"True purpose is human" Simon Sinek
The United Nations set 17 purpose streams
From ending poverty to greater equality to protecting the planet.
We all grow up with different experiences and beginnings that shape our passions and purposes through the emotions we feel along the way. Whether you are passionate about the ocean, women's education, or ending extreme poverty. These 17 goals provide a framework to help you find your purpose and find others who believe in what you believe in.
One key message
You are not alone, we never have been. Find your purpose and give it to the world.
When you take the purpose test, you discover which of the 17 global goals is your No.1 purpose
What Is Purpose?
To psychologists, the purpose is an abiding intention to achieve a long-term goal that is both personally meaningful and makes a positive mark on the world. The goals that foster a sense of purpose are ones that can potentially change the lives of other people, like launching an organization, researching a disease, or teaching kids to read.
Our sense of purpose will change over the course of our lifetime. As we grapple with our identity as teens, settle into the responsibilities of adulthood, and make the shift to retirement, the research finds that our sense of purpose will naturally wax and wane.
Like happiness, the purpose is not a destination, but a journey and a practice. That means it’s accessible at any age, if we’re willing to explore what matters to us and what kind of person we want to be—and act to become that person.
If we’re able to revisit and renew our sense of purpose as we navigate milestones and transitions, suggests this research, then we can look forward to more satisfying, meaningful lives.
What is my purpose?
Have you ever asked yourself this question? For me it became clear when I asked myself some simple questions.
- If I imagined that time and money were not a driving force for my decisions. What would I wake up and do tomorrow?
- What type of person would I be?
- What type of lifestyle would I live?
- Who would I spend most of valuable time with?
- What would I spend most of my time doing?
- What would my purpose be, when I took me out of the equation and started to think in terms of WE.
- What type of legacy would I like to live and leave
- How could I plant metaphorical and literal trees that I may never have the chance to sit under?
- What type of future do I imagine for my children, their children and yours too.
This short video by Alan Watts may help get the mental juices flowing!
WHAT IS OUR PURPOSE?
It might not be a surprise to you, but here is my purpose, it also happens to be the purpose of this entire platform and ecosystem. The beautiful thing about these 17 sustainable development goals, is that if we have a similar purpose. We can work together as individuals, families, communities and even conscious enterprises to help solve these challenges from our own front doorstep. Without waiting for governments or not-for-profit organizations to do it for us.
6 reasons to Pursue Purpose?
Researchers have discovered that a sense of purpose is linked to a number of good outcomes, across the lifespan, for both individuals and organizations.
- Youth who have a sense of purpose also report higher levels of happiness and life satisfaction—which seems associated with better educational outcomes. One study looked at college students who wanted to help others, create art, or achieve financial success. The researchers didn’t find significant differences in positive outcomes among the groups. For young people, it was just good to have a goal, no matter what it was.
- For young and old alike, the physical benefits of a sense of purpose are well-documented. For example, Eric Kim and his colleagues at Harvard’s School of Public Health have found that people who report higher levels of purpose at one point in time have objectively better physical agility four years later than those who report less purpose.
- Patrick Hill and his Washington University colleagues have found important advantages for more purposeful adults, including better cognitive functioning and greater longevity. They’re more likely to floss their teeth, exercise, and get to the doctor. Why? Researchers suggest that people take better care of themselves when they feel like they have something to live for. Having a purpose also seems to be associated with lower stress levels, overall, which contributes to better health.
- Do some purposes confer more benefits than others? The answer so far is yes—if you are older. One study found that young adults with a more “prosocial” purpose—one aimed at helping others—experienced greater personal growth, integrity, and health later in adulthood. This result was echoed by a 2019 study by Anne Colby and colleagues at Stanford University. They surveyed almost 1,200 Americans in their midlife about their well-being and what goals were important to them. The researchers found significantly higher well-being among people who were involved in pursuing beyond-the-self goals, compared to those who were pursuing other types of goals. In other words, engaging in prosocial goals had more impact on well-being than engaging in non-prosocial goals.
