What is Purpose

Purpose is meaningful work, contribution, and a sense of direction. Here, we also include spirituality. It is the pillar that asks whether your effort feels like it means something, and it matters because purpose is one of the few things psychologists can measure with a handful of questions, and the answers predict how long you live. You do not need a single grand calling. You need to know where your effort means something, and to make space and time for it.

How we define Purpose

As the saying goes, he who has a why to live can bear almost any how. The research agrees. By measuring purpose with a few questions about whether your life feels directed and worthwhile, researchers found that those with higher purpose had 17 percent lower mortality over the years that followed, and 17 percent fewer cardiovascular events. And it is not reserved for a specific life stage: purpose protects people at every age, whether or not they have retired.

At optml, we treat purpose as a direction rather than a destination: the part of your work you would do for free, the people you are raising, the home you are curating, the cause you keep turning up for, the thing you make on Sundays. It can be paid or unpaid, regular or occasional.

We break Purpose down into: work, contribution, direction, and spirituality.

Work

The first part of Purpose is your work: whatever you spend most of your hours on, paid or not.

In 1997, researchers found that people relate to their work in one of three ways: as a job, done for the money; as a career, done for advancement; or as a calling, done because the work itself is fulfilling and useful to others. All three were answers even among people doing the same work, and the ones who saw a calling reported higher satisfaction with work, life, and health and missed fewer days, whatever they earned.

Meaningful work is also correlated with job satisfaction and, beyond the office, with satisfaction with life and general health. And a study of about 12,000 daily diary entries found that the single most common event on people's best days at work was making progress on something that mattered to them.

So we recommend finding the part of your work you would do for free and protecting two hours a week for it on the calendar. If there is no such part, the question for this quarter is what the smallest version of it would be, in this job or the next.

Contribution

Contribution is giving something back: mentoring, service, caregiving, coaching, volunteering.

A meta-analysis of studies following adults over 55 found that people who volunteered through an organization had 24 percent lower mortality over the following years, after accounting for their health, activity, and social lives. Healthier people volunteer more, so that the adjusted number is still large is very insightful.

Contribution also allows you to answer the question: when did you last feel that your effort mattered to someone?

So we recommend one standing contribution that would bring you (and someone else) joy: a monthly mentoring call, a weekly shift, a board you sit on, a neighbor you check on. It doesn't have to be big, just regular.

Direction

Direction is knowing where you are going: the vision for your life three to five years out, and the goals that stem from that dream rather than from other people's expectations.

Across three studies that followed people over a semester, goals consistent with a person's own interests and values got more sustained effort, were more often reached, and did more for wellbeing. On the other hand, people whose goals conflicted reported more distress and more physical complaints, still a year later. And there is a skill in letting go. Being able to release a goal that had become unreachable went with lower distress, and taking up a new one went with a stronger sense of purpose. Life sometimes forces us to change direction, and we have to know when to say okay.

So we recommend writing the vision for every pillar, three to five years out, in your own words, and deriving each quarter's goals from those visions rather than from what might be urgent. Then, once a year, ask whether that direction is still where you want to go.

Spirituality

Spirituality is your relationship with something bigger than yourself: a faith, a practice, a tradition, or a sense of awe.

Researchers followed 74,534 women for sixteen years and found that those who attended religious services more than once a week had 33 percent lower mortality than those who never attended, with fewer deaths from heart disease and from cancer. Part of the link ran through social support, lower depression, and less smoking, and the study cannot separate the belief from the community, which is also a useful finding: whatever you believe, belonging to a community and meeting regularly is good for you.

So we recommend giving your spiritual life a place on the calendar rather than assuming it will just happen: a service, a weekly practice, a walk with no phone, ten minutes of stillness, whatever your version of spirituality is. If you have none and want one, treat it like any other quarterly goal: find out.

How we prioritize Purpose

Here is how Purpose gets planned in optml, following one example the whole way through.

The rating. On a Sunday in June, Nadia, an accountant twelve years into a job that pays well, rates her Optml Six. Purpose is rated a 3: she cannot remember the last time her effort mattered to anyone in particular, the mentoring she used to do stopped when the team grew, and the question "what do you stand for?" makes her change the subject.

The vision and the year-long goal. On Purpose's card in optml she writes the vision, three to five years out and in her own words: "Most of my hours go to work I would do again, I am helping people who are where I was ten years ago, and I know what my contribution is when someone asks." Under it, the goal for the year, written so she can check it in December: "Mentor two people mentored through the year, rebuild the training program at work, and keep one standing commitment outside work."

The quarter. For every pillar, optml supports multiple quarterly goals, so the year's goal breaks down into this quarter's: "By September 30, a monthly call with each of two mentees, the first draft of the training program, and one volunteer shift a month." From now on the card shows whether the quarter is on pace.

The first Sunday Check-In. In Weekly Capture she empties her head: ask the two juniors whether they want a mentor, block the training draft, email the literacy charity, write down the parts of her job she would do for free. Each of these items falls under Purpose. She stars two must-dos, the message to the juniors and the training block, then drags everything into the week beside her existing calendar events, in Purpose's color: fifteen minutes Monday at 12:15 to ask, two hours Wednesday at 2pm for the draft as a recurring block, fifteen minutes Thursday at 12:15 for the email, and half an hour Friday at 4pm to write the list.

Following the day. On Monday, the Today tab shows the message first, and both juniors say yes by the end of lunch. On Wednesday, a client crisis forces her to move her time for the draft; she drags the two hours to Friday morning rather than deleting them. Thursday's email turns into a Saturday morning shift on June 21, which goes on the calendar in Purpose's color.

The next Sunday. The Weekly Overview shows Purpose: three hours planned, two hours forty-five completed. The mentees are booked, the draft got its two hours, the shift is on the calendar. She rates Purpose again: a 4. The Wednesday block stays, the mentoring calls go in as monthly recurring blocks, and the Friday list turns out to be short: teaching, and fixing the things nobody else will touch.

The end of the quarter. In the quarterly reflection she scores the goal. Every mentoring call happened. The training draft is done and two sessions have run. The literacy charity shift happened in two months out of three. Call it 85 percent, and for the first time in years a junior thanked her for something that was not a spreadsheet. Next quarter's goal builds on it: the mentoring stays, the program runs monthly, and the charity shift becomes a standing block. The year goal is on track, and Purpose is a 6.

The year. In the annual review, she asks whether Purpose still deserves the most effort or whether it is now maintenance while another pillar takes the lead, and notices that "what do you stand for?" now opens a floodgate of thoughts. That is the whole loop: rate, name, plan the quarter, plan the week, follow the day, look back on Sunday, adjust.

Purpose is the fifth of The Optml Six, between Prosperity and Play. The annual review is where you decide how much weight it carries this year. The belief behind all of it, that success should hold a whole life, is described in detail on the page about designing your life.