Finding Meaning in Life
- Dr Em Wong
- Apr 6
- 7 min read
Updated: Apr 16
As brain health and dementia prevention have become ever more mainstream in recent years, it’s been great to see more people focused on lifestyle habits like sleep and strength training. And beyond measures that address the physical aspects of brain health, there’s more and more awareness of the need to proactively address stress.
Mental wellness comprises both stress resilience and a healthy sense that life is meaningful. Research has shown close correlations between emotional well-being and having a sense of purpose. Meaningfulness has further been positively correlated with important health outcomes like a 35% reduced risk for having dementia, more favorable biomarkers, and less cardiovascular disease.
If you are thinking that meaning and purpose must be slippery concepts to study, you would be right! But the scientific evidence is so compelling it’s hard to ignore: so what can we learn about how to foster more meaningful lives?
Wait - aren’t meaning and purpose the same?
The terms purpose and meaning-in-life are similar enough that they are often used to consolidate research findings. But actually Purpose is just one of the 3 components living under the broader umbrella of the term Meaning. The other components are Significance and Coherence.
Purpose refers to our goals and aspirations, typically oriented toward the future.
Significance is about what matters most in life and ties in closely with our values.
Coherence is about who we are and how we make sense of our lives.
Many people think of doctors as doing deeply meaningful work, because there is an implied altruism when serving others. But the reality is that healthcare systems have set doctors up to pursue goals that have more to do with the bottom line than healing. So it’s hard for doctors to feel like their work is always meaningful, when they are pressured to maintain financial stability (i.e. through rationing health resources), rather than being allowed to take care of patients.
Only you can know what’s meaningful to you
Of course it's fairly common for our individual goals to be out of alignment with those of our workplace. The reality is that few of us are lucky enough to love our jobs. We mostly find significance in bringing home our paycheck so that we can support our families. It’s an added bonus when we feel a sense of coherence or camaraderie in our community of coworkers.
And meaningfulness is a subjective feeling, so only you can know what’s meaningful to you. Most of us will find meaning in a grab bag of work, family, friends, community, and interests. Because meaning is derived from feelings and thoughts, we generally make meaning from experiences retrospectively—meaning: we don’t even realize how meaningful any given moment is until later, when we’ve had time to process.
Purpose confusion
Our children are socialized from an early age to believe that they should have aspirations. And when very young, they are often allowed to “dream big.” Few parents or teachers discourage preschoolers from believing that they can be superheros, presidents, ballerinas, or astronauts. But when we get older, we start to see how hard it can be to achieve our dreams. And at worst, we are sometimes laughed at when we share our dreams with the wrong people. So we naturally begin to bury our deepest aspirations, often hiding them even from ourselves.
I had loved drawing and art for as long as I could remember—way before I even thought about doctoring. But it never occurred to me that I could become a full-time artist, because I didn’t even know that artists existed. My parents had stigmatized art as being a frivolous waste of time, so I was strongly discouraged from pursuing art—even as a hobby. I remember my dad remaining furious with me for a full two years, because I chose to take Art as a GCSE “O” level in high school, instead of some worthier subject.
Cultural programming often leads to purpose confusion
Neither of my parents actually believed that I could become a doctor, but at least they didn’t actively ridicule or shame me every time it came up. My mother simply told me that I could always marry a doctor. To her credit, it was just her way of protecting me from future disappointment.
As children, we are socialized to assimilate the beliefs of our parents and other adults. They think they’re protecting our futures, by steering us towards careers with financial stability and employability. This kind of well-meaning cultural programming has led many of us to a kind of purpose confusion.
”Midlife crises” may in fact reflect our existential need as humans to find fulfillment in life. I found myself experiencing purpose confusion for the first time in 2007, after 17 years in my career in academic medicine. I knew I wanted to keep teaching and practicing medicine, but I was definitely weary of the endless cycles of billing and compliance.
