How to Find Purpose
In 2020, the Life Purpose Lab was founded to explore a simple question: How do people find their life purpose? We researched the literature, interviewed hundreds of people, and tested dozens of exercises. What did we find? It all comes down to how people manage the possibilities in their lives. Are they aware of them? If so, what do they do with them? From this insight, we've developed a conceptual framework of the purpose-finding process. We have named it the Possibility Management Model. People find purpose when they intentionally and strategically manage what's possible in their lives based on what matters most to them.
This process can be divided into four separate steps.
1. Create possibilities. Most people spend their lives, head-down, walking on the paths already in front of them. But, is a different life possible? What would it look like? Any person could live many different lives--our own personal multiverse--in different ways. Being aware of these possibilities, even though we'll never be able to enact them all, is the starting point in the journey into purpose.
2. Examine possibilities. Once we realize what could happen, we have to choose between possibilities. This involves studying and learning about them, creating micro-experiences, and discerning what we've learned. As with so many other areas of life, we want to make informed decisions. We do this by examining what's possible.
3. Combine possibilities. "What is my purpose in life" is the wrong question, because we all can and should have multiple purposes across the different areas of our lives. Once we have created and examined the many possibilities of our life, we have to combine them. We have many possibilities but only one life, so we have to prioritize which are most important and how to fit them together.
4. Enact possibilities. Knowing our purposes in life doesn't mean much if we don't act on them. We're just dreamers--knowing what could happen but not doing it. Translating a vision of purpose into everyday life is an art that requires lots of effort, and it works best following several basic strategies of vision and behavior change.
In the research literature, there are dozens of specific theories of how people find purpose in their lives. They are written as different explanations for the above process. However, our work suggests that they are different instances of the same four steps. In this way, the Possibility Management Model is a powerful explanatory framework that brings together a wide range of thinking about purpose.