What Is Meaning? And How to Create a More Meaningful Life

Studies among students also showed the importance of goal congruence. Similarly, Sheldon and Houser-Marko (2001) found that entering freshman students with self-concordant motivation had an upward spiral of goal-attainment, increased adjustment, self-concordance, higher ego development, and academic performance after the first year. This points to the importance of making sure people reflect on and develop self-concordant goals (Locke and Schippers, 2018). If people have not formulated their own goals, there is a chance that they will lose contact with their core values and passions,” (Seto and Schlegel, 2018) as was the case in the anecdote of Brian.

• Without a driving purpose, it’s easier to abandon goals and set plans aside.
• In a work context, employees could also benefit as this type of activity might be something that companies could easily offer.
• Ample evidence shows that relatedness is, indeed, a key source of meaning for us.
• In particular, young adults struggle with the important life decisions they are expected to make as they move into early adulthood (Sloan, 2018).

A common example for many people of this “automatic pilot” mode is driving or walking the same route repeatedly, and barely noticing what they are passing. But this automatic pilot mode often shows up in the many routines of our days. Note that working on our values and strengths as well as engaging in activities that bring contribution to others (discussed below) all contribute to our purpose as well.

The Big Questions: How to Find Meaning in Life

Philosophy is often unhelpful, offering abstract ideas such as Aristotle’s human function or Kant’s “highest good” that are hard to comprehend, let alone put into action. A BetterUp mentor will work with you on your individualized plan to never forget that you can find the purpose of your life with the proper mindset and strategies. Remember, you aren’t trying to find someone else’s meaning; you’re trying to find what enriches your own professional and personal life. One day you could set a goal to learn something at your new pottery class because it might introduce you to a new passion.

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. One popular school of thought, Gaudiya Vaishnavism, teaches the concept of Achintya Bheda Abheda. In this, Krishna is worshipped as the single true God, and all living entities are eternal parts and https://ecosoberhouse.com/article/how-to-create-meaning-in-life-best-ways-and-practices/ the Supreme Personality of the Godhead Krishna. Thus the constitutional position of a living entity is to serve the Lord with love and devotion. The purpose of human life especially is to think beyond the animalistic way of eating, sleeping, mating, and defending and engage the higher intelligence to revive the lost relationship with Krishna.

Which Dimension of the Meaning in Life Fits You?

These 8 life multipliers, when combined, can help you make progress towards making the most of your time to live a more meaningful life. From there, you’ll want to create goals to live out your purpose. For example, part of living a healthy lifestyle is eating nutritious foods, consider goals like eating a certain amount of fruits and vegetables, reducing your intake of unhealthy foods, and more to live out your goal of living a healthy lifestyle. If someone’s purpose is to serve their community, that individual can seek out opportunities to live out their purpose. Then, the individual can take actionable steps like volunteering a couple of times a week, providing personal donations, and more ways to live out their purpose of serving others. For example, in one instance the researchers found that spirituality was linked to meaning, but not a sense of purpose.

The «divine» crossroad signifies that all the universe is divine spirit. This foundation of free will, choosing one’s way, means that life is a creative process. In short, the goal is to realize the fundamental truth about oneself. This thought is conveyed in the Mahāvākyas («Tat Tvam Asi» (thou art that), «Aham Brahmāsmi», «Prajñānam Brahma» and «Ayam Ātmā Brahma» (This Ātman is Brahman)). Kant also denied that the consequences of an act in any way contribute to the moral worth of that act, his reasoning being that the physical world is outside one’s full control and thus one cannot be held accountable for the events that occur in it.

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Also, it has been found that pursuing happiness through social engagement is related to higher well-being (Ford et al., 2015). In order to provide a stronger theoretical foundation for this claim, we will describe the development of a comprehensive evidence-based life-crafting intervention that can help people find a purpose in life. The intervention shows very specific actions people can take to fulfill that meaning. We start by assessing existing interventions aimed at setting personal goals and will explore the theoretical and evidence-based foundation for those interventions. After that, we describe what a life-crafting intervention should ideally look like.