Discovering My Purpose — And How to Discover Yours

About the artwork: The photographs feature clay pieces I created using polymer clay and air-dry clay for a business photoshoot in November 2023, with the exception of the dragon, which I made for myself in January 2024. The dragon symbolised my hopes and intentions for the year ahead — a year I envisioned would bring prosperity, abundance and new opportunities.

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Flash back to November 2023.

I had just made a collection of clay pieces for an upcoming business photoshoot. My idea was to have photos taken of myself and my daughters using a few of the store’s products — particularly a clay kit — while also creating some clay pieces to help advertise the kit.

I had always loved the idea of creating cute little things.

I got quite heavily into clay for a few months, and then more sparingly over the following years, making little clay gifts and creating things simply because I enjoyed it. Eventually, though, I stopped altogether.

At the time, I thought this was just the beginning of creating my business, The Orange Trove — a toy and gift store.

But looking back now, I realise it was the beginning of something much bigger.

I thought The Orange Trove was my purpose because it was more than just a store. I wanted it to be a lifestyle brand dedicated to raising awareness and embracing the spirit of joy, creativity and enriching experiences.

Eight months later, I launched The Orange Trove.

It was stressful, but also so much fun. I loved creating the website and bringing my ideas to life. Over the following months, I immersed myself in learning, building the business and figuring out advertising.

Then, nine months into the business, I was diagnosed with breast cancer.

For the next year and a bit, The Orange Trove — along with almost everything else in my life — took a back seat. It became a time of treatment, recovery and healing.

Four months after beginning to return to life following recovery, I was also returning to work. After being without an income for so long, I was feeling the financial pressure.

I returned to my old job as an educator working with children, but I wasn’t feeling the same love for the job anymore, and I wasn’t getting the hours I needed. Eventually, I quit and moved back into disability support.

I had been hesitant about returning to disability because it isn’t always an easy job. But this particular role didn’t tire me in the same way working with children had, and it gave me more space and energy to work on The Orange Trove.

Or at least, that was the plan.

Instead, I hit a wall.

I started losing interest in The Orange Trove. I wasn’t enjoying the business side of it and constantly trying to get seen by customers. Advertising wasn’t a strong point of mine, and more importantly, I didn’t enjoy it.

I was no longer excited about creating or collecting products for my store.

It had become almost entirely about advertising.

Still, I wanted to give it another proper chance. I hadn’t really been able to give The Orange Trove my 100 percent because I had become sick, so I decided I would try a couple of different strategies and see how things went over another financial year.

But during this time, a lot of questions started coming to the surface.

I felt like I knew what my purpose was.

So why had I lost interest?

Why wasn’t it going anywhere?

And why did I seem to lose interest in almost everything I did in my life?

Yes, I believe I am neurodivergent, and perhaps there are aspects of ADHD or autism that help explain some of this.

But I began to realise it was deeper than that.

Something in my soul was craving something.

Looking backwards to understand forwards 

Recently, I had to move my life around, and it brought up unexpected feelings towards a family member.

I felt angry, but I didn’t initially understand why.

So, I reflected on it.

Eventually, I realised the feeling underneath the anger was envy.

I felt that he had something I didn’t.

I felt as though I had given so much throughout my life but received very little in return. And with him, I felt almost the opposite — that he had given very little but received a lot.

That was where the envy came from.

Once I understood that, I started thinking about other people I had experienced similar feelings towards.

Why did I feel this way about them too?

Then I looked further back.

Back to childhood.

I realised that I had always loved giving.

I loved choosing thoughtful gifts for people. I loved finding things I thought someone would enjoy. I loved creating things for others.

But somewhere along the way, I had also learned what it felt like to give and not feel that same thoughtfulness coming back to me.

I remember giving thoughtful gifts as a child and feeling ashamed when people laughed at what I had given them.

And suddenly, something clicked.

Maybe this wasn’t simply about giving.

Maybe there was something much deeper underneath it.

The clues were there all along 

I started looking at the things I had loved as a child.

I loved giving.

I loved receiving.

I loved creating things.

I loved collecting things.

I loved cute little things.

I loved animals.

I loved adventures.

And then I realised something:

These weren’t just random childhood interests.

They were clues.

Our childhood loves are often little clues left behind by our soul — things we loved before the world taught us what we were supposed to love. 

Before we became concerned with productivity, success, money, expectations, careers or what other people thought we should be doing, there were things that simply made us feel alive.

Maybe those things weren’t childish at all.

Maybe they were pieces of us.

Pieces that never actually left.

