The Dilemma of Discounting Your Purpose

posted by
Coach Daymond E. Lavine, CLC
FOUNDER OF PLURARPRENEUR®
Certified Life Coach (CLC) | Life, Business and Brand Coaching

The Dilemma of Discounting Your Purpose

There is a quiet desire that lives in almost everyone—a longing to wake up each morning knowing that the steps you’re about to take actually matter. Not just to pay bills. Not just to survive. But to express something true about who you are.

Life feels fundamentally different when your days are aligned with the thing that burns inside you. When your effort feels meaningful. When your work feels like an extension of your identity rather than a betrayal of it.

And yet, many people never arrive there.

Not because they aren’t capable.
Not because the opportunity doesn’t exist.
But because, over time, they slowly learn to discount themselves.

I want to be very clear: most people do not abandon their purpose consciously. It happens subtly. Quietly. Through small compromises. Through unchallenged beliefs. Through inherited fears and unspoken rules about who they’re “allowed” to be.

My work is about helping people see options they were never shown.

Over the years, I’ve noticed five recurring reasons people diminish, delay, or devalue their purpose. These are not character flaws. They are human responses to pressure, conditioning, and survival. But once you recognize them, you can move through them—with clarity, intention, and self-respect.

Let’s name them.

Insecurity

Insecurity rarely announces itself loudly. More often, it whispers comparisons into your ear.

It convinces you to measure your progress against someone else’s highlight reel. It pulls your focus outward instead of inward. And slowly, it robs you of the attention you need to give yourself.

Left unchecked, insecurity breeds jealousy, envy, hesitation, and self-doubt. Not because you lack talent—but because you’re spending your energy watching instead of becoming.

The work here is not perfection. The work is honesty.

Look inward. Observe the habits, reactions, and patterns that surface when insecurity is in control. Then—without judgment—begin replacing what diminishes you with what strengthens you. Growth is not about pretending the insecurity doesn’t exist. It’s about refusing to let it drive.

Fear of Attention

Some people carry a natural light. They don’t try to stand out. They simply are who they are. And attention follows.

Ironically, these are often the very people who are most uncomfortable being seen.

When you fear attention, you may find yourself shrinking right at the moment you’re most effective. At your best when you forget you’re being watched—and suddenly restrained when you remember.

Here’s the truth: if your presence naturally draws attention, it’s not an accident. It’s an assignment.

You don’t overcome this by hiding. You overcome it by grounding yourself. By shifting your focus away from the eyes on you and toward the source that placed the gift within you. When your alignment is internal, the external noise loses its power.

Gratitude steadies the spotlight. Purpose gives it direction.

Lack of Self-Value

Many of us were taught humility without being taught self-worth.

So we give. And give. And give—until generosity turns into depletion. We minimize our needs. We downplay our impact. We convince ourselves that asking for respect, compensation, or boundaries makes us selfish.

It doesn’t.

What it makes you is whole.

A lack of self-value eventually demands payment—in burnout, resentment, or regret. Protecting your energy is not ego. Setting boundaries is not arrogance. Communicating your worth is not selfishness.

It is self-respect.
It is self-care.
It is self-value in action.

“It’s Too Difficult to Formalize”

Many people know they have a gift that could sustain them. A talent. A skill. A calling that already works—until it’s time to structure it.

That’s when fear disguises itself as overwhelm.

Paperwork. Systems. Marketing. Decisions. Suddenly, the gift feels heavy. Complicated. Too serious to touch.

But here’s a reframing that changes everything: formalizing your purpose isn’t a betrayal of your passion—it’s protection for it.

Structure doesn’t suffocate purpose. It supports it. When your gift becomes sustainable, you gain the resources to do more of what you love, not less.

Because Other People Do

Few things are more dangerous than outsourcing belief.

When you allow other people’s opinions to outrank your inner knowing, you hand them authority they never earned. And sometimes, without realizing it, you stop simply because someone else couldn’t see your vision.

The truth is uncomfortable but freeing: no one else is responsible for your fulfillment.

Commit to yourself first. Evaluate your own work honestly. Then, and only then, invite input from people who are aligned, skilled, and invested in your growth—not your comfort.

You already carry what you need. Support should amplify that, not replace it.

The Plurapreneur® Advantage

Through Plurapreneur® Coaching, my work is centered on one principle: your purpose must be allowed to coexist with your success.

Not borrowed.
Not imitated.
Not diluted.

Integrated.

No one teaches you how to optimize your purpose across your life, your brand, and your business—because no one else can feel what you feel. But what I can do is help you recognize it, structure it, and build around it without losing yourself in the process.

This isn’t about motivation. It’s about alignment. And once that clicks, the work becomes shared: you evolving into who you were meant to be—and me holding you accountable to not discount yourself ever again.

Because your purpose was never the problem.
You were simply never taught how to honor it.