Feeling Lost? How to Reconnect with a Sense of Purpose

0:04 This is Crappya Happy and I am your host, Cas Done. I'm a clinical and coaching psychologist. I'm mindfulness meditation teacher and of course author of the Crappita Happy books. In this show, I bring you conversations with interesting, inspiring, intelligent people who are experts in their field and who have something of value to share that will help you feel less crappy and more happy. Hello and welcome back to the pod. Today, I want to talk about meaning in life, not the meaning of life. That's a very big topic.

0:45 I want to talk about how you find a sense of meaning and purpose in life and why that matters. I mean, it's kind of self explanatory White matters, isn't it. But I want to convince you of white matters and maybe give you some ideas about where to start, Bill King, if you are struggling to find a sense of meaning in your own life at the moment. Now. The reason that this has come up is because I made a commitment to my Beyond Happy Little community, my paid subscribers love you guys, to do a live session on the topic of finding purpose. Not finding purpose, but living more purpose driven life, living with intention again. It's all this kind of coming to the end of the year and considering how we set ourselves up for next year, reviewing and reflecting and what's changed, and do you know what, just a slight off topic, tangent, I don't know if you're into numerology, probably not. I'm not that into numerology myself either, But apparently somebody told me very early on this year that this is a number nine year. Two plus zero plus two plus five makes nine, and number nine years are about completion. So a number nine year is the end of a cycle. It's conclusion, releasing, letting go.

2:02 And I feel like it's been that kind of a year for me. I've seen a lot of people around me also wrapping up businesses, projects, like just completely changing direction in life. Maybe isn't there something in that anyway, this has kind of been the theme for me lately, so I'm sharing it with you so as we look ahead and we consider how we want to set ourselves up. If there have been things that we have been letting go of, we've changed direction, if what was working in our life doesn't work anymore, whether that's been a conscious decision to let something go, or whether it's something that has happened to you that's been out. Of your control. How do you regroup and come back to feeling that sense of direction and purpose and meaning? How do you take back control and be purpose led, purpose driven in your life as opposed to being at the whim of all of these external forces and unpredicted events that can come out of nowhere. So I made a commitment that we would do a live session, a live call for my paid members. You can always upgrade if you're not a paid subscriber, and you can jump on into that.

3:13 Maybe not now actually, because I'm changing platforms speaking of endings, So I made a commitment to talk about that and to run a live session. So we As I started to do some research and gather my thoughts on this topic, I became really really interested in it and I wanted to share it with all of you. So therefore I'm going to do this episode speaking broadly about some concepts and some theories and some really useful ideas when it comes to finding meaning in life. And then my paid VIPs, you guys, we are going to dive into this a little more. We're going to do a series of episodes as. I normally do. I usually do four or more episodes on a topic would dive in a bit deeper, culminating in that live call that I promised you. So that's what's happening, talk about this idea of meeting and purpose. I probably don't need to tell you that we all go through periods in life where we can feel a bit flat, a bit directionless, directionless, lacking direction. We can feel a bit like wondering what it's all for. You might be really busy and working and ticking boxes and doing all the things and achieving all the goals and doing things that you feel like you're supposed to in life, and then get to a point where you think, what is this all for? Why am I doing all of this? Did I choose this? Or was this just what I assumed was necessary to be successful in life? So that can happen to people, As I said before, it can come up when people have experienced a crisis. Something's happened where

4:46 almost like the rug's being pulled out from under you, and the structures and the foundations of your life and your routines get a shake up. I mean, on a global kind of scale. We all experience that. During COVID, the pandemic and the shutdowns. We experienced it through the global financial crisis. I know in Australia we were a bit more protected from that, but some people had their lives completely ruined by that. What's happening at the moment politically in the world again can just it shakes the foundations of what all of the things that you consider to be reliable and stable and create a sense of instability in your life, a feeling of being untethered. Now, obviously there's lots of examples in your personal life where that happens, but I'm just saying that it also can happen at a much larger scale to communities and to know even globally. And again, like when that happens, what happens, People rally together and people find a sense of purpose, People find a way to regroup and take action in a way that feels aligned. And they're the people who thrive.