I realised my purpose wasn’t simply giving.

It wasn’t simply creating.

It wasn’t simply collecting.

It wasn’t simply animals or adventure or cute little things.

It was the feeling underneath all of them.

My purpose is to create and share little pieces of joy, wonder and beauty — to bring to life the things my soul has always loved, while allowing myself to receive that same joy in return. 

It is about creating something meaningful, sharing it with others, and experiencing the joy of both giving and receiving.

It is about wonder.

It is about imagination.

It is about creating little worlds and little moments that make life feel special.

It is about keeping the magic of childhood alive within adulthood.

And suddenly, I understood why The Orange Trove had eventually stopped feeling quite right.

It contained parts of my purpose.

There was creativity.

There was giving.

There were cute things.

There was beauty.

There was discovery and the excitement of finding things.

But my collecting and creating had become limited to what I thought would work as products in a store.

The other pieces of me weren’t really there.

And then came the clay 

Around this same time, I had started making clay again.

I made a small clay piece as a gift for my beloved boyfriend.

And while I was making it, something happened.

I remembered how much I loved this.

Not just the finished piece.

The making of it. 

I loved sitting there and bringing something from my imagination into reality.

I loved the tiny details.

I loved making something cute.

I loved creating something that could become a gift.

And I realised how much I had missed it.

It felt like something had switched back on.

Suddenly, I had a flood of ideas.

I felt excited again.

I felt energised.

And for the first time in a long time, I could see my life from a different perspective.

Clay suddenly made sense in a way it never had before.

Because clay wasn’t just clay.

It brought together so many of the things I had loved since childhood.

Creating.

Collecting.

Cute little things.

Animals.

Giving.

Receiving.

And adventure.

Even the animals connected back to something deeply personal.

So many of my past clay creations had been of my dog, Sam.

When I was a child, I had my teddy bear as my little companion on adventures.

As an adult, I have Sam.

In a way, he became my teddy companion — the little soul who comes along for the adventure.

And I remembered an old thought I had once had:

One day, I wanted to travel around in a motorhome with my beloved and with Sam beside me, creating my clay pieces along the way.

And suddenly, that dream didn’t feel random anymore.

It felt like a picture of the life I had been trying to find.

Maybe purpose isn’t one thing 

I often talk about things in the past tense when I talk about The Orange Trove, but the truth is, I’m still trying.

I’m still giving it another chance.

It’s just become harder to put my energy into it now that I have discovered something that excites me so deeply.

But I don’t believe that because something isn’t our true purpose, it means it isn’t meant for us.

There are many things we can love throughout our lives.

Some things become passions.

Some become hobbies.

Some become careers.

Some become chapters.

And some become expressions of something deeper within us.

The Orange Trove may not be my deepest purpose, but that doesn’t make it meaningless.

Throughout my teenage and adult years, I have developed an appreciation for beauty, creativity and the simple — and deeply intricate — things in life.

Not necessarily intricate in the traditional sense, but the little details that many people overlook.

The cleverness.

The thoughtfulness.

The tiny details that make something special.

The beauty hidden in ordinary things.

There is something humbling about noticing those things.

And The Orange Trove represents that part of me.

So does my writing.

They both allow me to appreciate and share beauty, creativity and those little details that make life more meaningful.

Maybe my purpose isn’t confined to one business, one hobby or one job.

Maybe the different things I create are simply different expressions of the same part of me.

And perhaps that is why I have always felt that my creativity is meant to be shared with the world. 

So how do you find your purpose? 

Maybe you don’t find your purpose by asking, “What should I do with my life?”

Maybe you find it by asking:

“What has always made me feel alive?” 

Look backwards.

What did you love before you knew what you were supposed to love?

What did you naturally gravitate towards?

What could you spend hours doing?

What did you collect?

What did you create?

What did you give?

What did you dream about?

What made you feel wonder?

And perhaps most importantly:

What feelings sit underneath those things? 

Because your purpose may not be the thing itself.

It may be what that thing allows you to feel — or what it allows you to give to others.

Your childhood may contain clues to parts of yourself that adulthood buried.

Your disappointments may reveal what you deeply value.

Your envy may reveal what you feel you are missing.

Your recurring interests may reveal what keeps calling you back.

And the things you keep returning to, even after years of walking away, may be worth paying attention to.

You don’t necessarily have to abandon your current life to find your purpose.

Sometimes you simply have to start making room for the parts of yourself that have been waiting to come back.

Your purpose may not be something you have to find. 

It may be something you have to remember.