How to give your life meaning? (9 tips)
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In this blog post, we try to answer the question ‘How to give your life meaning?’ the blog post will give you 9 tips that will help you give your life meaning. We will also look at the importance of meaning in life.
How to give your life meaning?
Below are a 9 ways to give your life meaning:
- Discover Your Life’s Purpose:
- Figure out what is important to you
- Pursue Your Passion
- Be Self-Aware
- Set Daily Goals
- Make a few changes
- Simplify your life
- Be compassionate
- Be courageous.
It can be easy to run through the maze of life without pausing to think of its meaning. Although human beings are never satisfied with random wandering in life. We always look for meaning. Meaning to our actions, meaning to our words, and more important meaning to our life.
When something has meaning, it has a purpose, it becomes significant. Likewise, a life that has meaning feels purposeful and significant. Feeling as though your life is meaningless can lead to depression and hopelessness. Giving your life meaning is not rocket science, but it is possible to develop a meaningful life for yourself if you are willing to put some time and consideration into the process.
Here is a list of things you can do to give your life meaning.
- Discover Your Life’s Purpose: Giving yourself a purpose to live can be the most meaningful thing one can do. If you know what you are looking for and want out of life, you can make your life meaningful. If you had to give yourself a reason to live, what would it be? What would you stand for? What principles do you hold highest? Is your life’s purpose to help others? Is it to inspire others with great works of art, or your words? Some people have found the purpose of their life in saving the nation by joining the army, others have been inspired to help others by becoming doctors.
Finding the main purpose of your life is the most daunting task, but it is not an impossible task.
- Figure out what is important to you: Everyone has different priorities. Finding out what is important to you is essential to give your life meaning. Make a list of five things that are important to you, then consider whether the way you are currently living your life aligns with these things. This can include things like “family time,” or “dance every day.” to more complex ideas, like “honesty” and “simplicity.”
- Pursue Your Passion: Now that you what you are passionate about in your life, you should go ahead with it. I, for example, am extremely passionate about psychology and I do aim to become a clinical psychologist. everyone should pursue their passion in life. It’s what makes life worth living, and gives our lives true meaning and purpose. Each time you work on something you love, it creates joy inside you like nothing else. Finding a way to use your passions to give back to the world will give your life ultimate meaning.
- Be Self-Aware: The more we are self-aware of what is happening with us, the more we feel we are in control. Become aware of yourself and your actions. Remain mindful of what you do at all times, and make sure you are living life according to your principles, your life’s purpose, and what you are passionate about.Every day before sleeping, go through your day and try to understand why you behaved in a particular way,. If you feel you went wrong, try to correct them in the future. Meditation is a great tool for accomplishing this task. It helps us increase our self-awareness throughout the day. Your self-awareness adds definitely adds meaning to your life,
- Set Daily Goals: the best way to give your life meaning is to give meaning to your days. In the morning, right before you start your day, make a list of goals that you find fulfilling and meaningful. Make sure they adhere to your set of principles and beliefs. Take care of the hardest things first. Don’t make this list too long. By placing too many things on the list, you’ll feel the urge to multi-task, which is not good, or you’ll feel overwhelmed, which isn’t good either. Multitasking will lead to eventual burnout that will make you question the meaning of your life. By trying to do less, you’ll end up doing more.
- Make a few changes: if you are currently working for the things that you are not passionate about, or forcing yourself into certain things, then it is time for you to change a few things in life. If you live a mundane and boring life, there will be no meaning given to your life. Make changes in the aspects that are important to you. Be it family, friends, work, relationships, etc.
- Simplify your life: Remove the unwanted things from your life. The more the complications more the lack of meaning in your life. By simplifying your life, you’ll have more time to do what fulfills you and gives your life meaning. It can also help reduce stress and make your overall life easier to manage. It can also greatly improve your productivity..
- Be compassionate: The Dalai Lama said: “Compassion is what makes our lives meaningful.” Sometimes this is easy, but many times it is a challenge. When you see someone suffering or doing something that annoys you, try to put yourself in his shoes. Think about how you would feel or behave if you were facing the same situation. By doing this, you will be encouraged to act, either by trying to help the suffering person or showing understanding. Compassionate actions activate the pleasure center of your brain, so you feel great whenever you help someone else. Compassionate people also make better friends, parents, and spouses, so showing compassion can help improve your relationships.