5:51 They're the people who come out of tragedy and crisis healthier and possibly even experiencing growth at post traumatic growth. Talk about that because this. Idea of purpose and finding purpose and finding meaning, that is the key. That is what can be the not just cause you to feel happier in life generally, that can really buffer you against setbacks when they inevitably happen. So for a podcast that's called Crapit Happy and Beyond Happy. The obviously I'm a fan of positive psychology. I'm a fan of the concepts of mindfulness and gratitude and strengths and values, and I've talked a lot and I'll talk about it for as long as you'll listen about the benefits of positive mood and putting your attention where there are things to feel grateful for. And I'm not going to harp on about that today. But when we talk about happiness, happiness is a fleeting emotion. Happiness is not necessarily something that is enduring and lasting. It comes and it goes. And so when I talk about happiness, I really am talking about an enduring sense of satisfaction with life, a sense of contentment and ease and peace and all of these things that make for a life that feels fulfilling and rich and vital and vibrant. But it's not always about just doing the thing that feels good that makes you feel happy. And this has been talked about

7:22 for years and years and years and eons and going all the way back to the ancient Greeks where they come up with this idea of the distinction between haddonia or hedonic happiness and eu diimonia or you diaimonic wellbeing. Haddonia hadonic happiness. That's all about sensory pleasures. That's the dopamine hit, that's the feel good, momentary pleasure. It's all about pleasure, that's herdonia. Obviously, what happens if we pursue hedonic happiness too much we get on what is called the hardonic treadmill. And hedonic treadmill. Is all about the fact that we adapt very quickly. So something makes us happy briefly, and then soon enough that feeling of happiness, that little burst of happiness that wears off, and then we go looking for the next thing to make us happy, and the next thing and the next thing. And so you buy the house and you're so happy that you bought the house, and then within about five minutes you don't like how the kitchen's later, so then you want to update the kitchen. So you do the kitchen, but then you don't like the bathroom's not very good.

8:23 You know, you buy the new car. Within a few weeks, it doesn't give you that same burst of happiness that it did initially. So if you're too busy chasing hedonic happiness, a chasing pleasure of feel good happiness, then you end up on this treadmill where you're just constantly pursuing, pursuing, pursuing, never ever reaching happiness because it doesn't last you diemonia. You daimonic well being that is more about tapping into a sense of doing good rather than feeling good. It's doing good, it's knowing what matters to you, knowing what your values are, and acting in ways that are in alignment with that that give you some sense of purpose. So feeling that life has some meaning now. The things that give your life meaning and the things that give your life a sense of purpose often aren't things. I mean, they can overlap, but they're sometimes not the things that actually make you happy, that make you feel good. Parenting is a classic example for anybody who has children and don't know not everybody does, even relationships, you know, like, sometimes our greatest misery can come from relationships, but they are also often our contribution to other people are connection to other people, how we contribute to our communities and societies and family and our friends, like they're the things that can give us a sense of meaning and purpose in life, the things that make us feel fulfilled. So the things that gives you a sense of purpose are not always the things that immediately feel good. So it's about finding this balance, right, It's about finding this because you don't want to just be all purpose, all doing the good things and never doing

9:55 anything just because it's nice and it feels good, and giving yourself that opportunit to just experience pleasure for the sake of it, to have those feel good experiences as well. So that is a little background lesson on the distinction between pleasure and purpose. Ultimately, there's plenty of research that would indicate that being connected to a sense of purpose, feeling that your life has meaning, correlates very highly with mortality. You actually live longer when I've done studies, longitudinal studies. The more that you. Are connected to a sense of purpose in your life, the healthier you will be and the longer you live. I mean, that probably makes intuitive sense, doesn't it. You See, if people just lose their sense of purpose, I don't feel like their life has any meaning. There's no sense of direction. They don't age very well. So let's talk about how we connect to a sense of purpose and meaning, or how we can think about this and apply it in our own lives. The theory that I really like on this topic is from a guy called Michael Steger.