- Indeed, looking beyond individual lives, a sense of purpose appears to have evolved in humans so that we can cooperate and accomplish big things together. A 2007 study suggests that managers can effectively boost the work experience and well-being of their employees by helping them connect to a job-related higher purpose. The 2013 Core Beliefs and Culture Survey revealed that 91 percent of respondents who believe that their company has a strong sense of purpose also say it has a history of strong financial performance.
- The purpose is adaptive, in an evolutionary sense. It helps both individuals and the species to survive and thrive. Purpose often grows from our connection to others, which is why a crisis of purpose is often a symptom of isolation. Once you find your path, you’ll almost certainly find others traveling along with you, hoping to reach the same destination—a community.
6 Ways How You Too Can Cultivate Purpose
According to research by Kendall Cotton Bronk, finding one’s purpose requires four key components: dedicated commitment, personal meaningfulness, goal-directedness, and a vision larger than one’s self.
Often, finding our purpose involves a combination of finding meaning in the experiences we’ve had, while assessing our values, skills, and hopes for a better world. It means taking time for personal reflection while imagining our ideal future.
Here are some exercises purpose researchers recommend for finding your purpose in life:
- The Magic Wand: Think about the world around you — your home, community, the world at large—and visualize what you would change if you had a magic wand and could change anything. Then ask yourself, why you chose what you did and consider concrete steps you might take to move the world a little closer to that ideal. This exercise has been used to foster purpose in youth and young adults, in particular.
- Best Possible Self: Imagine yourself at some future age — like 10 or 20 years down the road—and think about what your life would be like if everything went as well as possible. Then ask yourself these questions: What are you doing? What is important to you? What do you really care about, and why? Focusing on an ideal self can increase optimism for the future, which researchers believe is tied to purpose
- Clarify your values: If it’s hard to figure out what matters most to you, affirming your values can help. Three values surveys—the Valued Living Questionnaire, the Portrait Values Questionnaire, and the Personal Values Questionnaire—ask you to rank the importance of different values, something that can help you get clearer about your purpose.
- Recognize your strengths: To get a handle on your particular skills, try the VIA Character Strengths Survey to see what it reveals about you. Or, you can contact people who know you—teachers, friends, family, colleagues, and mentors—and ask them what you’re good at, what you seem to like to do, and how you might make your mark on the world. Sometimes an outsider’s opinion can help clarify your personal strengths and help you figure out how best to apply them.
- Volunteer: Finding purpose is aided by having a broad set of meaningful experiences that can point you in the right direction. Volunteering expands your experience, while also improving your well-being and helping the world. Not only that, volunteering puts you in touch with people who have similar values, who may inspire you or point you toward other opportunities for making a difference that you hadn’t thought of before.
- Cultivate positive emotions: Positive emotions help us to broaden our outlook on the world and feel energized to take action for the greater good; so they can be useful for finding purpose. Gratitude and awe, in particular, help us care about others, build relationships, and feel connected to something greater than ourselves, which is why they’re tied to fostering purpose. You can try our website, Greater Good in Action, to find exercises that will help bolster your sense of purpose — and make you happier, too.
BUSINESSES FOR POSITIVE CHANGE
Businessman and philanthropist Richard Branson presented a petition to the UN General Assembly, urging governments to protect at least 30 percent oceans by 2030
'Now citizens are calling on governments to execute on this. The ocean covers two-thirds of the planet yet today less than 3 percent is strongly protected.
The science says we need to protect at least 30 percent. Through this petition, over 1 million people from around the world have called for action to reach this ambitious target.
I am pleased to add my voice and look forward to working with political and business leaders and citizens to make it a reality, Branson said."
Businesses can mobilize people to solve global challenges together with governments and not-for-profit enterprises. It has become a WE game, not just a ME or THEM game.
Companies Benefit Society - Leaders go first
BlackRock’s Message: Contribute to Society, or Risk Losing Our Support
Laurence D. Fink, the chief executive of BlackRock, will tell companies they need to contribute to society to receive his firm’s support.
Mr. Fink has the clout to make this kind of demand:
His firm manages more than $6 trillion (nearly 15% of the 40 trillion global monetary flow) in investments through 401(k) plans, exchange-traded funds, and mutual funds, making it the largest investor in the world, and he has an outsize influence on whether directors are voted on and off boards.
