Purpose as a Practice: Two Career Experiments for Women at a Crossroads
“What should I do with my life?” is a difficult question to carry into a career decision. It asks for a permanent answer when what we often need first is better information. A career change, a return after caregiving, or a new leadership role can feel like a test of identity. The pressure to choose the perfect direction can make even a small next step seem irreversible.
Purpose can be approached differently. Instead of treating it as a hidden answer to discover, treat it as a direction to practise. A direction becomes clearer as you try a real activity, notice what happens, and decide what deserves another experiment. It turns a huge question into evidence you can gather while keeping real responsibilities in view.
The two career experiments below are designed for women considering a change or trying to make a current path feel more intentional. They are deliberately small: neither is a test of worth, a personality diagnosis, or a substitute for professional advice. Their job is to help you learn what kind of work, contribution, and conditions you want to explore next.
Career Experiment One: Have a Decision Conversation
When a career decision lives only in your head, it can become a contest between competing stories. One story says you should be grateful for the stability you have. Another says you are wasting your potential. A third imagines a completely different future and quietly assumes that you can afford every consequence. None of these stories has to win before you learn more.
Choose one person who has direct experience with the kind of work or responsibility you are considering. This could be a woman in your network, a former colleague, a manager you trust, or someone whose work you have followed thoughtfully. Ask for a twenty-minute conversation with a specific purpose: you are not asking them to decide for you; you are asking what the work is actually like.
Before the conversation
Prepare three questions:
1. What does a normal week contain that people outside the role rarely see?
2. Which part of the work became more rewarding after you gained experience, and which part stayed difficult?
3. What is a low-risk way to try one piece of this work before making a larger commitment?
Listen for details rather than an inspiring biography. If you are exploring leadership, ask about giving feedback, setting boundaries, making decisions with incomplete information, and protecting a team’s attention. If you are considering self-employment, ask about sales, administration, uncertainty, and the parts of the work that are not visible on a public profile. If you are returning after time away, ask what has changed and which skills are transferable.
After the conversation
Write two short lists:
On the first, record details that made you curious.
On the second, record conditions that would need to be true for the direction to fit your life: schedule, income, location, support, learning time, or room for care responsibilities. Do not turn the list into a final verdict. Let it become a map for the next question.
Career Experiment Two: Make a Small Piece of the Work
Conversation gives you someone else’s perspective. The second experiment gives you your own. Select one ordinary, visible task from the direction you are considering and complete a small version of it within one or two weeks.
The task should be close enough to reality to teach you something, but limited enough to finish without putting current commitments at risk. You might facilitate a discussion, build a project plan, analyse a public dataset, write a practical guide, create a sample lesson, or coordinate one small deliverable rather than imagining an entire management career.
Before you begin
Define the task:
The question: What are you trying to learn? For example, “Do I enjoy helping a group move from uncertainty to a decision?”
The boundary: What will you do, and what will you deliberately leave out?
The evidence: What finished object, conversation, or observation will you have at the end?
The review date: When will you pause to reflect instead of letting the experiment expand indefinitely?
During the task
Notice the texture of the work:
Which parts held your attention?
Which parts felt tiring in a way that seemed meaningful, and which felt draining without offering interest?
Did you want to improve the result, or only to finish it?
Did the setting allow you to use strengths you value, such as explaining, organising, listening, designing, analysing, negotiating, or creating space for other people to contribute?
Pay attention to context as well as activity:
A task can feel wrong because the instructions were unclear, the pace was unreasonable, or you lacked support. These observations do not invalidate the experiment; they help you ask a more precise follow-up question.
Review the Evidence without Judging Yourself
At the end of both experiments, write a one-page review using four headings:
Repeat: What would you willingly try again, with a little more responsibility or a different audience?
Adjust: What might fit if the pace, setting, team, or level of support changed?
Release: Which assumption or imagined version of the path no longer deserves your time?
Investigate: What remains unknown and needs another conversation, a course, or a different small task?
This review protects you from two common traps: treating one awkward attempt as proof that you are incapable, or one energising afternoon as proof that a whole career will be effortless. A useful experiment gives you a better next question. For women, the next question may also involve visibility, sponsorship, pay, flexibility, or whose needs are expected to come first. Those are not distractions from purpose. They are part of the conditions in which a purpose can be practised sustainably. A direction that requires you to ignore your health, finances, relationships, or values is not automatically more courageous or meaningful.
Let Direction Grow through Action
You do not need a perfect label before you take a sensible step. You can start with:
one conversation,
one bounded task, and
one honest review.
The result may confirm a direction, reveal a neighbouring option, or show you what you do not want. Each outcome is useful because it replaces a vague story with information from your own life.
Purpose is not a performance you have to prove. It is a relationship with the work and contribution you are willing to keep examining. When you make that relationship practical, a crossroads becomes less like a demand for certainty and more like an invitation to learn.
Written by Karlis Vilmanis
Karlis Vilmanis is the founder of Ikigain, an independent, non-clinical project about purpose, self-reflection and career direction. He writes for people who are making a change, weighing a difficult choice, or trying to understand what meaningful work could look like in ordinary life. He believes direction becomes more trustworthy when it is tested in lived experience and revised with curiosity. Contact: hello@ikigain.org
DISCLAIMER
The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of EXPERT ON YOUR LIFE. Any inquiries or concerns regarding the content should be directed to the author and not to EXPERT ON YOUR LIFE.
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I’m glad this article acknowledges real-life responsibilities. There’s so much pressure to make a bold leap when changing careers, but a new direction still has to work with the life you actually have.