Opening: Doing the Same Work, Yet One of Them Shone
When I worked at LINE, I once watched two colleagues of similar ability. Both were smart and diligent. But as time passed, one of them grew more and more worn down, while the other actually grew sturdier.
It took me a long while of watching before I understood the difference. The colleague who was wearing down often said things like "I do it because I was told to." The colleague who was growing sturdier, on the other hand, always talked about which user's discomfort the feature he was building would reduce. They did the same work, but one of them performed tasks while the other worked toward a purpose.
Which one was I back then? It is embarrassing to admit, but I was closer to the former. Closing tickets was my goal, and I barely thought about why I was doing the work. This piece is the story I want to tell my past self, and anyone in a similar position. It is the story of how the "why" changes the "how," and ultimately how far we go.
Why Purpose Creates Motivation and Persistence
The Golden Circle: Starting With Why
In 'Start With Why,' Simon Sinek presents the concept of the Golden Circle. People usually think in the order of What, How, and Why, but deep motivation and influence come from doing the exact opposite, starting with Why.
This insight applies not only to organizations but also to individuals. When I know why I am doing the work, the task becomes not merely an item on a to-do list but a piece of a larger picture. And when that picture becomes visible, we gain the strength to hold on even in harder moments.
Meaning Is the Strongest Fuel
In 'Man's Search for Meaning,' the psychologist Viktor Frankl records that the people who survived even extreme suffering had a reason to live, that is, meaning. Borrowing from Nietzsche, he wrote that the one who knows the why of living can bear almost any how.
The same holds in work. When we move on external rewards alone, we stop when the reward shrinks. But when meaning is the driving force, we gain the strength to continue regardless of reward. Persistence is often less a matter of willpower than a matter of meaning.
The Power of Intrinsic Motivation
The Self-Determination Theory of Edward Deci and Richard Ryan divides human motivation into extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation grows strong when three needs are met: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Purpose is the thread that ties these three into one. When I know why I do something, autonomy comes alive; when I accomplish meaningful work, competence fills up; and when that work reaches someone, relatedness is fulfilled.
| Type of Motivation | How It Works | Durability |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Extrinsic motivation | Moves on reward and pressure | Weakens when reward disappears |
| Intrinsic motivation | Moves on meaning and interest | Lasts a long time |
| Purpose-based | Connected to a larger picture | Holds on even amid difficulty |
The Meaning of Work Is Both Found and Assigned
Meaning Is Sometimes Discovered
Some work has clear meaning in itself. A system that protects people's safety, a tool that saves someone's time. In such work, discovering meaning is relatively easy. To find the meaning of your own work, it helps to follow all the way through to whose what your result ultimately changes.
For a while I was on a team that built internal tools. At first I thought, "It's just an internal tool." But as I watched the colleagues who used that tool work fewer late nights and escape repetitive tasks, my work came to feel like it gave people their evenings back.
Meaning Is Sometimes Assigned
Not all work carries radiant meaning from the start. In those cases, instead of discovering meaning, you can assign it. Even for the same task, the experience changes depending on which story you place it in.
This is exactly the job crafting that Amy Wrzesniewski of Yale studied. Within the boundaries of the given work, you reconstruct the content, the relationships, and the meaning of the work yourself. The story of the janitor who, while doing the same cleaning work, defined his job as "the person who keeps the hospital running" is famous.
Questions for assigning meaning
- Who benefits when this work goes well
- What part of this work helps me grow
- Is there room to make this work better in my own way
- How does this work connect to the person I want to become
The Habit of Making Small Connections
When I receive a new task, before I start it right away, I pause for a moment and write down "who does this ultimately reach." It seems trivial, but this one line becomes a bridge that connects the task to a purpose.
The Alignment of Values and Norms
When My Values and My Work Diverge
For a purpose to have power, that purpose must not diverge from my values. No matter how plausible the justification, when it clashes with my conscience or my convictions, the work cannot last and only gnaws at my heart.
