There are moments in life when everything seems fine on the outside: you have built up expertise, achieved results, gained trust. You are good at what you do, sometimes even very good. And yet, inside, you feel something that cannot be explained: a quiet uneasiness, a searching movement, a subtle distance from yourself.
Not loud. Not dramatic. More like a barely audible sentence: “I should be satisfied… why am I not?”
Many people experience this shift in meaning precisely in phases when their path actually seems stable. When success becomes routine. When responsibility grows. When you function, but are no longer sure why.
This inner irritation is not a mistake.
It is an invitation.
1. When Purpose Grows Quiet and Life Still Moves On
Questions of meaning rarely arise at the beginning. They come at the moment when you have enough experience to realize that external successes are no substitute for an inner sense of direction.
You can master tasks, complete projects, support people, and still feel a gap between what you do and what feels right.
“Questions of meaning don’t arise because you have failed, but because you have grown.”
This phase is not a decline. It is a transition: between the role you have fulfilled and the question of whether it still suits you today.
Many people only now realize how much of their lives has been shaped by habit, by expectations, or by external demands.
And suddenly you ask yourself: “What is my inner point of reference?”
2. Why Purpose Is Not Lost, Just Covered Up
Meaning doesn’t just go away. It doesn’t disappear. It doesn’t dissolve. What happens is something else: purpose gets overshadowed.
By responsibility. By pace. By the stability you’ve built up. And by expectations that have accumulated around you over the years.
“Purpose doesn’t disappear. It gets overshadowed by expectations, roles, and successes that no longer match your inner drive.”
Many successful people describe exactly that: they never stopped doing valuable work. They just stopped noticing why they started in the first place.
And when the inner drive becomes silent, no new plan, no new strategy, no new vision will help. The only thing that helps is to reconnect with what is meaningful to you.
3. Meaning Arises Where You Become Honest With Yourself Again
Purpose is not a big word. It is not a claim. It is not a positioning formula. Purpose is something much simpler: a moment of inner harmony.
Sometimes it is a decision. Sometimes it is a thought. Sometimes it is just a hunch that you have ignored for too long. But it immediately changes your outlook on life.
“Meaning returns when you start listening again to what resonates with you, not to what is expected of you.”
It’s not about a new beginning. Nor is it about self-optimization. It’s about rediscovering your values, your attitude, your inner direction.
Meaning arises when your decisions resonate with you again. A quiet form of clarity that doesn’t have to be perfect, but it does have to be honest.
4. Three Questions That Can Reopen Your Sense of Purpose
You don’t need a purpose workbook. No rebranding. No major redefinition. Just three honest questions that will lead you back to yourself:
(1) How would people recognize you if you weren’t fulfilling a role?
(2) What story within you tells the truth about what is really important to you?
(3) What decision would ensure that your life is once again aligned with your inner compass?
Purpose does not arise in the distance.
Purpose arises in closeness to yourself.
Unterm Strich
Questions about meaning are not a sign of loss. They are an indication that you are ready to take a closer look inside yourself.
Purpose is not a goal. It is a relationship with yourself. And sometimes this relationship simply needs a new space, a new question, a new perspective.
In the podcast episode of Unterm Strich, Debora Karsch talks to Robert Steffen about how your inner attitude shapes your actions, why meaning is not something loud, and how you can find direction when your previous answers no longer fit.
Listen in if you want to discover how purpose becomes visible again: not through external change, but through inner clarity.
