Meaning and purpose are not just “fluffy”, nice-to-have concepts. They are as essential to us as oxygen. When we are disconnected from our sense of meaning and purpose for too long, we suffer.
I’m sure you’ve experienced that feeling of purposeless-ness.
Feeling like a zombie, aimlessly meandering through life as one day bleeds into the next.
Going through the majority of your waking hours begrudgingly performing tasks on a sort of autopilot.
Asking yourself those existential questions like “what’s the point?”, “what is this all about?” and “what am I doing with my life?”
These are all signs that you are lacking meaning and purpose in your life, and I have totally been there as well.
What happens when we are disconnected from meaning and purpose
When I was working in medicine, I felt this same existential angst of “why am I even doing this?” I felt like I wasn’t serving my purpose and that I wasn’t as fulfilled as I could be. It was harder and harder to find the motivation to wake up in the morning, because I didn’t feel that pull towards something meaningful or significant. I just felt a dread about going into work.
I also started to develop some serious anxiety. I felt this disconnect between what I was doing and what my heart was calling me to do. A disconnect which built up over time leading to panic attacks and insomnia. For me, this anxiety was just another symptom of not living in alignment with my purpose.
One thing I’ve learned from my own experience and through reading the teachings of experts is this: ignoring your purpose is harmful. Living out your days disconnected from a sense of meaning takes a toll on your emotional and physical health.
Without regular doses of meaning and purpose in our lives, we start to experience some fairly negative consequences. And as we are all starting to consciously wake up, I believe that we are feeling those consequences even more profoundly.
Why meaning and purpose are so important
In her book “The Gifts of Imperfection” Brene Brown talks about these negative effects of living disconnected from a sense of purpose. She says:
“Squandering our gifts brings distress to our lives. As it turns out, it’s not merely benign or “too bad” if we don’t use the gifts that we’ve been given; we pay for it with our emotional and physical well-being. When we don’t use our talents to cultivate meaningful work, we struggle. We feel disconnected and weighed down by feelings of emptiness, frustration, resentment, shame, disappointment, fear and even grief.”
When I was working in medicine, resentment was the one I struggled with the most. I felt so angry about the career path I had chosen. I literally cursed my 20 year old self for choosing to go to medical school. What was she thinking!? It didn’t seem fair that I had to work nights and weekends and sacrifice so much of my personal time in order to do work that I was honestly kind of “meh” about.
Tony Robbins also talks about the importance of purpose in his framework of the Six Human Needs. One of the needs of the spirit is contribution. Our spirit needs to feel like it’s part of something larger than itself. We need to believe that our existence has meaning. That we contribute in some way to make the world a better, more positive place.
When this need for contribution is not met, we don’t feel whole or complete. We have this hunger for more and this gnawing feeling that something is missing.
Having meaning and purpose in our lives is also extremely protective against feelings of burnout.
In the book “Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Response Cycle” the Nagoski sisters also talk about how important it is to engage with our “something larger”.
They describe “Something Larger” as whatever gives you the feeling that you are contributing something positive to the world. They say that “meaning is a power you carry inside of you that helps you resist and recover from burnout.” When we feel like our existence matters- we are much less likely to experience the exhaustion and hopelessness that comes from burnout.
How can we create meaning and purpose in our lives?
So how in the world do we find this sense of meaning, or purpose or “something larger”?
The good news is we don’t have to find it. Meaning isn’t something that some of us are just lucky enough to stumble upon. Meaning is something that is already inside of us and something we can cultivate in our daily lives by actively connecting with something larger than ourselves. In other words, meaning is something we make through our daily actions.
3 sources of meaning
In the previously mentioned book “Burnout”, the Nagoski sisters talk about three elements that are likely to provide us with a sense of meaning.
- Pursuit and achievement of ambitious goals that leave a legacy
- Service to the divine or other spiritual calling
- Loving, emotionally intimate connection with others
So in order to identify your own purpose or sources of meaning you can start by asking yourself questions about these three elements.
What types of goals do you want to achieve? What kind of legacy would you like to leave on the world? What do you want people to say about you at your funeral?
How can you be of service to a higher power, a God of your understanding?
How can you cultivate more loving, intimate connections with others?
One question to reflect on to cultivate meaning
Another way you can connect to the sense of meaning and purpose within yourself is to meditate on this question.
“What am I doing when I feel most powerfully that I’m doing what I’m meant to be doing?”
You know that feeling. I’m sure you’ve experienced it before. That feeling of “This. Right here. This is what I was meant to be doing.” Maybe you’ve felt it standing on top of a mountain or traveling to a new country. Maybe you’ve felt it while leading a meeting or teaching a concept you are passionate about. Maybe you’ve felt it while holding your newborn baby.
This feeling of “I’m doing what I’m meant to be doing” is a powerful indicator of what fills you with meaning and purpose.
Again ask yourself this question:
“What am I doing when I feel most powerfully that I’m doing what I’m meant to be doing”
Then close your eyes and meditate on it. Sit quietly with your breath for 10 or 15 minutes and allow any insights or answers to come forth.
Then get out your journal and write down whatever came up for you.
The point isn’t to question or judge the moments that matter to you. Just note what those moments are and then start to think about how you can start to add more of those moments into your life.
Some of the moments that came up for me are
- Having deep, intimate conversations with others. Helping people get to the root of their problems and have new realizations about themselves. Helping people connect to their own truths.
- Reading and learning new things about what it means to be a human, how our brains and bodies work and how to live a happier, more fulfilled life.
- Bringing concepts together and teaching them in a way that helps people have those “aha” moments.
- Standing on top of a mountain
What about for you? What are your moments?
Once you have some ideas about what activities help you create a sense of meaning and purpose into your life. Your work has just begun.
Because it’s not about FINDING your purpose. It’s not a one time activity where you have this epiphany and then you’ve found your purpose and you are done. The real work is about LIVING your purpose.
It’s about structuring your life around these activities and these moments that bring you a profound sense of meaning. It’s about doing the things on a daily basis that connect you to something larger than yourself. The things that make you feel like your life matters. Because otherwise, what is the point?
