Purposeful Work or Purposeful Life?

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I’ve thought a lot about purpose through the years. How are we supposed to know what our purpose is? Should we find it through work? Volunteering? Hobbies? Family? Should literally everything we do ladder up to our purpose? Do we choose our purpose or does our purpose choose us?

I’ve taken many paths in my career and I think it’s partly because I don’t know the answers to these questions. I’ve tried to fill this void in everyday purpose with my job, but I always seem to come up empty. It feels like there’s a lot of pressure to find your purpose and let that guide you in your career moves — because, hey, if you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life… right? I’m not so sure. It is work, after all.

If you have found your purpose in your career, congrats. I haven’t, but I’m starting to realize that’s OK. Maybe my purpose doesn’t have to be tied to my career. Maybe it actually shouldn’t be tied to my career. Lord knows I tie too much of my identity to my career already, so consciously separating purpose from work actually feels right for me.

But that doesn’t mean I can’t find joy in what I do for work. In fact, I was telling my husband the other day that my current job is lighting up my brain in ways I didn’t think were possible. The creative challenges I’m solving are rewarding even though they aren’t directly impacting my purpose.

And this all makes me wonder — does not finding a deeper purpose in my day-to-day work actually allow me to live a more full life? Am I less likely to get burnt out on my purpose if I’m not constantly working for or with it? Am I able to create healthier boundaries between work and life if my purpose isn’t tied to it? In fact, does not tying my purpose to work allow me to live a more purposeful and purpose-filled life?

I don’t believe everyone is called to live out their purpose through work. I think purpose is much more, much bigger than a job. But maybe it also doesn’t have to be this monumental, light-shining-through-the-clouds, “aha” purpose. Maybe purpose for some is just simply taking the best care of themselves or finding what gives them the most joy and doing as much of that as possible in their day-to-day life. Maybe it’s pouring love into their babies and families. Maybe it’s pouring love into their communities.

Whatever it is for you, I hope you find it. I’ll be right alongside you on this journey.

Self-Care Sabotage

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What’s self-care look like to you? I don’t think I’ve ✨nailed✨ my self-care priorities or routine. In fact, I often find myself saying “I should’ve gone to bed earlier” or “I shouldn’t have binged Netflix.” Because staying up late and watching so much TV doesn’t make me feel great. But staying up late is an easy choice to make when I feel like I haven’t had one minute during the day to do what I want to do (it’s called revenge bedtime procrastination!). And watching Netflix is an easy choice when my brain is exhausted and doesn’t have the capacity to do much else.

But these easy choices often lead to chaos later (e.g. waking up late in the mornings) and don’t leave me feeling fulfilled. So I’ve been racking my brain to figure out why self-care feels like such a chore. Just another thing to add to the list. One more thing to feel guilty about not getting to. WHY? Shouldn’t knowing and then doing what you need in order to not just survive this crazy life we’re living, but to thrive in it, be second nature? “I’m tired, so I’m going to take a nap.” “I’m at my limit so I’m going to do those dishes tomorrow.” “I’m feeling burnt out so I’m going to take a nice, long bath.” Why is identifying and actually doing these things so hard?

For me — someone who thrives in a clean, picked-up space — there’s always something more productive to do around the house — so much to clean and straighten up. Laundry to throw in the wash. Dishes to put away. But why can some people turn this off in their brains (ahem, husband 😉) while others can’t? I’ve always been a little bit like this, but I’ve noticed it’s gotten more intense over the years. It’s almost like I need to be busy in order to feel like I’ve accomplished something that day or to feel good about myself and what I’ve contributed. I need to be productive to feel good about relaxing. But then, once I’ve done all my productive things there isn’t time for self-care; there’s just time to sleep and start the cycle all over again.

That’s dumb and it feels dumb. So I’m going to try my darndest to stop putting so much pressure on myself and live a more intuitive life. I’ve been saying lately that I’m trying to eat more intuitively (e.g. stopping when I feel full, even if I didn’t eat everything on my plate), so why not extend this into other aspects of my life as well? In fact, I love this plate metaphor for the rest of life, too — just because my to-do list is a mile high doesn’t mean I have to actually check all of those boxes today. It’s OK for things to wait until tomorrow, just like it’s OK to not eat everything on my plate. Why shouldn’t I give myself permission to not wipe down the counters if I actually need to immediately take a bath so I don’t completely lose it?

Self-care can take so many forms. My list won’t be your list and vice versa. I started brainstorming below the types of self-care that I want to start prioritizing in my day-to-day. But the last thing I want is for this to just be another thing on my to-do list. So, no, I’m not committing to doing all of these things every day, but maybe I’ll do some of them each day. Or maybe I’ll skip a day and do most of them the next. Any way this goes, it feels like a step in the right direction. What’s on your list?

