Cultivating a Sense of Purpose: the Benefits

Life in a pandemic can feel like many things, and sometimes all at once, but life in a pandemic can also help us cultivate habits to carry us beyond the crisis.

I use the word cultivate intentionally, as does Dr Anthony Burrow, a Cornell psychologist who has spent the last decade researching the role of purpose in our lives. Dr Burrow defines purpose as “an ultimate life aim, or direction for one’s life ... that guides one’s goals.” (1) A purposeful life can be defined simply as one in which your daily activities progress you toward those ultimate aims or directions. Psychologists measure sense of purpose by asking people if “they regularly engage in non-trivial, personally meaningful activities in their daily life.” (2)

Speaking about his research, Dr Burrow explains that people who score high on purpose tend to keep a more even keel in times of stress and in times of joy. Emotions, even good ones, can have negative impacts and purpose seems to be a mitigator to those impacts. Which leads us to the question, how do we cultivate purpose?

Three ways of finding purpose

Dr Burrow shares three ways in which people find purpose. The first is through what he terms “proactive pathways”, in which people gravitate toward purpose by way of gradual and sustained interest in something. While this pathway is proactive, people may not realise at the beginning of their interest that they have found something which gives them purpose. (3) I would identify with this pathway; I have always been interested in space and science communication (enough that I got a PhD in it), but throughout my professional career, I have found myself constantly seeking out opportunities to mentor others both within my field and external to it. This has led to the realisation that, for me, mentoring and helping others succeed is profoundly important to me and shapes the decisions I make in my professional and personal life. This acknowledgement of purpose has helped me keep the even keel Dr Burrow describes during the ups and downs of living, especially during a pandemic.

A second way of discovering purpose is through what Dr Burrow refers to as “reactive pathways”, where something happened that “calls you into it.” This pathway comes with clarity—you know what seed was planted that cultivated your purpose. Perhaps it was the diagnosis of a loved one with cancer or the joy of a first time you took a new class. Whatever the catalyst, your life begins to orient around that purpose.

The last way in which people generally uncover their purpose is through what Dr Burrow terms the “social learning pathway”, where you watch another cultivate purpose and this can lead you toward your own. I immediately think of the late Dr Randy Pausch, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, who gave a moving 'last lecture' when he was dying of pancreatic cancer. The talk “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams” is a moving tribute to living a life with purpose, when you know that life is about to end. Dr Pausch says that life isn’t about achieving goals, but about how you live life because “if you lead your life the right way … the dreams will come to you.” (4)

Dr Pausch’s words live on today, and are echoed by Dr Burrow who encourages us to ask ourselves: “If a goal can be accomplished, what becomes of you once you’ve accomplished it?” During this pandemic, there has been a push to use the unexpected time at home and away from others as a time to accomplish goals, but the reality is that for many of us the pandemic has meant more responsibilities and less time. Dr Burrow tells us that in his research, he has found that goals can become obstacles and “decouple” us from our purpose and a lack of purpose can increase feelings of loneliness and isolation. Therefore, if we shift our thinking away from accomplishment and toward cultivating purpose, we can benefit in ways that serve us beyond the pandemic. The question then is: How do we cultivate a sense of purpose? How do we cultivate purpose?

Dr Burrow says this process does not have to be difficult, in fact, it can be as easy as asking yourself these simple questions:

Do you feel your life has a clear direction?

Do you feel your daily activities are engaging and important? (5)

Depending on your answers to these questions, you can take steps to continue your cultivation of purpose. If neither of these has a clear answer, try asking yourself what gives your life meaning? Or in what circumstances (6) do you feel that what you are doing has an impact beyond the immediate?

Remember that your focus should be on cultivating purpose, not finding it. Purpose is something which we nurture, not what we seek; purpose is aspirational. As Dr Burrow puts it, purpose tells us what to do next once we accomplish our goals. Purpose is about what is inside; even outwardly successful people can feel lost if they lack inner purpose.

Purpose may seem like an abstract concept, but research tells us it is important to our daily and long-term wellbeing. People who live purposefully may experience more healthy lives and aging and have more positive economic circumstances. People with purpose may even be more desirable friends. (7)

Even if purpose just helps us cope better with the uncertainty of life in a pandemic, it is certainly worth spending time cultivating your own. Personally, I know the time I have spent cultivating my own purpose has given me certainty that regardless of my external circumstances, I have a reason to look forward to whatever comes next.

Dr Kat Robison

Twitter: @katrobison

References

1 Youth Research Update: Anthony Burrow, "What is Purpose?" – YouTube www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Lljvmt572M

2 Great, purposeful expectations: predicting daily purposefulness during the COVID-19 response (tandfonline.com)

www.tandfonline.com/doi/ epub/10.1080/17439760.2020.1832251?needAccess=true

3 Cultivating Your Purpose | Hidden Brain Media https://hiddenbrain.org/podcast/cultivating-your-purpose/

4 Randy Pausch: Really achieving your childhood dreams | TED Talk

5 Cultivating Your Purpose | Hidden Brain Media https://hiddenbrain.org/podcast/cultivating-your-purpose/

6 (PDF) The Value of a Purposeful Life: Sense of Purpose Predicts Greater Income and Net Worth (researchgate.net)

7 Meaning as Magnetic Force | Request PDF (researchgate.net)