What is the Difference Between a Purpose and a Goal?
Feb 25, 2026Summary
Do you ever feel like you are running a race with no finish line? You are checking off your daily goals and staying busy, but at the end of the day, you feel exhausted, empty, and aimless. Most women get stuck because they are focusing on the what without the why. In this empowering episode of the Arise, Women of God podcast, host Tamara K. Anderson joins advisory board member Amanda Powell to answer the essential question: What is the difference between a purpose and a goal?
We move from scattered tasks to a focused calling by introducing the "Staircase of Stewardship." Amanda explains that your purpose is the fire that gets you out of bed (the destination at the top of the stairs), while your goals are the individual footsteps required to get there. We discuss how it is completely normal for your purpose to shift through different seasons of life—from the ambition of graduation to the pure survival mode of raising kids on the autism spectrum. Finally, we break down the story of Queen Esther, revealing how her terrifying, bite-sized goals (like asking the king to a party) were the stepping stones to her massive, nation-saving purpose. If you are ready to stop just surviving your to-do list and start living your divine mission, tune in to find your fire!
Episode Takeaways
- The Staircase Analogy: Your purpose is the destination at the top of the stairs (the "why"). Your goals are the individual steps you take to get there (the "what"). You need both to move forward.
- Seasons of Purpose: Your purpose isn't set in stone for 50 years. Tamara shares how her purpose shifted from career ambitions to simply "surviving" while raising two children on the autism spectrum. God meets you in the messy seasons just as much as the monumental ones.
- Cottage vs. Mansion: Borrowing from a previous episode, if your goals are building a cottage but God's purpose for you is a mansion, you will feel constant friction. Make sure your "steps" are leading to His destination.
- The Queen Esther Strategy: Esther’s purpose was to save a nation, but her goals were small and terrifying (e.g., asking people to fast, inviting the king to a banquet). Big purposes are achieved through small, faithful goals.
Resources
Are you ready to define your fire and map out your footsteps? Download our FREE Guide to Goal Setting. It will help you find the specific purpose God is placing on your heart for this season and map out the goals to get there. 👉 Download the Guide Here: https://www.womenwarriorsoflight.com/offers/WyaLn2gS/checkout
Need accountability? Check out our Women Warriors Accountability Group for free for two weeks! https://www.womenwarriorsoflight.com/join-now
Reflection Questions
- If your goals are the "stairs," what exactly is waiting at the top of the staircase for you right now? Have you defined your purpose for this specific season?
- Are you exhausted because you are checking off goals (steps) that don't actually lead to a meaningful purpose (destination)?
- Looking back 10 years, how has your purpose changed? Have you given yourself permission to let your purpose evolve?
- Read the story of Esther. What is one "small, scary goal" God is asking you to complete today to fulfill a larger purpose tomorrow?
Transcript
Tamara K. Anderson
00:00:00.400 - 00:02:02.810
Do you ever feel like you are running a race with no finish line?
You're checking off your daily goals, you're staying organized, you're staying busy, but at the end of the day, you feel exhausted, empty and aimless. Most women get stuck because they're focusing on the what without the why.
Today we're answering the essential question, what is the difference between a purpose and a goal? By the end of this episode, you will understand how to stop just surviving your to do list and start living your divine mission.
We're going to help you solve the pain of spiritual burnout by showing you how to find the fire that makes you want to actually get out of bed in the morning. We're moving from scattered tasks to focused calling. Stay tuned. Ordinary women Extraordinary faith. When God calls, we say yes.
The Arise Women of God Podcast hello and welcome to another episode of the Arise Women of God podcast. I'm your host, Tamara K. Anderson, and joining me today is Amanda Powell of our Women warriors of Light Advisory Board and amazing goal expert.
And we're looking at the Staircase of Stewardship today. First, we're going to define the difference between the fire of purpose and the footsteps of goals.
Second, we're going to talk about how your purpose shifts through different seasons of your life, from high school graduation to autism, parenting, survival.
Third, we're going to bring in a principle from a previous episode about why your goals might look like a cottage when God is trying to build a mansion. And finally, we'll break down the story of Queen Esther to see how small, scary goals led to a massive nation saving purpose.
But first, Amanda and I are going to kick it off by discussing both purpose and the fire inside of you. And the staircase analogy.
Amanda Powell
00:02:03.050 - 00:02:16.330
Yeah, in a nutshell, this is the easiest way for me to distinguish between purpose and a goal. Purpose is that fire, right? That thing that makes you get out of bed in the morning. That thing that you feel driven to do. And a goal gets you there.
Tamara K. Anderson
00:02:16.570 - 00:03:16.430
I like that. So purpose is a bigger mission, a bigger vision of who I am, of what I want to do, who I want to become. And the goals are the stepping stones.
