Characteristics of purpose-inducing everyday endeavors
RESEARCH BRIEF
This seems pretty obvious: How we choose to spend our time will determine whether we experience our lives has having purpose or not. Some endeavors have characteristics that remind us that our lives have purpose while other endeavors do not. Research suggests that the more time we spend on endeavors that induce a sense of purpose, the better we feel about ourselves and our lives.
Research question: What are the characteristics of everyday endeavors that remind us that our lives have purpose?
How I explored this question: There is no singular study that can answer this question at the present time. To propose an answer, I summarized findings from several published scientific and theoretical papers that mentioned the kind of enterprises that seem to inform people’s sense of the purpose in life.
Answer: Everyday endeavors that induce a sense of purpose in life have some common characteristics. I propose that our endeavors must have most if not all of these characteristics in order to induce a sense of purpose in life.
Purpose-inducing endeavors…
Move us forward in a desired direction or towards an overarching goal (Hill et al., 2020)
Align with our deepest values and strengths (Kashdan & McKnight, 2009)
Reflect our true self, which is authentic and separate from societal expectations (Sutton, 2020)
Are avenues for achieving or savoring something or embodying valued attitudes (Frankl, 1984)
Require effort (Campbell et al., 2022)
Are chosen and intentional (Martela & Steger, 2016; Ryff, 2014).
So What?
Experiencing a sense of purpose depends a great deal on our first knowing a lot about who we are at a given point in our lives. I have to first know something about what makes me tick; where I want to go in life (even generally); what my values and strengths are; what constitutes the real me (versus the expectations of others); and what kinds of things I like to do and what attitudes I want to project in the world. We experience a sense of purpose only when we have the courage to choose these endeavors over other things. This list also suggests the kinds of things that likely will not induce a sense of purpose: “keeping busy”; trying to replicate the paths of others; avoiding challenge; defaulting to what others expect of us over what we know to be true for ourselves. The upshot is that we are likely to experience our lives as purpose-full when we march to the beat of our own drummer.
How about you? How might you invest in learning about yourself in order to know what kinds of enterprises remind you that your life has purpose? (If you are looking for guidance about how to figure this out, consider taking the Compass Course!)
Sources:
Campbell AV, Chung JM, & Inzlicht M (2022 ). Meaningfulness of effort: Deriving purpose
from really trying. PsyArXiv Published online June 26, 2022 https://psyarxiv.com/sg3aw
Frankl, V. (1984). Man’s Search for Meaning. New York: Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Hill, P. L., Sin, N. L., Almeida, D. M., & Burrow, A. L. (2020). Sense of purpose predicts daily positive events and attenuates their influence on positive affect. Emotion. doi:10.1037/emo0000776
Kashdan, T. B., & McKnight, P. E. (2013). Commitment to a purpose in life: an antidote to the suffering by individuals with social anxiety disorder. Emotion, 13(6), 1150-1159. doi:10.1037/a0033278
Martela, F., & Steger, M. F. (2016). The three meanings of meaning in life: Distinguishing coherence, purpose, and significance. Journal of Positive Psychology, 11(5), 531-545. doi:10.1080/17439760.2015.11376231
Ryff, C. D. (2014). Psychological well-being revisited: advances in the science and practice of eudaimonia. Psychother Psychosom, 83(1), 10-28. doi:10.1159/000353263
Sutton, A. (2020). Living the good life: A meta-analysis of authenticity, well-being and engagement. Personality and Individual Differences, 153, 109645. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2019.109645