Where do You Find a Sense of Meaning and Purpose in Your Life?

Where do you find a sense of meaning and purpose in your life? What is it that drives you forward day after day? What is it that you want your life to look like?

The answers to those questions are going to look different for each of us. There are many paths to finding meaning and purpose in life. We can find meaning in daily tasks, in a spiritual or religious faith, or in the act of raising our children.

When you answer questions of meaning and purpose, you are defining your values in life. You are declaring to the world what is important to you. You are deciding where to dedicate your time, energy and effort in life.

So, it is important to be intentional when you determine what holds meaning for you. This way, you can build a life for yourself that is focused on your values and your sense of purpose. A life built this way is going to make you happier than a life that lacks focus and direction.

Also, it is important to know that your values and sense of purpose may change and evolve through different stages of your life. For example, when you have very young children, most of your focus will be on raising them. But as your children get older and learn to do things on their own, you will be able to have other things to devote your time to as well.

Finding Your Way

The idea of finding your way may seem like a daunting task, and in some ways it is. But in other ways, it is absurdly simple. You can just ask yourself, what do you spend the most time thinking about? Your children? Your partner? Your career? Your spirituality? A hobby? Travel?

Whatever you are spending time thinking about is something that you value deeply. There are no right or wrong values, it is just determining what is important to you. This way, you can prioritize the things that you spend your time thinking about over other things that come along in life to distract you.

Prioritizing

Your life goes where you put your energy. That means, you should be putting most of your energy towards the things that you value. Maybe you can outsource some of the things that you don't value as much.

You could hire a housekeeper, for example, to free up some time. Or, you could buy frozen meals instead of cooking. You could get a tutor to help kids with homework. Or, if your kids are old enough, you could assign some chores to them. You could order grocery delivery.

All of these are ways to free up time from daily tasks and devote more time to doing things that you love instead. Creating a life you love is a goal that all of us share. It just depends for each of us on what it is that we love as individuals.

Another example is if you want to travel, you could use minimalism as a way to reduce your stuff and your bills. That way, you could afford to travel more. You could move to a smaller home, or to a cheaper area of your town or country. This way, you save money on things that aren't so important to you and you can devote more money to travel.

We all have finite resources such as time and money. It is important to be putting our resources more and more towards the things that we value, and away from the things that you don't.

Prioritizing may not be easy, but it can really help you to live a happier life in the long run!

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What do you value in your own life? Are you prioritizing those things? If you haven't really thought about it before, you could sit down and do a meditation or a long journal session to try to figure it out. Or you could have a conversation with your partner about your mutual values.

All these are ways to figure out what path you want to be on in life, and to make sure that you are following that path.

What do you think? Have you lined up priorities with a path to follow them in your life? Let me know in the comments!