It's like a staircase. I'm walking up the stairs. These stairs, each individual step get me to that purpose. And so the stairs are the goals.
That thing at the top of the stairs is your purpose. So, my friends, the purpose is the destination at the top of the stairs. And your goals are the individual steps. Here is where we often get stuck.
We think our staircase has to look the exact same for like 50 years. But as life shifts, the stairs shift.
I know for me, there was a season when my purpose felt less like a grand mission and more like a rescue operation. And I'm going to also pause and say, just because you have one purpose at one point of life doesn't mean you can't change to something else. Right?
Amanda Powell
00:03:16.830 - 00:03:17.150
Right.
Tamara K. Anderson
00:03:17.150 - 00:04:29.880
Because I think of, like, a young Tamra. For a while, my purpose was I'm gonna graduate from high school. You know what I mean? And then it was like, oh, I'm gonna graduate from college.
And then it was, I was got married and I had kids. And my purpose, honestly, especially with four littles and two of them on the autism spectrum for a while, my purpose was I'm going to survive. Yes.
And I'm going to survive, and my kids are going to survive, and we're going to make it through them. Growing up and all this stuff, it was seriously, it was survival. Just barely scraping through every single day.
And now that they're all adults, that purpose has changed again. And so I think purpose can change throughout life. And we are growing throughout life. So it's okay for a purpose to change.
You don't have to have it set in stone and, oh, that's never, ever, ever going to change. Pause and think. Have you changed in the last 10 years? Yeah, I sure have. You know what I mean?
And so it's logical that if you have changed in the last 10 years, then your purpose has changed. The goals that you have in front of you are going to change. Right?
Amanda Powell
00:04:30.280 - 00:04:30.680
Right.
Tamara K. Anderson
00:04:31.160 - 00:07:37.780
So it is okay if your purpose right now is simply survival. God meets us in the messy seasons just as he is there in the monumental ones.
But even in survival, we have to make sure we are building what he intended. As we discussed in our why Goals Fail episode, we often aim for a cottage. When God has a mansion in mind. Your purpose is the mansion blueprint.
Your goals are the bricks that you lay. Today, when we understand the mansion blueprint, we stop being afraid of scary goals. Look at the story of Queen Esther in the Bible.
Her purpose was to save a nation. But she didn't start with a massive decree. She started with small, terrifying steps that God placed right in front of her.
We're going to now apply this to a story in the scriptures, the story of Esther, which is a famous story from the Old Testament. And Esther was a young Jewish girl, and her people at the time were oppressed and they were captive.
And there were some people in the government who wanted all the Jews to be eliminated. So the king was not happy with his current wife. He kicks her out. He's searching for a new queen and Esther is in the mix. Right.
And so the beautiful part of this story is that Esther's purpose as she went through this process, she was very, very beautiful. And that's why she was in the running to be this new queen. But God had a bigger purpose for her and it was to save her people.
Her cousin Mordecai said, who knows but that you have come for such a time as this? So her goal was to approach the king in little ways to gain favor with him and then be able to save her people. Was that easy to do? Oh, no.
There were lots of obstacles in the way. For example, she was scared to go in and see him because if she entered the room without the king kind of giving the thumbs up, she could be killed.
So she asked for her people to fast and pray. That was a goal and she needed help. She involved other people in this goal and they fasted and prayed for her.
She finally had the courage to go in and ask the king, you know, can I have a party for you? That was another goal. She wasn't going to just come right out and say it, can I throw a party for you? Absolutely.
You know, and so there were little goals, but eventually the purpose was saving her people. And because the king was so impressed with her, he did. He saved her people. He canceled the decree that was going to kill them.
She just said, I'm going to be killed and I would love to stay alive and my people with me. And I, I think at the, up until that point he had no idea that she was Jewish. Right.
So it's a great example of a purpose and then the little goals leading up to it. Yeah. Final thoughts.
Amanda Powell
00:07:38.100 - 00:07:48.190
I love that story. I love ending on that note. I, I love just bringing it back to the purpose and then the goal gets us there.
Tamara K. Anderson
00:07:48.350 - 00:08:41.850
Esther's goals were the stepping stones to her nation saving purpose. What are your stepping stones today? Are they just busy work or are they leading you to the top of your staircase?
If you're ready to define your fire and map out your footsteps, check out our A Guide to Goal Setting for Christian Women. It will help you find the purpose God is placing on your heart and then map out the steps of or the goals to get there.
And if you feel like you're under attack by fear or anxiety, join us in our Women warriors of Light accountability group where you will join other faithful women trying to do hard things just like you. The links are in the description below. So, my friends, I end with this important invitation. Go find your fire today and until next time.
May you arise. Do it God's way, God strong.