In 'On Liberty,' John Stuart Mill emphasized the importance of individual freedom and conscience. When a person lives differently from what they believe is right, they slowly lose themselves. The same is true in work. Only when the values I hold important and the direction of the work line up does purpose finally produce real power.
Clarifying Your Values
The trouble is that many people do not clearly know what their own values are. I was the same. So now and then I stop and ask myself.
- In what moments did I feel most fulfilled while working
- What kind of person, by their actions, do I respect
- What do I absolutely never want to do
- What is the work I would want to do even apart from money
When the answers to these questions gather, the once-blurry outline of values begins to emerge.
Aligning Organizational Norms and the Individual
As important as individual values are the norms of the organization and the team. Good norms connect the individual's purpose with the organization's direction. Conversely, in a place where norms have collapsed, no matter how much purpose an individual holds, it is easy to grow weary. So finding good colleagues and a good culture is also part of protecting one's own purpose.
The Wish to Be Remembered as a Good Person
Reading the Eulogy Backward
There is one question that, surprisingly, becomes a strong motivator for me. "What kind of person do I want to be remembered as." It is the question of how I hope colleagues will speak of me, how those close to me will speak of me, far into the future.
In 'The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People,' Stephen Covey says to "begin with the end in mind." He suggests imagining the scene of your own funeral. What you hope people will say about you there tells you how you should live now.
Rather than dazzling achievements, I want to be remembered as "a person who was good to work with" and "a person who stayed beside me in hard times." This wish makes the small daily choices different. It makes me hold back once more in the moment I feel like being prickly, and call a colleague's name first in the moment I feel like grabbing the credit.
A Life With Fewer Regrets
The hospice carer Bronnie Ware recorded the regrets that dying people expressed most often. One of them was "I wish I had lived a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me," and another was "I wish I had not worked so hard."
Working with purpose does not mean working more. If anything, it is closer to spending your time on what you truly find meaningful and clinging less to what you do not. A life with fewer regrets is not a busier life but a clearer one.
Burnout and Meaning
Meaning Is Both a Shield Against Burnout and a Trap
Doing meaningful work seems like it would free you from burnout, but reality is more complicated. As Maslach's burnout research shows, burnout is the result of accumulated depletion without recovery. The more meaningful the work, the more deeply you immerse yourself, and the more easily you overwork. A "sense of mission" can also become an excuse to postpone rest.
I felt fulfilled building internal tools, but at the same time I would stay up all night, thinking "this is meaningful work, so I should do more." Meaning, in fact, ended up gnawing at me.
Balancing Meaning and Sustainability
Purpose is fuel, not infinite fuel. No matter how meaningful, no work can be sustained without recovery. Use meaning as a driving force, but to use that force for a long time, you have to see rest as part of the purpose too.
| State | Meaning | Recovery | Result |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Healthy immersion | Sufficient | Sufficient | Sustainable growth |
| Mission-driven overwork | Sufficient | Lacking | Risk of burnout |
| Meaningless depletion | Lacking | Lacking | Rapid exhaustion |
The Trap: Guarding Against Purpose Obsession
Not Everything Needs Grand Meaning
When you emphasize the importance of purpose, you can fall into the pressure of having to assign grand meaning to everything. This is purpose obsession. If you keep asking even of trivial tasks "how does this connect to my life's mission," then even ordinary pleasures and rest become objects of guilt.
Not every moment needs to be full of meaning. Some work is done simply because it has to be done, and some time is good simply because you rested. Purpose is a compass that gives life direction, not a watchman that censors every step.
The Myth of One Grand Purpose
The idea that "you must find the single purpose of your life" can also be a trap. For many people, purpose changes over a lifetime, coexists in several forms, and is made along the way. Not having found a grand mission does not mean you have lost your way. It is enough to start by assigning small meaning to the work in front of you right now.
Not Judging Others Under the Pretext of Purpose
A person with a clear purpose can sometimes easily use it as a yardstick to evaluate others. It is the kind of judgment that says "that person has no sense of purpose." But purpose is an intensely personal thing. You need the humility to firm up your own purpose while not measuring others by it.
