Profound Lack of Purpose Leading to Reduction in Quality of Life

Medical research is showing purpose leads to better health.

I was listening to an ultra-running podcast, and the host said, “my doctor told me that my lack of purpose is now beginning to affect my health.” Coming from somebody who runs in the mountains for ridiculous amounts of time, I thought he may have been exaggerating.

Then I started doing some reading. It seems this outwardly healthy-looking individual may have one of the good doctors out there.

Harvard Health Publishing has an article written by Kelly Bilodeau from 2019 that gives this idea authority. “Will a Purpose-Driven Life Help You Live Longer” has a great tip at the end for strategies to develop purpose.

This is an area that has intrigued me for some time. When I was younger, it seemed that I had a locked-in purpose for life. I was going to be the next Ed Murrow and win awards for my hard-hitting journalism.

Instead, I grew jaded upon graduating from high school and entering college. I realized that I couldn’t just study the subjects I wanted to in college. Instead, I was going to waste thousands of dollars and countless hours taking courses I had no interest in. The college system in America thought it was a brilliant idea to re-educate kids with classes we could care less about.

I chose to not pay the university thousands of dollars and go into debt to take two years of courses that had nothing to do with what I wanted to do in my career.

I entered the military, studied the subjects I wanted to, and became a salesperson. Not having a purpose resulted in a career and purpose shift that left me churning my wheels for years before finding purpose in life again.

Finding Your Purpose

You don’t have to lose your purpose as I did. Some people never discover their purpose in life and flounder forever. If you’re wondering if this is you, ask yourself some simple questions.

• Do you find yourself waking up in the morning, and you’re just going through the motions?
• What does your schedule for the day look like? Is your day filled with lots of “stuff” to do but little meaningful items?
• What are you trying to achieve? Status, wealth, notoriety? What would you like the last sentence about you to be about?

As you go through these questions, be honest with yourself and write down your answers. What you find may shock you.

Most people won’t go through identifying their purpose because it can be a scary process. We’ve made ourselves desire the comfortable so much that the uncomfortable processes get put aside for later.

Later rarely happens.

In 2008, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) conducted a study on American’s well-being. “The purpose of this study was to examine the descriptive and psychometric properties of the scales (i.e., Satisfaction with Life, Meaning in Life, Positive and Negative Affect, Autonomy, Competence and Relatedness, and global and domain-specific life satisfaction) and to examine the distribution of well-being levels in a representative sample of community-dwelling US adults (N = 5,399) using a stratified analysis.” This report, “Well-Being Assessment: An Evaluation of Well-Being Scales for Public Health and Population Estimates of Well-Being among US Adults,” is an exciting study into the many factors that go into human health.

When researchers asked the participants if they had discovered a meaningful life purpose, nearly 40% responded negatively.

An entire industry has evolved around attempting to help people find purpose in life. Self-help books, life coaches, and a myriad of studies online all have surfaced to try and help people find the elusive topic of purpose.

The emergence and reliance on social media and self-branding have only made the finding of purpose even more stressful and angst-ridden.

What if I were to tell you that finding your purpose in life isn’t a one-time quick fix? What if we were to simplify finding purpose to discovering your purpose as you build a life?

Discovering Your Purpose as You Build a Life

One of the most powerful ways to discover your purpose is to take your eyes off yourself and help other people. Helping other people without worrying about how it will benefit you personally takes a lot of anxiety out of life. It can also be one key in discovering your purpose.

Greater Good Magazine has a great article written by Jeremy Adam Smith that illuminates some other ways to find your purpose. “How to Find Your Purpose in Life” is one of those articles that can give you that “AHA” moment and light the way to discovering something deep within.

The article wrote about cultivating awe, gratitude, and altruism to help discover purpose.

I have often thought about these three characteristics separately, but never together.

Awe is simply living life with a sense of reverence and wonder. Even if you don’t live in one of the world’s most beautiful landscapes, there is always something you can find beauty in. Let the beauty take you to a height of reverence and wonder, and you’ll find yourself living happier.

Gratitude means that you affirm there are good things you’ve received in life and that the many benefits and gifts you receive are a gift to help you achieve goodness in life.

Altruism is when you act on someone else’s good, often at a cost or risk to yourself. Lay aside your selfishness long enough to discover how you can do somebody else good.

The last two tips to discovering your purpose as you build life are to surround yourself with positive people and listen to feedback. Negative people will always suck energy and purpose from your life. This is why I don’t associate with activists of any sort. Activists operate out of a sense of what is wrong with the world. I have neither the time nor the energy to constantly hear what is wrong with the world.

Choosing to associate with people who have a positive outlook in life means you will constantly desire to be optimistic about life yourself.

Indeed, the negatives of life will still swirl around you. Still, choosing not to participate means you are looking for solutions to life problems, not wallowing in them.

The most important thing I have done in my short life on this earth was to stop talking long enough to listen to other people. When more successful people desire to give me feedback in life, I find I can go further in my pursuit of living life to the full.

Purpose: Elusive Yet Attainable

Discovering your purpose won’t be a day, week, or year-long process. Purpose discovering is a lifelong journey, best taken one step at a time.

Discovering your purpose doesn’t necessarily mean you will have to change what you are doing right now. It may simply mean that as you discover your purpose, you do what you’re doing right now with more energy and focus.

Occasionally, pause in what you’re doing and reflect on whether your current path will take you where you were designed to go.

The road to discovering your purpose may just have lots of curves, intersections to consider, and stop signs that require coming to a complete stop.

However, if you are willing to undertake the journey, a life worth living awaits you.