The Pursuit of Purpose

Discovering True Fulfillment in Our Search for More

Tyler Wedell

• Publisher: New Degree Press
• Year: 2021
• eBook ISBN: 9781637305683
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Mental Health & Wellbeing

Have you ever wondered if your life has deeper meaning beyond what your are currently living for?

The desire to attain material things, relationships, and accomplishments with the hope of producing happiness has become one of the strongest motivations influencing our lives today. Yet for so many people who have attained everything they desire, something still seems to be missing.

The Pursuit of Purpose calls out the empty promises found in today's cultural norm of living for our own happiness. There is a better way, one that can lead to true fulfillment, and it begins by discovering our purpose.

This book explores five building blocks of purpose that have the power to reveal our calling and produce the faith needed to pursue it. You'll hear stories of people who each had a unique encounter with purpose that changed their lives: Michael Phelps, Brené Brown, Rebekah Gregory, Louise Zamperini, and others.

If you are looking for something more out of life than the endless search for happiness, The Pursuit of Purpose provides the tools and encouragement to help you find true fulfillment. We each have a purpose and the world is waiting for us to share it!

"A powerful and challenging book for anyone searching to figure out their life! Wedell does a wonderful job exposing the current cultural myth that pursuing pleasure and avoiding pain leads to happiness. As a clinical psychologist, I'd highly recommend this book to anyone searching for the deeper foundations to a fulfilling life." - Dr. Andrew Hartman

" The Pursuit of Purpose is a raw and honest exploration of why we're here and what it means to prioritize fulfillment over fleeting happiness. Wedell vulnerably weaves his personal story into his writing as he invites the reader to question what it means to live a life of purpose." - Lindsey Kunz, Author of Why Women Innovate

"An immense reflection on life, purpose, and the pursuit of happiness. Resonating with the young generation, the book offers age-old advice and wisdom." - Dr. Lei Zhou

"The Pursuit of Purpose is a fun, compelling, and easy read. It gave me a renewed sense of why I work for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes day to day and helped me see that it's not as much about our final destination but, rather, being faithful on our journey." - Chris Drenth, FCA Kane County Representative

Part I:
The Foundation

1.
The Pursuit

“True happiness is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.”

—Helen Keller

Michael Phelps competed in his first Olympic games in 2000, at fifteen years old. He became the youngest American male swimmer to enter the Olympic Games in sixty-eight years. By the time he was nineteen, he had set five world records and had won seven Olympic medals in Athens, almost breaking the record for most gold medals won at the Olympics. Multi-million-dollar sponsorship deals followed his achievements as companies pursued him to sign with their brand.

When he retired from the Olympics in 2012, he had become the most decorated Olympian in history. “I accomplished every goal I ever wanted to ... I’ve done everything I ever wanted to do ... and, at that point, it’s just time to move on,” Michael said, solidifying his intention to end his career. Asked what he would do next, Phelps responded, “After the summer, I really don’t know what I’m going to do.”6

But despite all his success, there was a recurring pattern happening behind the scenes. After every Olympics he competed in, Phelps fell into depression and turned to drinking to find happiness. He got his first DUI in the same year he won his first five gold medals. He apologized publicly for his behavior and vowed to do better going forward. But it was clear his struggle to be happy was becoming increasingly more challenging as his success grew. The thrill of breaking more records and winning more medals was losing its appeal. In a 2016 interview with the New York Times, Phelps described it this way: “It’s like we dreamed the biggest dream we could possibly dream, and we got there. What do we do now?” As the reality of what might follow set in and the excitement of the games wore off, Michael fell back into an emotional lull as his battle with depression returned.

He coasted into the 2012 Olympics in London, being the least prepared he had ever been, but still added six medals to his career to become the most decorated Olympian in history. After that performance, he announced his retirement. Having worked so hard to accomplish all that he had in his swimming career, he was ready to enjoy his life and travel the world. He embarked on this new chapter with the aim of just relaxing and maximizing the enjoyment of his time, but he continued to struggle with being happy. Two years after he retired, Phelps was pulled over and arrested again for a DUI—his second offense in ten years.

That was the moment Phelps had hit rock bottom. He didn’t leave his bedroom for five days straight—didn’t sleep, didn’t eat, just curled up in a ball. He ridiculed himself over how many times he could mess up. “I was a train wreck. Like a time bomb waiting to go off ... I had no self-esteem, no self-worth,” Phelps recalled in a 2016 interview with ESPN. “For a moment, I thought it was going to be the end of my life.”