Practice: How to Plant Purpose in Daily Life
A Step-by-Step Guide
1. Stop and ask. Write in one sentence who, and how, the work you are doing now ultimately reaches.
2. Sort out your values. Using the earlier questions, write down three or four things you hold important.
3. Check the alignment. Examine whether the current work matches those values, and if it diverges, where it diverges.
4. Assign small meaning. Like job crafting, find room to make the given work a little better in your own way.
5. Picture how you want to be remembered. Write down what kind of person you want to be remembered as far in the future, and connect it to today's choices.
6. Include recovery in your purpose. Do not forget that resting is also work done to keep your purpose for a long time.
Weekly purpose check checklist
[ ] Did I write one line on who the work I did this week reached
[ ] Was there any work that diverged from my values
[ ] Did I make the work a little better in my own way
[ ] Did I avoid postponing recovery because of a sense of mission
[ ] Was it a week close to how I want to be remembered
Starting Small
Do not try to find some grand life mission all at once. It is enough to start by writing "who does this reach" for one task you received today. As small meanings accumulate, at some point a larger direction begins to come into view.
Purpose Creates Persistence: Grit and the Future Me
Persistence Is Not Talent but Direction
In 'Grit,' the psychologist Angela Duckworth says that what separates long-term achievement is not talent but the combination of persistence and passion, that is, grit. And at the root of that grit, in the end, lies purpose. Duckworth observed that the grittier a person is, the more they connect their work to a larger purpose.
I felt this firsthand while learning English and Japanese. When I studied merely for test scores, I tired out quickly. But once the purpose of wanting to collaborate more deeply with foreign colleagues arose, the same study became less hard. Persistence came not from gritting my teeth in willpower but from a clear reason.
Making the Future Me a Colleague
In 'Be Your Future Self Now,' the psychologist Benjamin Hardy says that the more clearly we picture the future self we want to become, the more our present choices change. It is about making, today, the choice my future self will be proud of.
Facing a hard decision, I often ask "how will the me of ten years from now view this choice." This question helps me strike a balance between the comfort in front of me and the distant purpose. The future me becomes not a vague imagining but a concrete compass that guides today's me.
| Point in Time | The Question Asked | Effect |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Today | What is the comfortable path now | Short-term satisfaction |
| Ten years later | What choice will the future me be proud of | Long-term direction |
Growth Mindset and Purpose
Purpose Turns Difficulty Into Learning
Carol Dweck's research on the growth mindset shows that people who believe ability is fixed and people who believe it grows through effort accept difficulty in entirely different ways. To a person with a growth mindset, failure is not the end but information.
Purpose works together with this mindset. When the why is clear, failure on that path is not a reason to give up but a clue for doing better. With the same setback, a person who has a purpose still has "a reason to keep going anyway."
I remember a time I was harshly criticized in a code review. If I had merely been afraid of the evaluation, I would have shrunk back. But because I had the purpose of "wanting to build a more stable system," that criticism felt not like an attack but like a gift.
Meaning Makes Failure Bearable
It is rare for failure in itself to break a person. What breaks a person is the feeling that "this hardship is meaningless." Purpose is precisely the shield against that meaninglessness. As long as meaning is alive, failure becomes something bearable.
Purpose Beyond Work: Relationships and Contribution
Purpose Ultimately Points to People
When you follow purpose deeply, at its end there is usually a person. The reason for building a faster system is, in the end, to save someone's time, and the reason for writing safer code is to protect someone. The picture of the good life that Plato drew in 'Republic' also points not to the isolated individual but to the person within a community.
I gain the greatest driving force when I picture who my work ultimately reaches. More than an abstract metric, the face of the person behind that metric moves me more strongly.
The Reward of Contribution
Einstein is said to have left a remark to the effect that you should measure a person's worth not by what they received but by what they gave. It is cited from various sources, but the message is clear. Meaning comes not from receiving but from giving.
When I help a colleague solve a stuck problem and they thank me, I feel a greater fulfillment than any performance metric. Contribution becomes a reward in itself, and that reward in turn becomes the driving force for the next piece of work. The virtuous cycle of purpose usually turns this way, between person and person.
