This is the time of year when many of us tend to go through a slump at work: our morale may be low or we're exhausted from the hard work we've put in during the past six months.

It is at such times that different approaches are needed to ensure that this temporary slump does not have a detrimental impact on one's overall performance.This is especially important now, when the economic climate remains bleak and consumer confidence is low.The global economy is not helping either, with the world lurching from one crisis to another.It is critical that we start learning how to revive our own levels of energy and morale whenever they are temporarily impaired. This is even more critical in smaller organisations, where the low morale of one individual can rapidly infect the rest of the organisation.One approach that works well is to let your sense of purpose drive you back towards peak performance. After all, each of us should have an innate purpose that drives us to choose certain jobs and activities.Yet when we go through difficult times, we tend not to refer to our original sense of purpose. Instead, we allow the short-term challenges to last longer than they should.This sentiment is shared by best-selling author and business speaker Alex Granger. He is an expert on how to use purpose to drive employee performance, developing "The Performance Code", a guide on using our purpose to drive and improve our level of performance.Granger has shared The Performance Code through talks and training sessions with numerous organisations in South Africa and internationally.He believes that the main opportunity for businesses to thrive lies in their ability to develop and articulate an organisational purpose that everyone involved can live up to.This goes beyond the usual approach of drafting a document and sharing it across the organisation - without any form of authentic engagement with the teams to which it applies.The more everyone understands the purpose of the organisation, the easier it is for them to act in a way befitting its direction. The purpose enables employees to understand why things are being done in a certain way, not just what needs to be done.This should also easily weed out the individuals whose purpose is not aligned with that of the organisation. We should all be clear on the purpose we want to have. That comes first                                                   Granger believes that purpose-driven organisations have much higher levels of employee engagement - citing Google and Apple as examples. The employees end up being the brand ambassadors of the organisation - without their employers forcing them to do so.Says Granger: "The higher the level of connection with the purpose, the greater your resilience - which means you are far more able to weather the storm, to cope with stress and withstand tough times. In fact, the more engaged and connected you and your team are to the work itself, the lower your stress levels will be.Not because the work is easier, but because your response to stress will not be the same as that of someone who is just in it for the money - who will buckle or bail when things get tough because there's nothing else holding them up."Granger found that even those who perform well end up challenging themselves to continuously deliver outperformance when there is a clear purpose in place.He initially saw this principle work effectively in his own life where he started out as a car rental driver and pushed his performance up to a point that he became an executive in the industry.Eighteen years later, he realised he could make better use of his time by building a business that allowed him to help other people learn how to achieve exceptional performance.This is how The Performance Code was born - highlighting his insights on how he had to unlearn certain behaviours and introduce techniques to help him thrive.We should all be clear on the purpose we want to have. That comes first. Next, we must challenge ourselves to build or work for organisations that align with that purpose - that way we always have something to push us back up when we hit a slump. We cannot afford to continue missing out on the benefits that come with living a life of purpose.Granger says: "Purpose is the thing that will keep you afloat, no matter how the tides turn. And if you have it, you can get through just about anything."zipho@ziphosikhakhane.comSikhakhane is an international speaker, writer and business adviser, with an honours degree in business science from the University of Cape Town and an MBA from Stanford University..