“Society is demanding that companies, both public and private, serve a social purpose,” he wrote in a draft of the letter “To prosper over time, every company must not only deliver financial performance but also show how it makes a positive contribution to society.”
It is a refrain that we’re hearing more and more from various pockets of the business community, and in fact, last year company leaders found themselves taking stands on issues like immigration policy, race relations, gay rights, and more.
The question is. What do you stand for? Take the purpose Test.
“In the case of Apple,”
In a surprising twist, even activist investors are taking up social causes. Jana Partners and Calstrs, the huge California retirement system that manages the pensions of the state’s public school teachers, wrote a letter to Apple last week demanding that it focus more on the detrimental effects its products may have on children. Jana wrote....
“We believe the long-term health of its youngest customers and the health of society, our economy, and the company itself, are inextricably linked.”
The chief executive of Whole Foods, John Mackey, once referred to Jana as “greedy bastards” when the firm was attacking him. But here was Jana espousing the importance of issues like public health, human capital management, and environmental protection, and saying that
“companies pursuing business practices that make short-term sense may be undermining their own long-term viability.”
Mr. Fink makes a point in his letter that the recent corporate tax cut could bring out the kind of activist investors he once denounced.
“Tax changes will embolden those activists with a short-term focus to demand answers on the use of increased cash flows,” he said, “and companies who have not already developed and explained their plans will find it difficult to defend against these campaigns.”
Larry Fink also added a dollop of reality to the debate. Noting “widespread aversion” to things like capitalism, profits, and the “soulless corporation,”.
He wrote that....
social responsibility is “one way for a corporation to generate goodwill as a byproduct of expenditures that are entirely justified in its own self-interest.”
Millenials 80% more likely to work with and buy from...
In 2015, Nielson published its annual Global Corporate Sustainability Report. It indicated that, globally, 66% of consumers are willing to spend more on a product if it comes from a sustainable brand.
As our population gets older, millennials are getting closer and closer to snatching the baton away from Boomers — not to mention the largest transfer of wealth in the history of the world.
How are millennials going to collectively spend that $30 trillion? Nobody’s really sure yet, but one thing is clear: Millennials have distinct values, predilections, habits, and fears tied to their earning and spending habits, same as the older generations always did.
Millennials on average are more risk-averse and are less likely to spend money unnecessarily than previous generations. But when millennials do decide to part with their money, key patterns are beginning to emerge. Millennials prefer to do business with corporations and brands with pro-social messages, sustainable manufacturing methods and ethical business standards.
Millennials gave an even more impressive showing, with 73% of surveyed millennials indicating a similar preference. Additionally, 81% of millennials even expect their favorite companies to make public declarations of their corporate citizenship.
SUMMARY
Whether you are trying to find your own personal fulfillment, get investment from the largest contributors in the world, or be in front of the largest money swap in history driven by Millenials. You will need to have a purpose. Something you stand for and declare publicly with transparency, social accountability, and transparency.
Our purpose: UN SDG3 - Good health and wellbeing
Our Social Accountability: Keep us accountable to our Impact Meter Here
We are a Business for Good: https://b1g1.com/b1g1-champion
Become b Corp Certified: https://www.bcorporation.net/
B Lab is the nonprofit network transforming the global economy to benefit all people, communities, and the planet.
We won't stop until all business is a force for good.
CALL TO ACTION
- TAKE THE PURPOSE TEST
- If you would like to take massive action. Become a business for good.
- Cultivate your purpose in one of the ways suggested.
Share your results and insights with the SelfCare Community Here
SUMMARY
We have turned this purpose into impact and accountability. See our Impact Meter here. We teamed up with B1g1 (business for good) to create real social impact, in real-time. A cool example that you too can model.
SelfCare Global
REFERENCES
With all our REFERENCES We have done our best to reference everyone’s expert opinions, peer-reviewed science, and original thoughts, HIGHLIGHTED IN THE TEXT. So that you can go direct to the source as you read.
Here are is our referencing process
Here are the 8 points of reference that we consider with each article. We consider what is known, unknown, nature, your innate wisdom, science, ancient wisdom, evidence-based practice, the hierarchy of evidence, and even the energetic laws that we are yet to understand or quantify.
