Finding your passion and the meaning of life can feel overwhelming. Even that sentence was overwhelming to write. Still, living a life full of meaning and finding personal fulfillment about doesn’t have to be an exhausting journey or one that leads a million places but gets you nowhere. While we can’t promise that you’ll know where you want to end up, we think we’ve got some ideas to help you find your way forward.

Before you begin, remember that our professionals are always here to help

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Finding Meaning Exercise

Instead of explaining what you need or how to do this, we want to start with an exercise first. Grab a pen (or your phone) and your thinking hat, then get ready to dig deep to answer the questions below as honestly as you’re prepared to do. Don’t worry, there won’t be a quiz, and no one has to see your answers. These questions are just for you, and we won’t tell if you discover far more than you anticipated along the way. :)

Ask Yourself These Questions to find personal fulfillment:

1.) What emotions do I recognize as positive? What about negative?

2.) Is there a “what if” I keep revisiting?

3.) What would I try if I could not fail?

4.) Where has failure been the most rewarding in my life?

5.) How do I motivate myself?

6.) Am I looking for a career, a hobby, or a way of life?

7.) Does my environment reflect the life I crave?

Three tips to live a life of meaning

Once you’ve asked your questions and have your answers, what comes next? Having a passionate life isn’t something you’ll do through a checklist or is something that can be outsourced. Instead, we want to offer you guidance that you can tailor to your needs. These tips can be used as many times as you need them, picked up, and set down to suit your schedule. We hope you find them helpful.

Take a quiz (or a few!)

No, not those Buzzfeed quizzes that take over your social media feeds without warning (though we don’t blame you, it’s hard to resist finding out if you can score perfect marks on that fandom quiz). There are a number of free versions of personality psychology quizzes that can help you find a starting point in your pursuit of passion.

Some of the most popular types of personality psychology theories, like the Enneagram, have become the basis for new types of therapy and mental health support. Others like the Myers-Briggs (MBTI) or the Big Five quizzes are rooted in theories or ideas held by psychologists about the traits that identify and ground our personalities.

If you’re looking for a place to start, we recommend 16 Personalities to learn more about the Myers-Briggs types and their passions. The Enneagram Institute is an excellent foundation for learning about enneagram types and how they may contribute to your passion, preferences, and interests. You may have to pay for the official versions of these tests, but the knowledge you can gain in learning about them can also be insightful enough to make progress.

Make a love list and a nope list

While we’ve all probably made a pro-con list, it’s entirely possible that it didn’t help you figure out everything you hoped it would. Instead, have you considered making two entirely separate lists to explore the way things make you feel instead of their logical value? When you make a love list, the goal isn’t to be practical or exclusively fantastical. Instead, you’ll want to focus on the way you feel as you flip through ideas, experiences, memories, or thoughts.

You may find themes or memories in your love list. Likewise, it may be filled with tangible things or experiences. Most love lists will have a mix of these things and a few unique to you, but they’ll all have one thing in common: everything on this list should make you feel love in some way.

Your “nope” list doesn’t have to directly oppose your love list or even follow a similar thread—in fact, you may get further if you space out making these lists by a few days so you can come to their creation in a fresh headspace. The items that find themselves on your nope list should be things that you don’t want to do, feel, be, or experience.

Ideas that make you feel separated from yourself are essential places to explore boundaries. Knowing where they are and what brings them forward can help you narrow down what doesn’t get a starring role (or even a guest spot) in your personal fulfillment.

Consult your memories and favorite things

While you may begin doing this as you make your love list, sitting down for intentional reflection on your life to this point is a meaningful part of building a life rooted in passion.

There are a few ways to go about it: you can start with an intentional reflection you dedicate your time to as you create a thought exercise you expand and draw from, or you can be a bit more cavalier and simply wander through your space and think about what you feel.

If you enjoy meditation or prompt journaling, this may be a great exercise to incorporate. Settle into the reflective practice of your choice and ask yourself, “What memories do I cherish?”. If you’re choosing to take a thought tour of your space and things, you may want to ask instead, “What feelings make this special for me?”

Exploring the emotions, memories, and connections that you can draw from the memories and items you hold dear can help you root through passion that’s been present in your life across many different facets.

Passion doesn’t start or stop in a single moment. You can’t lose it through lack of use, or obligations that you’ve had to prioritize ahead of your personal fulfillment until now. When you’re ready to live a life of meaning, LunaJoy can help you navigate your next steps.

How to Live A Life Of Meaning and Find Passion: Tips and Questions to Get You Started