Do you know what gets you up in the morning (besides the kids, the dog, the alarm clock)? Your purpose! According to a recent webinar that I attended called “Purpose Across the Lifespan” hosted by the Greater Good Science Center, purpose was described as an abiding intention to achieve a long-term goal we have, that is personally meaningful to us and has a positive effect on the world. Purpose can also be as simple as your intention to live a certain way. It will be something that we either feel we are naturally good at and enjoy doing; are passionate and care deeply about; or, fits our values and ways we prefer to operate in the world. And your sense of purpose will most likely change over your lifetime, as you experience different life stages.
Research has shown that living your life with purpose can foster hope, life satisfaction, happiness, better cardiovascular health, better sleep and enhanced longevity. A study by Robert Butler that followed people between the ages of 65-92 for 11 years showed that those who expressed having clear goals or purpose lived longer and lived better than those who did not.
So how do we identify and/or practice our purpose? There are several ways to do that including volunteer work. Volunteering is such an important way to stay socially connected and also promotes good health by helping you stay active, connect with others, and can help combat loneliness or depression. Helping others can help you have a sense of mission and purpose in life. People who live life with purpose look beyond themselves and find true joy in giving to others. There are an endless number of opportunities to volunteer – delivering meals to those who are home bound, providing transportation to those who no longer drive, teaching skills to children, cleaning up around your community, or maybe sending thoughtful notes or cards to those who are not well. You may even volunteer formally for Illinois Extension as a Master Gardener or Master Naturalist (I had to mention that!) Doing something for someone else just makes you feel good!
Practicing gratitude and appreciating the small pleasures in life can also be part of your purpose. Being grateful has positive effects including improved physical and psychological health, reduction of anxiety, increased optimism and even reduction in aches and pains. An easy way to practice gratitude is just take a little time each day to think of three things you are thankful for. When you get in the habit of doing this, you really start to see and feel those benefits physically and mentally.
The use of reminiscence may also enhance one’s ability to reconnect with meaning in life and a sense of coherence. Remembering and interpreting the life events, feelings, and thoughts that define and give meaning to a person’s life can lead to positive mental health in older adults. Go one step further and practice savoring. Savoring can be defined as the ability to prolong or even intensify the positive feelings we get when we think about, share, and appreciate the positive experiences in our lives. We can increase our positive feelings by reminiscing about past positive experiences, savoring a current positive experience, or even anticipating a future event with positivity. The literature also tells us that older adults who have a greater savoring ability can predict greater happiness, life satisfaction, and better control of or fewer depressive symptoms, even when experiencing a decline in health.
A top executive-life coach who has written many books on the power of purpose, Richard Leider, developed a self-assessment tool called The Purpose Checkup. This tool gives a measure of the power of purpose you are experiencing in your life. For some great resources on purpose and to take this assessment tool, just visit this website
I’d like to leave you with a couple of meaningful quotes:
“The purpose of life is to contribute in some way to making things better.”
Robert F. Kennedy
“The purpose of life is a life of purpose.”
Robert Byrne
Sources:
Leider,R. (2015) A Guide to Unlocking the Power of Purpose. https://richardleider.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Power_Of_Purpose.pdf
Vern L. Bengtson, Frank J. Whittington, From Ageism to the Longevity Revolution: Robert Butler, Pioneer, The Gerontologist, Volume 54, Issue 6, December 2014, Pages 1064–1069, https://doi.org/10.1093/geront/gnu100
Smith, JL, Bryant, FB. The Benefits of Savoring Life: Savoring as a Moderator of the Relationship Between Health and Life Satisfaction in Older Adults. The International Journal of Aging and Human Development. 2016;84(1):3-23. DOI:10.1177/0091415016669146
Author: Cheri Burcham is responsible for family life programming in the counties of Coles, Cumberland, Douglas, Moultrie, Shelby and other parts of east central Illinois as needed. Cheri’s emphasis is on healthy lifestyles throughout the life span which include family relationships, communication, caregiving, stress management and human development including early childhood and healthy aging. Her passion is to help people to be their best selves and to promote a healthier, independent older population. When Cheri is not engaged in Extension work, she can be found raising Monarch butterflies and spreading the word about their amazing life cycles and migration to anyone who will listen!