A Reading on Purpose
Yesterday I closed the back cover of The Great Work of Your Life by Stephen Cope and sat with my eyes closed, letting it reset my thinking. I usually fly through two or three books a week, but this one took thirty-five days.
For the first time in a long while, I studied a book instead of devouring it. I slowed down, journaled through its questions, and tried to figure out how to bring its teachings into my life.
The premise hooked me immediately: a guide to your true calling. That’s the question that brings so many of the women I work with to coaching, this ache of “I’m not living my purpose.” It’s been a catalyst for me, too. I left my career in law enforcement because I felt out of alignment. Picking up this book was a no-brainer, but I didn’t expect it to pull me in so deeply.
In short, Cope uses the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita as a framework for finding your true calling. I know the ideas of the Gita, but I haven’t read it yet. It’s been sitting in my TBR pile forever and just moved higher.
Two lines from Cope have been banging around in my head: “You do not know how to act, because you do not know who you are. You will know how to act when you know who you are.” He’s drawing from Krishna’s teaching to Arjuna, and those lines name the core tension of dharma or purpose, right action.
The Gita opens with confusion about action, which at its heart is a crisis of identity. Arjuna stands on a battlefield, paralyzed. He knows he must act but doesn’t know how. Every option feels wrong. “Who am I in this moment? A warrior? A compassionate man? A killer? A friend? A soul?” Because he’s unsure of who he is, he cannot move.
Krishna keeps leading him back to the Self beneath fear, desire, and ego. “You have a right to your actions, but not to the fruits of your actions.” Act from essence, not outcomes. He even says, “Better to fail in your own dharma than succeed in the dharma of another.” When you act from who you think you should be, even good actions bring unrest.
I’ve been rumbling with this: you will know how to act when you know who you are.
Every major turning point can feel like Arjuna’s battlefield, caught between what was and what’s next, unsure how to move. Most of us try to fix that uncertainty by doing, setting goals, and planning next steps.
The Gita suggests we’re looking in the wrong direction. The question isn’t “What should I do?” It’s “Who am I right now?” If you don’t know who you are, what matters most to you now, what truth feels like in your bones, your actions will come from confusion.
When you return to yourself, your essence, your values, your aliveness, action clarifies. You stop chasing purpose and start expressing it. Purpose isn’t something you hunt down. It flows from being true to yourself, and because we evolve, how we express purpose evolves, too.
So how do we use this in ordinary life?
Start by noticing the noise. Where are you frantically trying to figure out what’s next? Where are you reaching for action before you’re ready?
Ask, “Who am I beneath all of this?” Strip away titles, roles, responsibilities. Who’s left when there’s nothing to prove?
Then listen for the pull rather than the push. When your next step arises from truth, it feels like a pull toward something, not a push away from something else. Truth doesn’t pressure or traffic in guilt or fear.
Once you feel the pull, act from alignment. Do the next small thing that feels rooted in peace.
Confusion about what to do is really confusion about who you are. Your job isn’t to have it all figured out. It’s to listen to the truth of who you are becoming and let your actions rise from there.
Know who you are. Then do the next true thing.