The virtuous cycle of purpose
You do meaningful work
-> It helps someone
-> You feel the fulfillment of contribution
-> It becomes the driving force for the next work
Refining Purpose Into Words: Making the Blurry Clear
Writing Makes It Visible
Purpose often floats blurrily in your head. When you try to write it down in a single sentence, only then does what you are truly aiming at become clear. The externalization I covered in a previous piece works here too. The very act of writing makes a blurry purpose clear.
Now and then I try filling in the blank "I work for the sake of ( )." At first I try to fill it with fine-sounding words and it rings hollow, but as I rewrite it again and again, words closer to the truth remain. That one sentence becomes the reference point I return to when I waver.
Refining the Purpose Sentence
Making a purpose sentence
Step 1: Fill in the blank "I work for the sake of ( )"
Step 2: If it is too grand or hollow, rewrite it
Step 3: Write concretely who it reaches
Step 4: Read it again a week later and revise it
The Power One Sentence Gives
A clear purpose sentence makes countless decisions for you. When you are unsure whether to take on a new piece of work, or in what way to do it, reflecting it against that sentence makes the answer come faster. Purpose does not give every answer, but it gives the direction of good questions.
Colleagues and Culture: Purpose Cannot Be Kept Alone
Good Colleagues Protect Your Purpose
No matter how clear an individual's purpose is, in an environment that gnaws at it, it is hard to hold on for long. Conversely, good colleagues and a healthy culture protect your purpose together with you. When there are colleagues who talk about where each other's work reaches and who stay beside you in hard times, purpose becomes far sturdier.
I learned a great deal from the colleague I mentioned earlier, the one who always talked about the meaning of his work. The mere fact that he was beside me made me look at my own work anew. Purpose is contagious. For better or for worse.
Building Norms Together
Good culture does not arise on its own. It is built as small norms accumulate. Not grabbing credit, sharing difficulties honestly, respecting each other's recovery. These small promises become the bridge that connects the individual's purpose with the organization's direction. Simply by my keeping such norms, the foundation around me grows a little sturdier.
| Environment | The Individual's Purpose | Result |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Healthy culture | Clear | Goes far together |
| Collapsed norms | Even if clear | Easily worn out |
A Small Anecdote: From the Me Who Closed Tickets to the Me Who Pictures People
The Start of Change
As I confessed at the beginning, the me of my newcomer days had closing tickets as a goal. I barely thought about why I was doing it, and so I tired out easily. The change began not from some grand realization but from a small habit. Whenever I received a new task, I started writing one line on "who does this reach."
At first it was perfunctory. But as I kept writing that one line, at some point the person beyond the screen began to come to mind. It dawned on me that the bug I fixed reduced someone's frustration, and the feature I built saved someone's time.
What Changed
Once the purpose became clear, the same work felt less grueling. It was not that the late nights decreased, but the weight of the same late nights changed. Above all, my attitude toward colleagues changed. I came to see them as people building something good together, and once I did, my words and actions naturally changed too.
I know now. It was not that I tired out from a lack of ability, but that I tired out from not knowing why I was doing it. Once the why became clear, the same how became far lighter.
Purpose and Priorities: The Work of Deciding What Not to Do
Purpose Becomes the Standard for Saying No
A clear purpose tells you not only what to do but also what not to do. When every opportunity looks good, purpose picks out the truly important one among them. Without purpose, you get dragged along by every request until you have no strength left for what actually matters.
As my purpose became clearer, saying no got a little easier. Once I had the standard "this does not match the direction I am heading," declining became not rudeness but a choice for focus. As Greg McKeown says in 'Essentialism,' doing less but doing it better is the key.
Viewing Priorities Through the Lens of Regret
Let me recall again the regrets of dying people that I covered earlier. Their regrets were mostly about "what they did not do." When setting priorities, picturing what you might one day regret not doing makes the path clear. It makes you check whether, pushed along by busyness, you are postponing what actually matters.