10:55 Michael Steger has made it kind of his life's work got a lot of sense of I'm sure out of talking about meaning in life. I quoted some of his work in one of my books, I Think in the Blue One in terms of finding fulfilling work. He talks about finding meaning and work, what makes work meaningful. But when it comes to finding meaning in life, not the meaning of life, we're talking about you finding a sense of meaning, feeling that your life is meaningful. He has a. Developed a theory, established a theory that it really boils down to three key components. The first of those is coherence. So coherence is the sense that life makes sense, the sense that you make of your life, of what you're doing, of where you're at, of the events in your life.

11:41 That your life has a coherent narrative. There's a coherence story. You can make sense of it. You can make sense of where you've been, of what has brought you to where you are. Now, you can make sense of what you're doing in your life. You can make sense of everything sort of fits together. Now we can talk a bit about coherence and how that contributes to well being, especially in the face of adversity or setback. If you experience one might as we'll talk about it now while I'm talking about it, if you experience a crisis and something really devastating in life, and like I said before, the foundations get shaken up, the stability in your life, the structures are no longer there, and you're left floundering. The people who can create a coherent narrative out of that that can come away or come through a situation like that, being able to make sense of it in terms of what did I learn from this, How does this contribute or how does this fit into the bigger picture of my life? How can I take this and use it for something that is of value, How can I use this in a positive way?

12:49 How can I just make it make sense? And so when things feel like they don't make sense, that's obviously really it's not a comfortable place to be. That can be quite distressing, and there'll be time when we all feel like that. But overall, having some sense of coherence in your life, that there is a coherent narrative that your life fits together, there's a story that makes sense to you. That is a fundamental aspect of meaning in life. The second kind of pillar in this theory is interestingly purpose. So purpose in this sense it's talking about like having goals a direction. This is kind of the motivational aspect, the motivational piece to this whole thing.

13:31 So having a sense of. Purpose fuels you to do, to act, to behave in you know, to take action in your life. You're working towards something. We have a reason to get up in the morning. You have something that is fueling you and keeping you moving forward. That's a sense of purpose. Now, people can have a sense of purpose, But where you find that purpose, where you channel your energy. That's interesting, right, because I mean, I'm pretty sure Donald Trump and Elon Musk and all those billionaires are really fueled by the purpose of just accumulating more control and more power and more billions of dollars. So they're driven, like there's a sense of purpose there. They're very goal directed. They're doing everything to that end. But at some point, you have to come back to other research which would say that the kind of goals you're pursuing are going to be fairly crucial to whether or not you experience satisfaction and well being in life. And again the research is abundantly clear that the pursuit of extrinsic goals like vanity metrics, dollars, status, achievement, material things, all those external metrics and materialistic things, they don't make you happy in the long term. Ultimately, the kind of goals that is proven to increase your satisfaction with life and your wellbeing are the intrinsically motivated goals, the ones that are that are driven by doing things that are in alignment with your core value us things to do with connection and contribution and personal.

15:04 Growth, all of that. So putting all of that aside, coming back to this theory of meaning in life and how you find a sense of meaning in life, then having some sense of purpose that you are working towards something that feels desirable for you, like you've got a reason to get up in the morning. That will give you a sense of meaning in life. The third one, according to Michael Steger's theory, is significance so we've got coherence purpose significance. Now, significance is your sense that your life matters, your sense that you matter, that you're of value, that you're appreciated by somebody, or just that you have a role to play in life and in the world. Significance doesn't have to come from relationship to another person. Often it does. Often it is knowing that I matter to somebody, But it doesn't have to come from that. Your significance can come from your sense that you contribute through your work. It can come from a sense that you are contributing, if you've got causes that you support, if you look after the environment, just that you are a unique phenomenon in the history of the universe because there is only one of you.

16:15 If you can just tap into that sense that just the fact that you are here means that that's a miracle, that there is significance to that. But it is the sense that you have value, that you matter, that your life matters, that's significance. So I guess you can see if you consider those three things, if you reflect on the timetoone, you have felt like your lacked meaning in life, like you really did feel untethered, like you're wondering what it's all for. Or then you might be able to identify that there was a lack of coherence. You couldn't make sense of what was happening. Maybe you felt like you didn't matter to anybody, or you didn't feel like you're making any positive contribution, or nobody really appreciated anything that you were doing, or you know, that might have been what was causing that dissatisfaction, or it might have been that you just weren't connected to any goal, like nothing really felt worthwhile, going to a job that you don't really love, doing work that you don't feel like makes any difference, You don't enjoy it. You're doing the things and going through the motions, you're not connected to some sense of how that is meaningful to you, to what you're doing. So just knowing those three pillars can help you to diagnose in your own life where you might be able to focus your attention to cultivate a stronger sense of meaning in your own life. So most of us will go through periods in life where we will experience this, this disconnection from a sense of purpose or a sense of meaning, Like you know that wondering what am I even doing What is it all for?