  • Take a bath

  • Read a book

  • Exercise

  • Go on a walk

  • Drink water

  • Go to bed on time

  • Wake up early (I cherish those early morning hours!)

  • Write what I know

  • Write what I feel

  • Be vulnerable

  • Stretch

  • Say no

  • Ask for help

  • Lean into passions (interior design!)

  • Bake

  • Savor food and food prep

  • Positive self-talk

  • Scroll less

  • Boycott TV? (jury’s still out on this one… maybe just M-Th? Or maybe the answer is limit screentime all around.)

DIY Board & Batten Entryway

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This DIY is one of my favorite projects we’ve done to-date. It totally elevated our entryway, all while making it so much more functional.

If you’ve ever lived in a home or apartment without a large entryway or coat closet near the entry, you know the struggle that is piled up coats, hats, umbrellas, and shoes — and it’s even worse if you have a dog with their leash, collar, doggie bags, and more.

Well, we were definitely there 😅 For a while we had a not-so-cute coat rack and old hand-me-down bookshelf as placeholders until I figured out what I wanted to do with the space (and until we could budget funds to change it!). I think the before and after speaks for itself — so much more appealing to the eye!

 

the inspiration

This project vision started out when I saw this reel from someone I follow on Instagram. I immediately knew this was the perfect solve for our entryway! And it looked easy… but let me tell you, it was a lot more work than I thought 😂 But isn’t that always what happens with DIY projects?!

What made this project particularly difficult is that our house was built with some decorative trim on the stairwell, so we needed to match the width and depth of not only that trim, but also the existing baseboard to make sure the additional wood pieces weren’t sticking out from the wall at uneven depths. So it took us a good while at home depot to even find the right trim size and then when we did, it was pre-painted, which wasn’t ideal since we then needed to sand them all and re-paint to match our wall color on some pieces, and our trim color on others. Unless you can find the exact right color on pre-painted wood, I’d always recommend finding raw wood pieces so you save yourself from having to sand, which was by far the most time-consuming and annoying part of the process.

We didn’t have really any tools we needed for this project, but we knew we wanted to continue to do more house projects in the future, so we decided to invest in a few tools we knew we’d use again and again.

 

the tools

Of course, you’ll need your trim/boards and paint of choice, but you’ll also benefit from some tools. From left to right:

  1. Brad Nailer (one of my favorite tools! easily nails trim into walls without leaving much of a trace)

  2. Electric Sander (so much faster than hand sanding with paper!)

  3. Circular Saw (to cut down your trim/boards to perfect size)

  4. Liquid Nails (put this on the back of the boards first and then use the brad nailer to fully secure them)

  5. Caulking (this helps cover up the nails from the Brad Nailer and is also used to fill in gaps along the sides and top/bottom of the boards to create a cohesive look from board to wall. A little goes a long way!)

  6. Level (to make sure your boards are straight!)

  7. Caulking gun (makes application easier and can be used for both liquid nails and caulking!)

 

the process

Once all the boards were cut down to perfect size, it felt like the project was on a roll. The process we followed was:

  1. Paint the wall

  2. Cut down the boards to size

  3. Sand all the boards

  4. Secure boards to wall with Liquid Nails and then Brad Nailer

  5. Paint all boards after they’re on the wall

  6. Caulk over the nails and on all sides

  7. Paint touch-ups

  8. Add the decorative hooks

  9. Done!

One of the hardest decisions, aside from figuring out the best trim boards to match what was already in our house, was the paint color for the top board! In the initial video I was inspired by, she painted all the boards the same color as the part of the wall behind them, which made for a really cool cohesive look. BUT, I knew I wanted to keep the baseboard the same color as the rest of the downstairs for consistency, so there was already one part that was going to be different from the blue.

So then the next thing we were considering was — should we paint the top blue or should we keep it consistent with the white trim that already exists for the stairwell? You can see Tim holding up the blue option below. We ended up keeping both the baseboard and top board white and I’m so glad we did! Feels very cohesive with the rest of the entryway.

I’m super proud of this project and I hope it inspires you to tackle one of the projects on your DIY list! If we can do this (this felt BIG to us), so can you!

 

the sources

From left to right:

  1. Logan 48” Seagrass Console Table

  2. Target Vintage Distressed Rug

  3. Container Store Light Grey Poppin Box Seat

  4. Uttermost Rora 52"W Natural Woven Banana Plant Console Table

  5. Seagrass Console Table (I don’t know much about the linked store, but this is the exact table we got at Pottery Barn — it’s discontinued at PB!)

  6. THE Anthropologie Mirror!

  7. My artwork is from Home Goods, but this one felt surprisingly similar!

  8. Similar gold hooks

  9. I can’t track down our exact lamp (it’s from a cute little shop in Bend, OR), but I also love this one and this one!

  10. Similar vase (mine is from Magnolia last year)