When we aim for a life of meaningful pursuits, we are likely to feel more sustained happiness and life satisfaction—even if there is some discomfort, sadness, or stress along the way—than if we aim for a life of pleasure alone. In fact, seeking happiness directly may actually backfire, while pursuing meaning may increase our health and well-being. Awe can be inspired by seeing the beauty in nature or recalling an inspirational moment.
Relationships that increase your sense of belonging (significance)
And those activities might be key to helping you find your purpose. Even though striking up conversations with strangers may feel awkward at first, talking to people outside of your immediate social circle can open your eyes to activities, causes or career opportunities that you never even knew existed. If you’re surrounded by people who are making positive change, you might draw from their inspiration. Only around 25% of American adults say they have a clear sense of what makes their lives meaningful, according to one analysis in The New York Times. Another 40% either claim neutrality on the subject or say they don’t. The Greater Good Science Center studies the psychology, sociology, and neuroscience of well-being, and teaches skills that foster a thriving, resilient, and compassionate society.
Surround Yourself With Positive People
Then, brainstorm how you might turn your passion into something meaningful to you. It can be hard to recognize the things you feel passionate about sometimes. After all, you probably like to do many different things and the things you love to do may have become so ingrained in your life that you don’t realize how important those things are. Altruistic behaviors could include volunteering for a nonprofit organization, donating money to causes https://ecosoberhouse.com/article/psychological-dependence-on-alcohol-physiological-addiction-symptoms/ you care about, or simply helping out the people around you on a day-to-day basis. With all of those benefits, finding purpose and meaning in your life is clearly central to fulfillment–but it’s likely to take time and patience. There’s also research that links feeling as if you have a sense of purpose to positive health outcomes such as fewer strokes and heart attacks, better sleep, and a lower risk of dementia and disabilities.
Option 1: The Meaning of Life Is Human Connection
If you cut hair, you might decide your purpose in life is to help others feel beautiful. One 2008 study found that those who see meaning and purpose in their lives are able to tell a story of change and growth, where they managed to overcome the obstacles they encountered. In other words, creating a narrative like Amber’s can help us to see our own strengths and how applying those strengths can make a difference in the world, which increases our sense of self-efficacy. If you’re looking for more science-based ways to help others discover meaning, this collection contains 17 validated meaning tools for practitioners. Use them to help others choose directions for their lives in alignment with what is truly important to them.
How to Set and Achieve Life Goals The Right Way
Many people I interviewed for this article mentioned pivotal books or ideas they found in books. As we see in the research, a sense of purpose is not just nice to have. What if this imaginary drug reduced hospital stays so much that it put a dent in the national health-care crisis? The pharmaceutical company who made the drug would be worth billions. The inventors of the drug would receive Nobel Prizes and have institutes named for them!
The regularities of life provide the rhythms that undergird the feeling that life is meaningful. The feeling that your life is significant is related to more than feeling that your actions are influential to others. Significance is augmented when your behaviors, or experiences more broadly, matter to yourself.
Discover What You Love to Do
They will naturally interact and influence one another; having a very low degree of one component will likely drag the others down, and vice versa. Many theories of meaning have been put forth over the last couple of centuries, as humans struggled to come to some kind of coherent how to create meaning in life understanding of what meaning is, how it is made, and how it can be found. Luckily, humans are resourceful – we have infinite ways of finding meaning, and infinite potential sources of meaning. We can find meaning in every scenario, every event, every occurrence, every context.
What Is a Meaningful Life?
You have a wealth of knowledge that you can share with your community. Understanding yourself as a whole person can lead to accomplishing big goals. With greater self-awareness, you can establish your strengths and play to them.
- We all have strengths and skills that we’ve developed over our lifetimes, which help make up our unique personalities.
- With the passage of this legislation, the government is delivering on key measures from the 2023 Fall Economic Statement to help make life cost less, build more homes, and ensure our economic growth is shared by all.
- Existentialism is a theory related to postmodernism, in that meaning is subjective and there is no universal code or moral authority.
- Others can help you along the way, but you’re the only one who can decide what would make your life meaningful.
- They also feel that they have control over their own destiny, are confident in their abilities to succeed, and are committed to finishing what they start.
She argues that pursuing meaning can be healing, not only for those of us with mild existential malaise, but for those who’ve suffered trauma or are facing their own mortality. However, sometimes looking at these larger-than-life examples can be too intimidating, says Bronk. If so, you can look for everyday people who are doing good in smaller ways. Maybe you have a friend who volunteers to collect food for the homeless or a colleague whose work in promoting social justice inspires you.
