Everyone will have a different answer and there is no one way to live your life. Any answer would be just as valid and it’s up to you how you choose to make your way in the world.
But there are certainly some things that don’t make life meaningful. And there are certainly some things you can do to help you find your own meaning. Let's look at how you can discover meaning in your life and why that is such a powerful and important thing.
Where do you get the meaning from?
When we take a look at our own lives, what can we say makes our life meaningful? There’s a good choice that you will give some of the following answers:
• Career • Family • Friends • Partner • Children • Travel
Very few of us will answer that the thing that gives life meaning is ‘food’ or ‘computer games’. Somehow, our relationships and our careers take on greater importance and the same is true of our travel.
Maslow's Theory
Maslow was a psychologist and according to his theories, our needs can be plotted in a kind of pyramid with the most important at the top and the most urgent down the bottom, which was named the ‘Hierarchy of Needs’.
Our urgent basic needs include our physiological needs such as food, oxygen and perhaps sex, while things become a little more abstract and inspiring as we move nearer the top.
His pyramid starting with least important:
• Physiological needs – food, oxygen, water, sex
• Safety – shelter, health, avoidance of predators/aggressors
• Love/belonging – community, friends, family, partner
• Esteem – self acceptance, self-worth, confidence
• Self actualization
As you see that love and belonging are not near the top but are around the middle. It is as though Maslow is telling us that love is not what gives life meaning. At the end of the day, you can’t rely purely on other people for your sense of happiness, meaning and accomplishment.
This is a recipe for disaster in your relationships. If all your meaning comes from another person and you need them for your sense of self-worth, you might well become possessive, jealous, clingy or otherwise toxic in that relationship.
If your meaning comes from another person and they should leave, your whole world will come crashing down. This leaves you incredibly vulnerable position.
Self Purpose
You get people who have amazing, perfect, happy families and yet they don’t have a sense of purpose of direction. They’re stuck in a rut and they’re unhappy because they don’t have a sense of purpose. This is incredibly common and it’s something that a lot of us have to deal with. This is pretty much where the mid-life-crisis comes from!
Higher on the ladder we have esteem (Respect and Admiration). In order to be happy and fulfilled, to make your life have meaning, you need to discover how to live with yourself and how to like yourself. Otherwise, you will be unhappy in everything you do and you won’t have the tools necessary to take your life to the next step.
Watch my video
On the top of the list we have self-actualization. What is that and why is it the most important here? We will discuss this tomorrow as we go more in depth.
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