Is There a Simple Formula to Finding Purpose in Life?
(It works just about every time)
A Big Question
It being my research topic and personal interest, I spend a lot of time thinking about how people find purpose in life.
The answer: It’s complicated. Lots of people with lots of purpose find it in very different ways. Yes, there are general principles. These are what we teach in our training classes.
But… is there a way to reduce finding purpose into just a few words?
Here’s my current best answer:
Do things that matter to you with people who you love
This is certainly not the only way, but this formula seems to work just about every time. In fact, some of the most compelling stories about purpose follow this pattern. The person did something that mattered to them with someone that they loved. In fact, it’s hard to imagine combining these two things and it not being purposeful.
This formula implies several follow up questions
How best do we combine mattering and love?
How do we spend more of our time doing what matters most?
How do we love others more?
These are big, paradigm-changing questions, not ones that I can answer in a post (or maybe ever). But trying to reduce complex phenomena to simple questions is one way to understand them better.
In a sentence, what would you say is a powerful way to find purpose?
Updates
The Life Purpose Lab has focused on serving the UConn community for the past several years. Now, we’re starting to attract interest from people outside of UConn. To share with them what we’re doing, we created a externally-focused website: Purposelab.life. It’s still in simplistic form, but it will be a place where people can connect with us.
Also, welcome to my new newsletter. I’m not sure where this will go, but it will be nice to have a place to share and discuss ideas.