- What’s draining it?
- What still fits?
- What doesn’t?
- What have I been postponing until some magical future time when life becomes less busy?
You may not have all of the answers. You may realize that something needs to change without knowing exactly what comes next. You may simply need a break. Give yourself grace around that.
Grace doesn’t mean giving up on ambition, impact, or the things that matter to you. Sometimes it means creating enough room to see those things more clearly. Pause long enough to notice. Imagine what could be different. Take what you notice seriously.
And when the path starts to become clearer, trust yourself enough to bet on it.
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Bio: Dr. Raine Arndt-Couch, DSW, JD, LCSW, CCM, FCM, Founder & Principal Consultant at Responsive Advocacy & Consulting, LLC, is a mission-driven, human-centered healthcare leader whose professional experience spans clinical social work, case management, behavioral health, population health, and complex care. She serves on the National Transitions of Care Coalition (NTOCC) Board of Directors, is Chair of the Case Management Society of America (CMSA) Collaborative Relationships–Affiliates Committee and is a CMSA Today Editorial Board Member. Her work centers on advancing advocacy, whole-person care, and strategic systems transformation while balancing regulatory rigor with the human side of care delivery. She earned her MSW and JD from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa and her DSW from the University of Southern California.