“What do you want to be when you grow up?” It is a question many of us encounter long before we understand ourselves. We learn to answer with professions: doctor, teacher, engineer, lawyer, entrepreneur. These answers matter because they influence the subjects we study, the qualifications we pursue and the opportunities we seek. Yet a professional title alone tells us very little about the contributions we hope to make.
Before choosing a profession, we need space to consider a deeper question: what difference do we want our lives to make? Our answer can give professional ambition a foundation. Education, skills and employment then become ways of expressing something that matters to us and benefits others.
Purpose is the sense of meaning we find in using our abilities and values to make a difference in the lives of others. It may involve helping people learn, improving access to food, restoring dignity, creating employment or encouraging others through hardship. Discovering it means understanding which needs we care about deeply and how we are willing to respond.
Purpose as a Foundation for Career Choices
A profession provides specialised knowledge and a recognised way to work. Purpose gives that work direction. Someone committed to improving food security might become an agronomist, economist, researcher, farmer or logistics specialist. Each pathway offers different opportunities to address the same concern. Understanding the contribution one hopes to make helps a person choose the pathway through which they can make the greatest difference.
This is why purpose should be considered early in the career decision making process. When we begin only with a job title, we can spend years preparing for work without considering whether its daily demands fit our values or strengths. A choice guided by purpose asks us to examine both the human need and the professional preparation required to address it.
Consider a student who cares about children struggling at school. Teaching might be a suitable pathway. Through volunteering, however, the student may discover that hunger, disability or difficulties at home are affecting those children's learning. That experience could lead towards nutrition, psychology or social work. The concern remains consistent while the understanding of how to contribute becomes clearer.
Balancing Purpose with Practical Realities
Many people choose careers under considerable pressure. Families want financial security. Communities admire certain professions. Students hear repeated messages about respectable occupations. These influences deserve consideration, especially where opportunities are limited. Alongside them, young people need permission to examine their own convictions and ask whose lives their work could improve.
Purpose also helps us think responsibly about money. We need income to support ourselves, care for our families and meet our obligations. A meaningful professional pathway should therefore consider earning potential, training costs and available employment. Financial stability can sustain contribution over time. The task is to seek a workable relationship between livelihood, personal strengths and service.
For some people, immediate survival determines the work they can accept. Taking an available job can be a responsible step towards supporting a family and preparing for future opportunities. Purpose can still influence how they work, treat others and use their growing experience. As circumstances permit, they can build skills and relationships that bring their professional pathway closer to the contribution they hope to make.
Discovering Purpose Through Reflection and Action
Discovering purpose usually requires attention and participation. Start by noticing the concerns that repeatedly hold your interest. Perhaps you are troubled by preventable suffering, wasted potential, or injustice. Look closely at the people affected. Listen to their experiences. A desire to help becomes more useful when it is informed by what people actually need.
Next, examine your abilities honestly. You might communicate clearly, organise people, understand numbers, or make others feel heard. Ask trusted people where they have seen you contribute effectively. Their observations can reveal strengths you overlook. Bringing those abilities into contact with a real need gives purpose a practical starting point.
Then test your understanding through action. Volunteer, mentor someone, or seek experience in a field that interests you. Pay attention to the work itself: the responsibilities, skills and relationships involved. These experiences help you judge whether a professional pathway fits the contribution you want to make.
You can express an emerging purpose in a simple statement: “I want to help young people build confidence and access opportunities,” or “I want to help farmers earn sustainable incomes.” Such statements can guide decisions without settling every detail of your future.
Purpose needs competence. Good intentions alone cannot deliver safe healthcare, effective teaching or sound business advice. If we want to contribute meaningfully, we must prepare seriously and keep learning. Purpose gives us a reason to develop expertise; professional training gives us the ability to apply it responsibly.
Putting Purpose into Practice
In my work as an applied economist, agri-food consultant, lecturer and speaker, I encounter different opportunities to contribute. Research can help people understand decisions. Teaching can expand a student's possibilities. Consulting can help a business make informed choices. Each role invites me to consider the people who may benefit from the work.
Purpose can also develop as we gain experience. We may discover new needs, recognise different strengths or reconsider an earlier ambition. The aim is to give purpose a place in our decisions from the beginning, while remaining willing to learn and revise from those decisions.
For someone already established in a profession, this reflection remains valuable. Examine where your existing skills could make a greater contribution. You might mentor colleagues, improve a service, change how you lead a team or pursue work with a community you care about. Meaningful change can begin within your current responsibilities.
Measuring Purpose Through Contribution
Contribution also requires accountability. Ask whether people are benefiting from your efforts. Listen when your assumptions are challenged. Consider whose interests your decisions serve. Purpose becomes credible through the quality of our work, the fairness of our conduct and our willingness to improve when we fall short.
The scale of that contribution may be modest and still matter deeply. Helping one student continue their education, or treating a customer with dignity has human value. A life of contribution grows through consistent actions, including work that attracts little public recognition.
Helping Others Find Their Path
Parents, educators and mentors can support this approach by broadening career conversations. Alongside grades and employment prospects, discuss the problems young people care about, the strengths they are developing and the people they hope to serve. Help them explore several possible pathways before committing to one.
Building a life that matters begins with taking our potential contribution seriously. Give purpose attention before allowing a professional title to define your ambitions, and choose a pathway that develops your abilities and creates opportunities to serve humankind. Along that path, you may encounter your own lions: uncertainty, fear of failure and pressure to meet other people’s expectations. Let the contribution you hope to make give you the courage to face them and keep moving forward, because when purpose leads, fear bows —you can even hug a lion.
About the Author
Dr. Harold Mayaba is an applied economist, agribusiness consultant, speaker and Adjunct Lecturer at Rusangu University. As Founder of H|M Agri-Food Consulting & Speaking, he works at the intersection of agriculture, economics, leadership and purpose, encouraging individuals and organisations to turn challenges into opportunities for meaningful impact.