Is choosing the right life purpose the key to happiness?

A new study led by Dr Steve Taylor, a senior lecturer in Psychology at Leeds Beckett University, has looked at the different types of life purpose and how they relate to happiness.

There are seven types of life purpose:

• No purpose – a sense that life lacks direction, meaning, or an overarching goal

• Survival - focusing primarily on meeting basic needs such as food, shelter, safety and security

• Religious - finding direction through religious faith or another established framework of meaning

• Personal – focused on pursuing wealth, career success, status or achievement

• Altruistic - focusing on helping others, reducing suffering or contributing positively to society

• Self-expansive - seeking personal growth, creativity, learning, fulfilment and the development of one's potential

• Transpersonal - experiencing purpose as something larger than the individual - something that seems to flow through a person rather than being consciously created by them. This type of purpose is often associated with a spiritual orientation.

The most common types of purpose of those who took part were self-expansive and altruistic. People who reported they had no purpose and who were focused on survival were the least happy. Those with a transpersonal purpose were the happiest overall with women being more likely than men to be oriented around this type of purpose. Transpersonal purpose also became more common with age.

In contrast, young people were more likely to identify with a personal-accumulative purpose which was focused on achievement. Older people were less oriented around a personal-accumulative purpose.

Dr Steve Taylor said:

“The participants’ responses gave a powerful insight into how people experience purpose in different ways. This shows that the kind of purpose we hold not only shapes our happiness but also changes across our lives.

“Those who reported no sense of purpose tended to report substantially lower levels of happiness. Survival purpose was also strongly negatively associated with happiness. Transpersonal purpose was strongly associated with happiness. A self-expansive purpose was linked to happiness too, although to a lesser degree. In contrast, people with a personal-accumulative purpose - the pursuit of wealth, career success, status and achievement -reported a lower level of happiness.

“These findings are significant in that they contradict the standard cultural assumption that happiness stems from achievement, success and wealth. Our study found that a focus on self-development and a transpersonal purpose is much more likely to bring happiness. In other words, making accumulation and achievement the central organising purpose of life does not provide the same psychological benefits as growth, contribution or a sense of connection.”