Increasingly individuals around the world are reporting a lack of purpose in life, which has negative impacts on mental health and wellbeing.
On the other hand, having a sense of purpose in life is an important factor for the betterment of overall psychological wellbeing and general health.
A recent systematic review found that individuals living with a purpose have improved perceptions that their life has meaning and value, resulting in increased happiness, life satisfaction and spirituality and decreased anxiety and suicidal thoughts.
Evidently, striving to find and live with purpose is a survival mechanism and basic human need, which motivates the search for purpose from the early stages of human development until late in life.
People who have a strong sense of purpose in life also have higher positive results on their wellbeing for example, individuals involved in regular contemplation on their purpose in life report enhanced quality of life, happiness and life satisfaction.
These findings support the notion that interventions focusing on contemplating one’s purpose may assist in providing meaning to one’s life. Once purpose and meaning in life are enhanced, an individual’s may strive for goals and actions.
Traditionally, purpose of life contemplation is associated with religious faiths. Regular practitioners of religious contemplative practices have given numerous anecdotal and testimonial accounts of their benefits to their mental health and wellbeing.
Faiths such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam contain contemplative practices that are focused on self-awareness, empathy or compassion cultivation as well as one’s purpose in life.
However, purpose of life contemplation does not require an individual to be aligned towards a religion and can be practiced by individuals with a secular worldview.
One contemplative practice stemming from religious roots which has made it to mainstream psychological interventions is mindfulness, which originated from Buddhism, thus many researchers are beginning to wonder if more meditative practices from other religions can also be integrated.
Employing contemplative interventions to increase purpose of life may be an avenue for future research on early intervention and prevention strategies.
These interventions primarily focus on individuals reflecting on their values, passions and goals, to identify with their ideal self and attain desired goals with applications in business and coaching psychology.
Contemplative interventions may benefit from more research into how dhikr, a meditative practice from the Islamic faith focusing on cultivating purpose in life may be integrated into mainstream psychotherapies.
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