The neuroscience of finding your purpose

The neuroscience of finding your purpose

written by
Lewis Corse

Imagine a time where you feel so meaningfully engaged with your work that negative emotions no longer have an effect on you.

You know exactly what you want and how to get it.

But best of all, you’re helping thousands of people along the way and you go to sleep each night with a sense of awe and gratitude, completely proud of yourself.

That’s what living with purpose is like.

Every action matters and you’re willing to change 100% of your life to align with it.

But what does life feel like without purpose?

Easy.

All of life’s suffering but without meaning.

You get easily caught up in arguments, annoyances and every opportunity that comes your way because you don’t have a guiding North Star.

In social settings you come across as dull, boring and uninterested because nothing energises you. And you have no reason to wake up in the mornings.

So how can we discover our purpose? And is it even worth discovering?

According to neuroscience, it’s actually worth discovering more than doing anything else in your life.

Because it turns out, feeling a sense of purpose isn’t just some flashy idea for us to achieve once our to do lists are done, but it fundamentally changes the way our brain operates.

As flow researcher Steven Kotler highlights in his book the art of impossible.

So let’s cover how purpose changes the brain and how you can discover yours.

How purpose changes the brain:

Before we jump into the 2 protocols to help you discover your purpose, let’s nerd out about the neuroscience.

Firstly, and most importantly, feeling a sense of purpose decreases reactivity in the amygdala (the part of the brain which regulates fear and anxiety).

I can vouch for this. I’d say I know exactly what my purpose is and since the past few months I’ve felt near to no anxiety about my future or what I’m doing with my life.

A less reactive amygdala also leads to less stress and greater resilience.

Additionally, purpose decreases the volume of the medial temporal cortex and increases the volume of the right insular cortex.

The medial temporal cortex is involved in how we perceive things, which suggests purpose alters how to interpret incoming information.

A larger right insular cortex also protects against depression and increases feelings of well-being.

In particular, purpose give us an external focus, turning our attention away from ourselves.

Perhaps we focus on a grander mission, a problem we want to solve in the world or how our actions could help others or our family.

An external focus helps us guard against obsessive self-rumination (which can cause anxiety and depression) by decreasing the activity of our default-mode network (which is in charge of rumination).

Instead, our executive attention network (used to govern plans and organise our lives) is kicked into gear.

But purpose isn’t a solo venture.

It actually allows us to relate better to others.

Purpose & increasing your social capital:

In the mid 1980s two professors changed the field of psychology completely.

After meeting on their university campus, Edward Deci and Richard Ryan made key discoveries in their self-determination theory.

They suggested we humans need 3 core things in order to thrive:

  • Autonomy
  • Competence
  • A feeling of relatedness

And it’s a feeling of relatedness which most relates to purpose.

Our purpose is a rally cry for like minded people to join and support our mission.

As the saying goes: “to go fast go alone. To go far, go together.”

Because we need to relate to others in order to thrive, our purpose must serve as transpersonal - above us, paving the way for anyone else who can help advance our mission to join our venture.

But we’ll cover this in more detail in a minute.

Because first, we’re going to cover exactly how you can discover your purpose right now.

HOW TO FIGURE OUT YOUR PURPOSE:

(1) Discover your passions (the notepad method):

First we must start with your passions. Because we’re going to turn these passions into purpose.

Your passions are what you’re interested in right now.

So grab a notepad and write down all your current interests on the page.

Aim to write down between 5-20.

Your passions are topics you’d like to spend an afternoon reading about, attend a lecture on or listen to a podcast about.

Then, once you’ve written them all down, start to look for patterns between all of them

For example, imagine you wrote down the following:

Passions:

  • The way Arsenal footballer Saka sprints after a ball
  • Running speed in wingers in football
  • Nutritional intake for performance
  • Afrobeats dancing
  • Cooking
  • Why are sloths so slow?
  • Amazon rainforest tribes

You could combine the interests of “the way saka sprints after a ball / running speed in wingers in football / nutrition intake for performance” into the field of sports science.

Note: we are passionate about what we’re curious about. But if we feel too much stress around a topic and not enough autonomy to pursue it, stress increases and out learning ability decreases with it.

The next step is to allow your curiosity to guide you into learning about that thing.

So you buy a book about sports science and listen to a few podcasts.

Then after a week or so, engage the process of incubation (aka unconscious pattern recognition) by stepping away from the topic and digesting it.

When you do this, you allow your active unconscious to cross reference what you’ve learned with old information you have stored in your cranium. Thus finding patterns.

The next steps to developing your passions are: history, language and going public.

First, as you delve deeper into the field which peaks your curiosity (in this case sports nutrition), pay attention to the past narratives of that field.

How did the field get started? Who were the early pioneers?

Then start learning the specific vocabulary within that field that the professionals use.

Finally, once you’ve been learning for a few days or so, and you feel you’ve got a better understanding on the topics, it’s time to go public.

Start talking to people about what you’ve learned, join online or in person communities of people who are interested in the same topic, network with like minded people.

This will give you the necessary positive feedback to see if what you’re talking about lights a fire within you, rather than just being a topic you’re kinda interested in.

But only go public after you’ve done the first two, otherwise you’ll come across as a mumbling maniac talking nonsense.

However, passion alone makes us self-centred.

So next we must turn our passions into purpose.

(2) How to turn your passions into PURPOSE

To discover your purpose, again grab your notepad.

But this time write down all the current issues, in your personal life and in the world and society at large that you want to see solved.

Aim to write between 5-15.

These are the problems that keep you up at night.

But make sure you’re specific.

Note:

“Protecting wildlife” is about as broad as a sheet of plaster board.

So change it for “establish mega-linkages to protect biodiversity”.

Then, grab the notes you made on your passions and start scanning for the overlaps between your passions and problems you want to see solved.

For example:

Imagine your passions are:

  • Nutrition
  • Cooking
  • Speed of wingers in football
  • Afrobeats
  • Amazon rainforest tribes

And the problems you want to see solved are:

  • Food deprivation in third world countries
  • Establishing mega-linkages to protect biodiversity
  • The mental health crisis in young adults

The overlaps you could find might be:

  • Establishing sustainable food sources for food deprived young adults across the world

That’s your purpose.

In his book, the art of impossible, Steven Kotler implores us to take our purpose to the next level by making it an MTP:

  • Massively
  • Transformative
  • Purpose

Massively means it’s large and audacious.

Transformative brings significant change to a community, industry or the planet.

And the purpose highlights a clear WHY behind the work you’re doing.

Your MTP is the dream you hunt. The infinite game you’re playing.

And in order for it to be sustainable, it must be monetizeable as well.

Finally, please note:

Uncovering your purpose might take time to fully come to fruition.

So approach it with a hobby mindset.

For example, Steven Kotler always knew he wanted to be a writer. But for was a bartender for 10 years whilst writing on the side before he became a full time writer.

So the process is as follows:

Curiosity into passion, passion into purpose, purpose into patient profit.

In summary:

  • Purpose changes your brain by decreasing activity in the amygdala and increases volume in the right insular cortex (guarding against depression and anxiety)
  • To discover your purpose; first begin with your passions
  • What are you currently curious about? What interests you now?
  • Then turn those passions into purpose but overlapping what you’re curious about with problems you want to see solved in the world
  • Then study your notes to find your MTP massively, transformative purpose

All the best ;)

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