17:48 Why am I killing myself doing this? Why am I running this business? Why am I doing this job? Why am I putting myself through all of this? You know, we go through those periods in life, and so it's at those times that we've got to regroup and come back to how am I spending my time? Where am I putting my energy? What am I focusing on? Because maybe you're not focusing on the things. That really matter. Maybe you're not what you're doing is not aligned with your values. Maybe things have changed for you. You've evolved, you've grown, you've outgrown things, people, jobs, relationships. It's a nine year to letting go year. Maybe there's something that it has to be reviewed. Maybe you're doing the same old thing because you've always done it because you've always thought that's what you should have done.

18:32 But if you're not feeling it, then this is your opportunity to come back and do some analysis on how do you tap back into that sense of meaning? How do you make. Things feel meaningful to you again that your life has meaning, that what you do has meaning, and how do you make meaning from the things that you do. Our brains are meaning making machines right. Our brains are looking to make sense of everything, and where there's a gap, where there's a question, where that feels like there's a void, a brain's going to go and try to fill that gap. If you worked your. Way up the ladder in your career and you've ticked all the boxes and you feel like you've reached the pinnacle, or maybe you're halfway up and you're wondering if this is really the ladder that you want to be on, this is where you start to question, does this make sense?

19:19 Is this aligned with my values? A lot of my clients recently have been going through a transition in life, like a kind of a major stage in life is ending and they're transitioning into something different. It's like kids finishing school and leaving home, or it's reaching a certain point in their career and maybe scaling back or doing something different. And what mattered before, the priorities that were there before and that were the motivator and gave the sense of purpose and that made sense, they're not there anymore. And that's what I mean about this, like regrouping and reflecting and looking at well, what still matters to me? What do I want to hold on to. What do I want to let go of? What needs to shift or change? How do I change where I put my attention and my energy? What are my values now? What are my priorities now? How do I realign my life and my destructures in my life in a way that feels meaningful to me? And being purpose driven, like making those decisions from you, like, from your own intentions, your own decisions, as opposed to just being reactive all the time.

20:28 Either number one, just doing what you feel is expected without questioning and just following, you know, pampster on the wheel or reacting to what comes in reacting to life instead of taking back some sense of agency and feeling like you're making conscious choices about what you do next or where you go, popping back into the driver's seat in your own life instead of feeling a bit like you're a passenger maybe, and just recognizing and remembering that you have the choice that you can do that at any time if you feel like things aren't going the way you would like, if it's not making sense to you, it's not feeling satisfying to you, Then coming back to what can you take control over and what can you change? So that is my introduction to the topic of purpose. Purpose.

21:11 Having a sense of purpose, having sense of meaning in life is really important. Being intentional in your choices, intentional about how where you put your energy and your attention, and the people you choose to be around, just how you. Live your life, what you focus on. All of that contributes to how satisfied you are with life, which contributes to how happy and healthy you are and even how long you live. So I am going to leave you with that for now. Obviously, if you're in my paid community, we're going to be diving into this a little bit more over the next few weeks. There's lots more on this topic to dig into, so you can look forward to that and some practical exercises and reflections that you can do as well.

21:55 Thank you so much for being here and I can't wait to catch you next week. Other fabulous episode of Crappy to Happy. Crappy to Happy is created and produced by me Cas Dunn. If you enjoy the show, please hit the follow button wherever you listen to ensure you never miss an episode. Share with a friend to get me into. The ears of more lovely listeners. And I would love for you to leave a five star rating and review. Thank you so much for being here and I cannot wait to catch you next week for another fabulous episode of Crappy to Happy