The Best Way to Get More Meaning in Your Life

When you consider whether you have yet lived up to your potential, I'd like to suggest that you not think in terms of money, career advancement, power or prestige. Instead, examine whether there is more you could be doing to help others in this world.

Feel free to define "others" in any way you choose. You might focus on colleagues, clients, friends, community members, or people halfway around the world.

This is – by far – the single best way to get more meaning in your life, and researchers suspect that meaning may more important to the quality of our lives than happiness.

Feeling good vs. doing good

The problem with happiness is that it can be an empty emotion. If you treat yourself to a nice dessert, you might feel happy. But if you eat dessert seven days a week, you might start to feel like an overstuffed pillow.

If you skip dessert for a year and take that same money to fund a new school building in, say, Ecuador, you will spend the rest of your life knowing that you changed the path of many lives.

Which feels better, happiness or meaning?

I'm not suggesting that the right basis of comparison is Mother Theresa. You likely have family obligations that prevent you from devoting your entire life to serving the poorest and least fortunate around you.

But you could set aside a few hours this afternoon and look either a few miles away, or a few thousand miles, for people who could benefit from your experience, energy or resources. If it feels good, do the same thing again next week, and the week after.

Helping others does not just mean donating money. It also means channeling your actions and energies in such a way that you make a positive difference on the lives of others.

Here are a few questions you might want to ask yourself...

• Have you been patient enough with members of your family when they disagree with you, or behave in a manner you find upsetting or disappointing? Speaking personally, every time I have lost my temper with family members, I have later regretted it.
• If you drew a circle 10 miles in diameter around your home, how many people desperately need help that you have the potential to provide them? It is remarkably easy to become blind to the needs of people who are suffering right among your community.
• What talents do you have that could give others a boost they so badly need? For example, if you can read and write, you can put these basic skills to use helping people put together a basic resume or letter that might be enough to land them a job and a measure of self-sufficiency.

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Image: Lauren Manning/Flickr