My husband’s midlife crisis became the permission I needed to begin my own search for meaning. Stepping away from the perceived safety and structure of everything I had known in my academic career felt unbelievably scary, but it also ended up being incredibly liberating.
Purpose anxiety
I had always believed in that pervasive myth that we all have just one true purpose or calling—and that our goal in life is to find and fulfill that destiny. But I’ve now come to see that it’s actually just a fallacy that makes us feel purpose anxiety and even shame, when we get frustrated because we’re failing to “fulfill our potential.”
Like the fairytale of having one true love or soulmate our whole lives, the myth of a single manifest destiny has proven to be an enduring and seductive fantasy across history and cultures. Some of us do live according to what seems like predestined paths to love or greatness, but the rest of us could definitely benefit from a more flexible interpretation of what it means to live meaningfully.
We’re better off having many different sources of meaning and purpose
Especially because we know that our inner critics love to point out any perceived failures and inadequacy. Letting go of purpose anxiety means that instead of choosing to believe you only have one single calling in life, that you’re actually better off when you have many different sources of meaning and purpose.
Consider how purpose and meaning exist across multiple domains in your life—work, family, service, and creativity. We have all seen how physical and mental health, as well as relationships, suffer when work is prioritized above all else.
Balancing purpose across different domains actually helps us maintain our emotional resilience as we get older.
Proactively building depth and redundancy in meaning protects us from losing purpose as we inevitably retire from jobs or experience other losses associated with the ageing process..
We don’t really know why meaning-in-life is associated with better health outcomes. For some people it may be that purpose requires them to engage in more cognitive challenges, creative problem-solving and social engagement. Like when my nonagenarian father-in-law put himself in charge of helpers and family members who were helping to take care of his wife.
For others, purpose probably plays an important role in mitigating against beliefs or behaviours that would otherwise undermine mental and physical wellness.
A strong sense of purpose has been shown to be protective against symptoms of depression and anxiety with bidirectional correlation—meaning: the reverse is also true. Patients experiencing depression and anxiety may find themselves too apathetic or worried to engage in purposeful action or relationships. So it’s important to have a solid approach building in meaningful activities that serve to move us away from apathy and/or despair.
Eudai-WHAT?
It’s completely normal and totally okay to be confused about all of this. After all, scientists, philosophers, and spiritual leaders have been debating meaning and purpose for millennia.
The goal of this article is simply to give you an actionable understanding of meaning and purpose, because there is such strong evidence for their health benefits.
Meaning is basically just a reflection of our values, beliefs and identity, so we each already have plenty of meaning in our lives. It’s just that we don’t always know how to take the time to reflect on which experiences we find meaningful, or know how to apply those insights for the future.
This kind of reflection practice is known as eudaimonic work, or finding pleasure in working on personal growth and development. There are no right or wrong answers here, and only you get to decide what feels wise and insightful, or how much to take on.
My hope for you is that you will discover what you find most meaningful and what matters most to you. And hopefully, that will motivate you to get curious about how to go about planning for even more meaningful experiences in the decades to come.
Dr Em coaching tips
Meaning Finder Exercise - Every story always has more than one perspective:
(1) Draw a horizontal arrow pointing right across the top of your blank page.. Mark the current year at the arrow tip, i.e. “2025” — Then, mark each decade going back to birth, like “2015, 2005, and so on.” (You can also choose to do this in 5-year segments or by periods of your life, such as elementary school, middle/high school, university, etc.)
(2) Old version of story - For each time segment, write down the 3-5 most significant events. Add 3 bullet points about what you remember best about each event.
(3) Best version of story - Now without changing any facts about what happened, go back and rewrite those bullet points from the kindest or most forgiving viewpoint—like the way a best friend, parent, or mentor might recall the same event.
(4) Looking back at your stories, consider what part of the old versions you want to keep or toss out. Journal about your feelings for particular significant or memorable events.
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