How to find purpose in your life
The US Bureau of Economic Research released a study late last year charting the median age of happiness in relation to subjective well-being across 132 countries i.e. the median age where people feel the most miserable about their own happiness and well-being.
In most layman terms, the study to try to first prove the existence of the “mid-life crisis” and at what age do most people start questioning their well-being and arrived at a median age of 47.2 years old.
The term midlife crisis is most apt at capturing the mindset of cross-roads in your life where you are questioning “is this it”? Your purpose in life, what it all means, why am I here, am I contend chasing promotions, why I am doing the things that I am doing, am I really happy, what other choices can I have, do I have etc?…
You start to question the very essence of your living, your life. What is the meaning of me? Is life all about working hard to make money to spend on things we don’t need and can’t bring with us if we die?…
Over the years, I have found myself asking these same questions over and over again at various junctures in my life, searching for a reason, searching for a meaning and I have found the following to be very helpful to help me make sense of it all, be it my work life, personal love, love life, family, friendship, passion and hobbies and I hope that by sharing these with you, you too can acquire the tools to help you move in the right direction.
Professor Clayton Christensen — Harvard Business School
#1 How Will You Measure Your Life?
I came across HBS Professor Clayton Christensen in 2005 when I wrote a business thesis (while I was completing my MBA in I.T) based on Professor Christensen’s seminal book The Innovator’s Dilemma examining if Google can be considered a disruptive innovation (Google was founded in 1998 and by 2005 was slowly entering the mainstream, so the timing seemed apt) and ever since have been reading articles, research and teachings by Prof Christensen ever since.
In 2010, Prof Christensen published what is now considered a revolutionary article on HBR titled: How Will You Measure Your Life? for his MBA students, which helped me find greater meaning in my approach to how I live my life and gave me a roadmap on how to chart a path forward.
To this day, even as I am writing this article, I continue to read and re-read the article (which is still relevant now) to remind me of what I need to do and how I should approach cross-roads in my life.
#2 Ikigai — the Japanese term “reason for being”
The Venn diagram of the Japanese concept of Ikigai is a great way to visually add to what Prof Christensen advocates and neatly sums up the areas that I was consistently trying to find a purpose, a meaning to.
Ideally, you want to be in the middle of the Ikigai where all areas of your well-being are satisfied.
What this diagram do is to help me easily identify what I am lacking or unhappy about and using Prof Christensen’s article, I am able to come up with a strategy to address my unhappiness or lack of progress. I keep a copy of this diagram in my notebook to act as a reminder wherever I go.
Achieving Ikigai becomes the reason for you waking up everyday.
#3 Work evaluation
I then developed the simple Venn diagram that helps me evaluate jobs that I am considering when I revaluate my life goals and ambition. Extending on the visual concept of Ikigai, I find that this Venn diagram easily helps me to narrow down the right types of jobs that I would like to pursue inline with points #1 & #2.
#4 Life’s True North — What is your purpose and values?
Finally, putting all of the above together I arrive at the following personal purpose and values to help keep me on track in my life.
My purpose:
- Do Great Things
- Do things that make you proud and you can’t go wrong
My values:
- Be humble
- Take initiative
- Never stop learning
- Follow through
- Have fun
- Be patient
- Get shit done
- Challenge
This is an ongoing journey of self-awareness and self-discovery and my purpose and values are by no means set in stone. It evolves and changes as I mature, grow and learn more in life.
Purpose and values and goals will change in life and we have to be adaptable to be able to seek happiness and well-being.
The main takeaway is that you can refer to the tools in #1 & #2 to help you re-adjust and take stock and use these to guide you through times of self-doubt or self-questioning.
