August 4, 2022
Sally is an intern at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust in the United Kingdom. It is her first day on the job, and she finds herself nervous as she enters the curatorial office. Her supervisor greets her with a smile and asks her to have a seat in front of her large, cluttered desk. “I’m excited to meet you, but I have to tell you. We’re really busy here, and I don’t know where I’m going to fit in working with you on top of my other responsibilities. What were you planning to do here? What can you do here for us?” Sally fidgets in her chair. What can she say to help her supervisor understand her purpose as an intern?
Jacob is applying to graduate school. Today is his interview with the graduate school admissions committee. He is confident in his resume’s impressive lines and walks into the interview room boldly. After sitting down, one of the interviewers asks, “Jacob, tell us who you are. What’s your purpose? How will you fit in our program?” Jacob is taken aback by the questions. How can he advocate for his own unique value? What is his purpose?
Purpose, noun. The reason for which something is done or created or for which something exists. Purpose is more than the object towards which you are striving, be it a resume line, completion of an internship, or graduation from college. As professionalism researcher and author Ken Blanchard said, “Purpose is something bigger. It is the picture you have of yourself—the kind of person you want to be or the kind of life you want to lead.”
What is your picture of yourself? If you were to paint a picture for someone of who you are, what would it look like? What colors would you use? How would you go about showing someone your purpose?
A picture may be worth a thousand words, but three to five sentences about what you are passionate about—your purpose—is worth any number of painted pictures in professional and other contexts. A Purpose Statement describes how what you are interested in informs the kinds of opportunities you seek. Your goal in sharing it with others is to connect around your effort to grow and develop.
Your Purpose Statement often references an experience you’ve had that illustrates your passion or interest. What motivates you in your professional and personal life? What drives you to take action even when you’re not getting paid to do it? What skills or understanding are are you working on that you will likely never fully perfect but that keep you intrigued and energized? What brief details can you share that help people understand your unique path to this point in time?
A Purpose Statement should demonstrate that you are “in process.” Everyone is—we’re all trying to become better at achieving our purposes every day. You can claim in your purpose statement:
- “I am passionate about…”
- “I love…”
- “I am fascinated by…”
- “I am an aspiring…”
As you think about your purpose, consider creating a Purpose Statement to advocate for your purpose in professional and other settings.
Key elements of a Purpose Statement will include:
- A portable, professional passion or interest that motivates you, usually just one sentence in length.
This is your thesis statement, your “This is who I am, this is what I’m about. This is my purpose.”
Hint: you’ll know you’ve accurately identified your passion or interest if you’re motivated by the need to work at getting better at it throughout your life in a variety of work, social, family, and personal settings.
2. A challenge that motivates your professional passion. Evidence from past experience or a description of what the challenge looks like in action. Just one to two sentences long.
Think back on your most impactful experiences. What was it about those experiences that intrigued you? What challenge in those experiences kept you coming back, especially when you still had more to learn?
Hint: don’t get too deep into the details. Briefly reference one important experience that illustrates that challenge.
3. Identifying your next educational or career destination and an explanation of how it will help you further develop that interest or passion.
We all like to know why we’re listening to something. A person’s attention is a valuable and limited resource, and we like to know it will be worth it to listen to the end. How can you help people see why they should listen to you? What is it about your purpose that matters to them?
This portion of your Purpose Speech will shift from context to context, and from audience to audience. But as you always keep your audience in mind—how might my purpose connect with things that are important to them?—you can capture their attention and share your purpose effectively.
Building connection with others can be tricky, but by creating a Purpose Statement—and by keeping purpose in mind—you can find new ways to “paint” a picture for the people in your professional life.
Sally took a deep breath and remembered what she had learned about Purpose Statements and the work she’d done creating hers. She said, “I am passionate about unraveling complex ideas in ways that are accessible to others who don’t have formal academic training. Even after making sense of complex information, the job is not done; that information must be packaged in a way that is accessible and useful to others. In my major classes at my university, I’ve enjoyed just that challenge: understanding and then effectively tailoring the sharing of complex ideas for a particular audience. I am eager to continue refining that ability while interning at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, especially in efforts to make Shakespeare’s works more accessible to younger audiences.”
Her supervisor smiled in surprise and said, “Well, actually, your experience making sense of complex information could help me with a new project I’m working on. Can I tell you about it?”
Jacob recalled his work refining his Purpose Statement while interning at the Springville Museum of Art, and said, “I am intrigued by the way ideas are represented non-verbally and how they provoke observers to more deeply connect those ideas to questions that are important to them. While interning as a docent at the Springville Museum of Art, I regularly interacted with a wide variety of visitors. Each visitor offered a chance for me to pursue my passion; I had get to know their interests and background, explain the works of art we were looking at, and then contribute to a discussion that mattered to them. Your graduate program will push me to enhance my ability to more deeply make sense of nineteenth century American art and to successfully convey that understanding in ways that transform observers of that art.
The graduate school interviewer said, “Thank you for sharing your particular interest and how your internship furthered it. Now, you said you are interested in nineteenth century American art. Could you tell us more about that?”