Priority check questions
- Does this work match my purpose
- Am I postponing something more important to do this
- What is the chance I will regret this choice far in the future
- Is this not a piece of work I could decline
Summary: The Flow of Planting Purpose in Daily Life
Let me tie the story so far into a single flow. Purpose is not something found once and done with, but something refined again and again within daily life.
1. Stop and ask: who does this work reach.
2. Clarify your values: what do I hold important.
3. Check the alignment: does the work diverge from the values.
4. Assign meaning: make the given work better in my own way.
5. Picture how you want to be remembered: make the choice the future me will be proud of.
6. Include recovery: resting too is the work of keeping purpose for a long time.
| Step | Core Question |
| --- | --- |
| Stopping | Who does it reach |
| Values | What do I hold important |
| Alignment | Does it not diverge |
| Assigning | Is there room to make it better |
| Future | What kind of person do I want to be remembered as |
| Recovery | Can it be kept for a long time |
This flow is not completed all at once. Today, even one step is enough. As small meanings accumulate, at some point they become a larger direction.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
I simply cannot find any meaning in the work I do now
First, try moving toward assigning meaning. If even then it fundamentally diverges from your values, that may be not a sign of having no meaning but a sign of being out of alignment. It may be a time when change is needed.
Does having a purpose really make you less tired
Meaning helps you endure difficulty. But meaning cannot substitute for recovery. Purpose and rest have to go together.
My purpose keeps changing, is that all right
It is a natural thing. Purpose is not a fixed correct answer but a direction refined over a lifetime. Change can be a sign not of having lost your way but of growing.
Is it wrong to work for money
Not at all. A livelihood is a legitimate purpose in itself. But if you can add one small meaning on top of it, the same work becomes a little less grueling and a little sturdier.
Sometimes people with a strong sense of purpose feel like a burden
Purpose is an intensely personal thing. When someone whose purpose is clear forces it on others or holds it up as a yardstick, it becomes a burden. You need the humility to firm up your own purpose while not forcing it on others.
I still have not found a grand life mission
That is all right. Most purpose is not discovered all at once but made over a lifetime. It is enough to start by adding one small meaning to the work in front of you today.
Closing: The Why Changes the How
I recall again the two colleagues I spoke of at the start. Their abilities were similar, but one performed tasks while the other worked toward a purpose. As time passed, the distance between the two widened. It was not a difference in ability, but a difference in knowing why.
Now, whenever I begin a new piece of work, I pause for a moment and ask. Who does this ultimately reach. What kind of person do I want to be remembered as. This question does not make the work heavier. If anything, it makes the same work clearer and steadier.
The why changes the how, and the how, in the end, changes who we become. It is all right even if you have not found a grand mission. Adding one small meaning to the work in front of you today, that is where to start.
Next time you receive a new piece of work, before you put your hands to it right away, try pausing for a moment. And try writing one line. Who does this ultimately reach. That one line will turn the same work into an entirely different work. Purpose is not some grand thing far away; it begins from that one line.
References
- Simon Sinek, 'Start With Why', Portfolio, 2009
- Angela Duckworth, 'Grit', Scribner, 2016
- Benjamin Hardy, 'Be Your Future Self Now', Hay House, 2022
- Carol Dweck, 'Mindset', Random House, 2006
- Greg McKeown, 'Essentialism', Crown Business, 2014
- Plato, 'Republic'
- Viktor E. Frankl, 'Man's Search for Meaning', Beacon Press
- Stephen R. Covey, 'The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People', Free Press
- John Stuart Mill, 'On Liberty', 1859
- Edward L. Deci, Richard M. Ryan, Self-Determination Theory, https://selfdeterminationtheory.org/
- Amy Wrzesniewski, Job Crafting research, https://hbr.org/2010/06/managing-yourself-turn-the-job-you-have-into-the-job-you-want
- Bronnie Ware, 'The Top Five Regrets of the Dying', Hay House
- Harvard Business Review, From Purpose to Impact, https://hbr.org/2014/05/from-purpose-to-impact
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When I worked at LINE, I once watched two colleagues of similar ability. Both were smart and diligen...