Purpose Fatigue – When You Built the Business but Lost the Reason

There’s a unique kind of exhaustion many healthcare leaders experience — not from long hours or too many patients, but from something harder to name.

You’re leading the operations, you’re running the business. You’re showing up for your team. You’re making it work. And yet, something feels… off. You still care deeply. But your day-to-day doesn’t feel like care anymore.

Instead of leading from purpose, you’re going through the motion - you’re managing payroll, vendor contracts, office politics, and compliance checklists. You didn’t stop caring — you just stopped feeling connected.

This Is What I Call Purpose Fatigue

It’s not burnout in the traditional sense. It’s not even about being overwhelmed.

It’s about being misaligned. You built the business (practice, service line, etc.) to create a better way to care — on your terms. But now, you’re doing everything except what you trained for.

You’re still practicing. Still producing. Still present. But not fulfilled. And here’s the hard part: from the outside, it looks like success. Which makes it even harder to admit when it doesn’t feel that way.

This Isn’t Weakness — It’s a Signal

What you're feeling isn't failure. It’s feedback. It’s your leadership telling you the current setup isn’t sustainable.

Because what once felt like purpose… now feels like maintenance. The business isn’t broken — but the connection between your why and your workflow probably is.

Leadership That Feeds You Starts with Clarity

The best leaders I know aren’t doing less — they’re doing what aligns.

They’ve built systems around their purpose, not in spite of it. They’ve stopped trying to manage everything — and started designing teams and workflows that protect what matters most.

And they’ve given themselves permission to restructure before the misalignment costs them their joy.

This Week’s Prompt:

What’s one part of your day that pulls you further away from your purpose? And what would shift if you stopped tolerating it?

Start there. Clarity always comes before transformation.

Next week, we’ll talk about what happens when you suddenly become the “leader” — without the training or the tools — and how to navigate that transition without losing yourself in the title.

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