Having a strong sense of meaning and purpose in life contributes to well-being in a way that is separate from what we think of as emotional well-being (or feeling happy and contented).
This Brain Fitness Checklist provides some suggestions to get you started and have been chosen because they have shown the biggest impact on improving a particular lifestyle factor. Identify one or two tips from the list to get started. Then slowly try new ones, as you work toward building brain healthy lifestyle habits.
Here are few ways to create a help build a sense of Meaning and Purpose…
Start here:
Spend time thinking about what is important to you now and then take steps to improve it.
Identify then help one other person in a meaningful way.
Make a list of what makes you happy (your interests/joys), then make a plan to incorporate them into your daily/weekly routine—faith (spiritual practice), dedication to a social cause, volunteer work, working for the greater good, belief in something bigger than yourself.
Do an exercise to reflect on your identity.
Do an exercise to identify what you bring to the world.
Do an exercise that explores the meaningful roles in your life.
Challenge yourself more:
Do this exercise to re-align your sense of purpose.
Perform five acts of kindness - all within one day of the week. Then try it for six weeks.
Surround yourself with positive people.
Learn more about meaning and purpose and brain health; take the 1 hour course and get access to your personal meaning and purpose toolkit. (Log into your Brain Health Vital Signs dashboard to access this course).
Tips for getting started
Brain health challenges in the “start here” section are designed to be implemented by anyone, and will be a great starting point, especially if you scored in the Could Improve or Need to Improve categories in a specific lifestyle factor. Other challenges might be a little harder to do. In fact, you might feel resistance about adopting them at first because you may know they will be difficult to maintain for a long time.
Once you have tried 2 or 3 successfully from the “start here” section, challenge yourself with the additional challenges below. Learn more about meaning and purpose and brain health; take the 1 hour course and get access to your personal toolkit.