During the week following Phelps’s second DUI, his close friends and family reached out to him, concerned for his mental health. One of his friends, Ray Lewis, called and encouraged him not to give up as he shared with him some of his own personal struggles. Phelps decided to go to a rehab center for forty-five days. For the first time in his life, he did some deep introspective work. He began seeing a counselor and reading several books. One book, in particular, had a profound impact on him: The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren. After finishing it, Phelps was overwhelmed with newfound hope and energy at what he had discovered: “It’s turned me into believing there is a power greater than myself and there is a purpose for me on this planet.”7

Phelps emerged from rehab as a new man. His time there equipped him with a different outlook on life and a profound fresh awareness that he had a bigger purpose than swimming and winning Olympic medals. Not sure what that purpose looked like yet, Phelps came out of retirement and competed in one more Olympics to end his career on better terms. He talked publicly about his battle with mental health and realized that his challenges with depression and anxiety weren’t just something he struggled with; it was prevalent among other Olympic athletes.

At that moment, it hit him. Maybe his purpose in life was to call attention to the mental health struggles within the Olympic community—to let other athletes know they are not alone and encourage them to get help. The thought of that gave Phelps a lot of energy. He embraced this new mission and co-produced the HBO documentary The Weight of Gold, where Phelps and other prominent Olympic athletes shared their struggles with depression, anxiety, and suicide. By opening up this dialog on mental health, Phelps helped others find strength in knowing that it’s okay to not be okay. Living out this new purpose changed his outlook on life and proved to be more satisfying than anything else he had achieved in his career. “For me, that’s way bigger than ever winning gold medals,” Phelps said. “The chance to potentially save a life, to give that person an opportunity to grow and learn and help someone else, there’s nothing better in life.”8

Phelps had everything he could ask for, yet happiness eluded him. He was popular, had tremendous wealth, and was retired, leaving him the freedom to do whatever he pleased. But those ingredients didn’t lead him to contentment. He ended up instead feeling restless and depressed as he searched for what was missing in his life. His struggle to find happiness should prompt us to look at our own journey. Are we focused on trying to discover what is missing in our lives as well? Do we think that the answer to becoming happy will be found once we have the means to do and acquire whatever we please?

Our ability to learn from the experiences of others will help us avoid a considerable amount of pain and heartache. Phelps’s journey to happiness seemed like a simple matter of filling his life with all the things he enjoyed doing. There was nothing standing in his way once he retired. But we can learn from him and others who have the world at their fingertips. The struggle so many successful people face with finding true fulfillment in life should be a wake-up call for us all. If the search for happiness through money, fame, and excess has not produced a deeply fulfilling life, then maybe we are chasing after the wrong thing. Instead of making our priority to fill our lives with that which will bring us the greatest enjoyment, let’s consider what Phelps explored and ask ourselves if we have a deeper purpose to live for. If the discovery of meaning and significance was powerful enough to turn Phelps’s life around, perhaps our pursuits should also focus on finding purpose instead of chasing happiness.

The Pursuit of Happiness

The pursuit of happiness is defined as the drive to attain that which will produce a pleasurable or satisfying experience. This definition leaves much to be interpreted by the one seeking to be happy, but when someone is in a position where they possess the means to get or do anything they want, shouldn’t happiness follow? If we eliminated the time and money barriers in our life, it would seem natural that attaining happiness would come next, but that doesn’t guarantee that it will. Not only did happiness fail to materialize for Phelps, but there are other examples of people who also seemed to have everything yet were still searching for something more.

Tom Brady, an icon in the football world, holds the title for the most Super Bowl wins of any player or coach in the NFL. Halfway into his career, he felt a similar longing to the one Phelps had. “Why do I have three Super Bowl rings and still think there’s something greater out there for me?” Brady said. “I mean, maybe a lot of people would say, ‘Hey man, this is what is.’ I reached my goal, my dream, my life. Me, I think: God, it’s gotta be more than this. I mean, this can’t be what it’s all cracked up to be. I mean, I’ve done it. I’m twenty-seven. And what else is there for me?”9

Josh Radnor, famously known for playing Ted Mosby in the show How I Met Your Mother, described what it was like after the show’s success led to his fame and opened up a world of endless opportunities. “A lot of people try to lure you: ‘Come here, drink this, look at her, she’ll talk to you.’ There’s all sorts of temptations that offer themselves,” he says. “For the first year or two of How I Met Your Mother, I was like, ‘Well, I guess this is what guys in my position do.’ And it left me feeling really empty, and more than a little depressed.”10

Brian Welch—lead guitarist and founding member of the heavy metal band Korn—is another examp...

Table of contents

• Introduction
• Part I: The Foundation
• 1. The Pursuit
• 2. The Power
• 3. The Source
• 4. The Mindset
• Part II: The Building Blocks
• 5. Passion: Are You Alive?
• 6. Authenticity: Be Yourself
• 7. Pain: Listen to Your Trauma
• 8. Compassion: Love Your Neighbor
• 9. Opportunities: Find Your Calling
• Part III: The Journey
• 11. Action: The Ignition of Purpose
• 12. People: The Legacy of Purpose
• Conclusion
• Acknowledgments
• Appendix