Purpose

Some scientific researches suggest that having a strong purpose in life and living coherently to this purpose improves health. Also the course Find Purpose and Meaning in Life of University of Michigan suggests that having a strong purpose in life positively affects well-being and therefore contributes to happiness. I want to live an healthy and happy life, so I want to explore more about the topic.

What is life purpose?

Life purpose is the ultimate reason of what we do in our life. It is what:

• gives to our life meaning
• makes our life important to be lived
• makes us happy if we reach a goal related to our life purpose
• guides our decisions

For example, let’s say that Paul is a teacher whose life purpose is to improve the education system, the decisions and the actions Paul make would be conditioned by this purpose. If Paul would be involved in a project where he works that improves the school and helps the children learn better, he would be happy to go to work on this project.

Is there only one life purpose or you can have more than one life purpose?

This is a difficult question and I have not a “yes or no” answer.

For example, let’s assume that Paul’s life purpose is to improve the education system and he is working on a project to change the way the teachers work in his school to help the children learn better.

He is very excited to work on this project because he has a lot of ideas to propose.

The day when he has to make the presentation to the school management, Paul’s son is very sick.

If Paul wouldn’t do the presentation that day, the project will be postponed to the next year.

He could leave the son at home with his wife, but he is sorry to don’t stay at home with his son and take care of him.

Paul has a conflict between two life purposes: improve the education system or be a good dad?

Let’s say that Paul decides to stay at home with his son, this means that improving the education system is not his life purpose? The true life purpose is to be a good dad? Or both are life purpose, but the latter is more important than the former?

I don’t know if there is only one or more than one life purpose.

In any case I think that:

• if there would be more than one, it is important to clarify and define what purpose is more important to be able to solve possible conflicts.
• purpose can change during lifetime. Therefore from time to time it is useful to see if our life purpose is changed.
• if there would be more than one, it is important to find a theme in your life that is a common reason across various purpose in different contexts of your life.

Why is important to find our life purpose?

Some studies suggest that having a life purpose:

• improves health https://www.clearvuehealth.com/b/purpose-longevity-health/
• positively affects well-being
• reduce the decisional conflicts if the priorities are clear

The correlation between purpose, well-being and decisional conflicts is suggested in the course Find Purpose and Meaning in Life of University of Michigan.

I did not find clear evidences about these correlations.

I think that the correlation between having a life purpose and better decisional conflicts resolution seems logical because:

• having a clear life purpose helps to define what is important
• know what it is important helps to decide and therefore solve decisional conflicts.

What characteristics must the life purpose have?

The life purpose should:

• make you happy when you act towards it
• provide clarity about what it is important for you
• be aligned with your life values

If the purpose is not aligned with your life values, we would experience conflicts between what it is important for us, namely our values, and our purpose.

Having conflicts generates tensions and therefore reduce well-being.

Therefore the purpose would not be beneficial as it could be.

In the above example, let’s say that Paul’s main values in life the family, but he considers his life purpose improving the education system.

Therefore, faced with a dilemma like the one in the example, he would experience a conflict and whatever decision he would make, he would experience regrets.

If he would decide to go to the presentation, he would likely continue to think to his son and therefore his presentation would suffer.

If he would decide to stay with his son, he would regret to not having been able to take advantage of this important opportunity to achieve his purpose.

This is why it is important to have life purpose aligned with our life values.

Obviously, also with purpose and values aligned, Paul could be experience regrets, but I think that he would be at least aware to have taken the best decision for him and the regret feeling would quickly disappear.

The importance of experimenting to find life purpose

To find life purpose, you have two main ways:

• Reflecting in order to find what is important
• Experimenting different activities and hobbies, trying out new things and potential life purposes to discover what matters most.

Both ways are necessary to discover the life purpose.

Reflecting can be done with the help of various exercises.

Experimenting can be done at the beginning by following values and purposes suggested by others, than when we would have accumulated enough experience, we can define our own life purpose and act towards it.

Is worthy to invest time to find a life purpose?

Scientific researches suggest that it is worthy to invest time to find a life purpose.

Some people argue that is useless to spend time searching for a life purpose because:

• life has no purpose, therefore we should act towards what we feel to want in every single moment
• there is not a single life purpose therefore searching for a life purpose can limit you to try new experiences that could bring happiness to you
• instead to waste time to find a purpose, you should act towards your goals
• during the life purpose searching, we would feel meaningless and therefore not happy

My current opinion is that:

• we should find an equilibrium between hedonic happiness and eudaimonia. For eudaimonia we need to find a purpose, therefore we need to spend a little bit on finding a purpose.
• we should not limit ourselves to make new experiences, however it is important to find a particular theme in our life that can help us to give direction when we face difficult decisions.
• life purpose is a direction, not a destination. It should help you to decide which ways take when you have doubts.
• the searching for the life purpose should not delay the put in action of what you think is important in your life.
• we should searching the life purpose with curiosity and with a mix of reflection and action. In this way we should feel less meaningless during the discovery.
• when you are young, it is particularly important to make several experiences that can help you to discover more about your life purpose.

How to find life purpose?

Two exercises useful to find life purpose are:

• the 7 Questions
• the Headstone Test

The 7 Questions

Take time to reflect and answer to the following questions:

1. What matters most?
2. Who relies on you?
3. Who inspires you?
4. What causes do you care about?
5. What are you grateful for?
6. What gets you out of bed in the morning?
7. How do you want to be remembered?

The Headstone Test

Take time to reflect to what we would like to be written on our headstone.

Considerations about life purpose exercises

• It’s very important to ask ourselves why we have answered to the exercises in that way in order to understand what it’s the real reason.
• After the exercises, see and write what are the main themes that recurs in your answers.
• After the exercises and when you have found your themes, try to write a single phrase that collect all the insights of the exercises. That is your life purpose.
• Try to put into practice your life purpose. When you have to take a decision, always decide with your life purpose in mind to drive you.
• When you do the exercises, write everything that pop up in your mind. Ask to yourself and write down why you are thinking that way. If new questions arise, write down and try to answer to that too.

My current Conclusions about Purpose

• Finding a life purpose and living coherently to it contributes to happiness and health.
• It is important to find clarity about what is important and make us happy in life.
• Life values and purpose must be aligned.
• To find life purpose you have both reflect about past experiences and experiment new experiences related to various possible purpose.
• Life purpose is a direction, not a destination.

References

• Association Between Life Purpose and Mortality Among US Adults Older Than 50 Years. Aliya Alimujiang et al. 2019
• Finding Purpose and Meaning In Life: Living for What Matters Most, University of Michigan
• Self‑Affirmation Interventions. David K. Sherman, Mohini Lokhande, Tim Müller, and Geoffrey L. Cohen, 2021
• Positive self-statements: power for some, peril for others. Joanne V Wood, W Q Elaine Perunovic, John W Lee. 2009.