Written by: Dr. Mykim Tran, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Meaning and purpose are cognitive and motivational stimulations that help you overcome obstacles, accomplish goals, and adapt successfully to any environment. The cognitive component enables you to question and understand your values, beliefs, and schemas and make sense of life. The motivational component enables you to strive to achieve your goals and desires.
Why is it important to create meaning and purpose?
Meaning and purpose help you evaluate and create activities that give you meaning, impact others, and help them flourish. If you are alive, your craving for meaning and purpose will always be there, which means it is a lifelong journey.
Creating meaning and purpose helps you see that your life is worth living. You will feel excited to live and make your goals and dreams possible. You will feel good about yourself because you are still on the path to reaching your full potential. Creating meaning and purpose nourishes your soul and spirit, which also helps you experience fulfillment. It gives you motivation to move forward. For example, if you have a boring job, creating meaning gives you a purpose to stay alive and to do your job successfully.
6 tips for creating meaning and purpose
Use your passion
Meaning and purpose develop when using your passion to help yourself and others. Your passion will motivate you to learn and grow to contribute to society successfully. It will increase your creativity to innovate and make a social impact.
One way to help you discover your passion is to make a list of the things that you care about. Pick one you feel the most strongly about and start taking action. Taking action could mean learning more about the subject by signing up for classes or events. Read books, watch videos, and or listen to podcasts. Then, apply whatever you have learned immediately to help yourself and others. Your learning and action will tell you whether it is your passion or not. Click here to learn more ways to discover your passion.
It is needed in the world
Meaning and purpose grow when you can use your passion to fulfill a need in the world. What kind of world problems do you believe need a new solution that your passion can solve? The more you are clear on how your passion solves the world’s problems, the more meaning and purpose you will experience when you try to solve the problem. You will also develop a sense of belonging, and what you do matters.
An important thing to understand and remember is that you might only resolve the problem partially in your lifetime. However, meaning and purpose are mainly about putting in your best effort and taking daily action to get closer to resolving the problem. As long as you learn and find ways to get closer to resolving the problem, you will experience meaning and purpose because they are in the action steps, not the result.
Align with your beliefs and values
Beliefs are things that hold true to you. Values are things that are important to you. The things that you do to contribute to society make sense to you. Sometimes, you might think, why aren’t more people doing the same thing as you? You believe that the world will improve if more people do the same thing as you. Without your contribution, the world will not be possible.
You feel like what you are doing is who you are. If you do not engage with it, it feels like something is missing from within you.
It is practical
It is something practical that you and others can apply to fulfill your cause and mission. Solving world problems requires everyone contribution. You must develop a method for others to do the same things as you. The more people engage with your passion and cause, the more meaning and purpose you will experience because you are getting closer to fulfilling it.
Whatever your passion and cause are, create small action steps that you and others can do daily. Once you and others can master the small action steps, you will become more creative in developing bigger action steps for yourself and others to grow your meaning and purpose experience.
Courage and self-confidence
Self-confidence and courage are important to create meaning and purpose because it takes bravery to tackle the world's greatest problem. The bigger the problem, the more challenges you will encounter that will test your inner strength. Great purpose comes with great challenges but also comes with great rewards. You must have the confidence and courage to believe in yourself and not quit. Click here to learn ways to increase your confidence and courage.
Supportive environment
Be around supportive environments that encourage you to learn and grow, use your passion effectively, and make a greater impact. The people in the supportive environments will also motivate you to find solutions to overcome your challenges, not quit, and keep moving forward.
However, when you are in a hostile environment, it will be challenging to use your passion. The people in the negative environment will put doubt and fear in you, decreasing your self-esteem, self-confidence, and courage to become successful.
You can attend in-person and online events or groups to be around positive people and get support. You can also watch videos, listen to podcasts, or read books and magazines to get inspiration to keep moving forward.
If you live in a hostile environment, try to escape it as much as possible during the day. Only come home for sleep.
Be on a personal development journey to learn and grow to become stronger than the negativity. Personal development will give you the knowledge and skills to counteract the negativity, overcome challenges, and achieve your goals. Click here to learn more about personal development.
Dr. Mykim Tran, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Dr. Mykim Tran is an expert in humanistic psychology. She is a keynote speaker, educator, life coach, author, and scientist. She is on a mission to help individuals create a powerful legacy that will carry on for eternity. In the process, individuals will transform into the best version of themselves and reach their full potential. Dr. Tran is the founder and CEO of Wake-Up Foundation, a non-profit agency, transforming individuals into social change agents to promote stronger communities. She received her bachelor's degree in Media Communications from the California State University of Sacramento, her master's degree in Psychology at Walden University, and her PhD in Humanistic Psychology at Saybrook University