- Be courageous. Reflecting on your daily habits is scary. It requires you to really be honest with yourself about how you live your life. You may have to make big changes to get to that sense of purpose, and it is a journey that you will spend your whole life on.
If you decide that what you really want to be doing with your life is something that requires big life changes for example moving around the world, investing a lot of your savings, or shaking up your daily routine, then you really have to try and look past your fear. Fear often keeps us from doing what we really want to be doing. Building confidence and acknowledging your fears can help you build courage.
Giving your life meaning is not a very easy task, but it is also not an impossible task.
What do experts have to say about giving your life meaning?
Many great philosophers have spoken about giving meaning to your life. Some have spoken about it with a spiritual sense, others have spoken about it in a literal sense.
Aristotle’s great theory.
Aristotle developed the concept of teleology. The basic definition of teleology is the existence of purpose and cause in the universe: “The fact or character attributed to nature or natural processes of being directed toward an end or shaped by a purpose.”
The theory identifies the motion. There is nothing stagnant. The universe and all in it has moved toward an end result. If that’s true, then there’s a meaning and a purpose for you because you are in a universe with purpose in motion to an end result.
The question is, if the universe is in motion with a purpose, then what is your purpose?
What Aristotle tries to tell us from his spiritual explanation is that we all have a bigger cause in the universe. Through the course of life, our aim is to find the meaning of life.
Victor Frankl’s theory
Famous psychologist Victor Frankl said that “happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue. One must have a reason to ‘be happy.’” He also said that our constant search for happiness is a problem: It is the very pursuit of happiness that thwarts happiness.
Holocaust survivor Victor Frankl explains in his book Man’s Search for Meaning explains that we can discover this meaning in life in three different ways:
- by creating a work or doing a deed
- by experiencing something or encountering someone;
- by the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering” and that “everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances”.
The meaning of life according to Viktor Frankl lies in finding a purpose and taking responsibility for ourselves and other human beings. By having a clear “why” we can face all the “how” questions of life. Only by feeling free and sure of the objective that motivates us will we be able to make the world a better place.
These two theories explain to us that it is very important to give your life meaning. Having no purpose in life can make you sad and depressed leading to other mental health-related problems. I mean imagine living a life like a zombie. Aimlessly roaming around with no sense of what you are doing and why you are doing it.
Conclusion
In this blog post, we have tried to answer the question ‘How to give your life meaning?’ the blog post has given you 9 tips that will help you give your life meaning. We have also looked at the importance of meaning in life.
FAQs: How to give your life meaning?
What is the true meaning of life?
The actual meaning of life is to fulfill your purpose in life and accomplish your goals. What this means is that everyone has a purpose, of why they are living. None of us will be here if we all didn’t have a purpose. We need to look for that purpose and pursue our life accordingly.
How can we find meaning in suffering According to Frankl?
According to Frankl, “Life can be made meaningful through the stand we take toward a fate we no longer can change such as an incurable disease, inoperable cancer, or something more like this. Frankl believes that since human beings have free-will, they must choose to see a meaning to their suffering.
How does Frankl’s wife give his life meaning?
Relationships are a vital part of human lives. Frankl too believes the same. He defines love as “the highest and ultimate goal,” in life. Frankl’s wife gives him hope. While Frankl was captured in the camps by the Nazis, he pictured her and her smile, which he says is “brighter than the sun”. This is when he feels determined to see her again. She gives him a reason to live and keep trying. Frankl believes he survived the holocaust because of the same.
What is the real purpose of life?
Our life purpose consists of the central motivating aims of our life. The reasons we get up in the morning. Purpose can guide life decisions, influence behavior, shape goals, offer a sense of direction and create meaning. For some people, the purpose is connected to vocation—meaningful, satisfying work.
References
https://www.wikihow.com/Add-Meaning-to-Your-Life
5 Lessons from Viktor Frankl’s book “Man’s Search for Meaning”
