how can you use critical thinking in finding your purpose

Psychologily

Finding Your Purpose: A Guide to Discovering Your Life’s Meaning

Finding your purpose can give you a sense of direction and fulfillment that can improve your overall well-being. Have you ever felt like you’re just going through the motions of life without any real purpose? It’s a familiar feeling but doesn’t have to be permanent.  In this article, we’ll explore some practical steps you can take to discover your purpose and live a more meaningful life.

The first step to finding your purpose is to identify what drives you. What are the things that make you feel alive and energized? Is it helping others, creating art, solving complex problems, or something else entirely? By understanding your passions and interests, you can see patterns and themes that can guide you towards your purpose. In the following sections, we’ll explore some exercises you can do to help uncover your passions and interests.

Once you understand what drives you, the next step is to apply your skills toward contributing to the greater good in a way that matters to you. This is where you can explore different career paths or volunteer opportunities that align with your purpose. It’s important to note that purpose doesn’t have to be tied to a specific job or career. You can also find purpose in your personal life, such as through hobbies or relationships. Throughout this article, we’ll provide some tips on how to integrate your purpose into different areas of your life.

Understanding the Concept of Purpose

Defining purpose.

When we talk about purpose, we refer to the reason why we exist and why we wake up every day and do what we do. The driving force behind our actions is the motivation that propels us forward. The purpose is not a fixed destination but rather a journey that evolves. It is a personal and subjective concept that is unique to each individual.

Our purpose can manifest in different forms, such as career goals, personal relationships, or community involvement. It can also be a combination of various aspects of our lives. The important thing is that it gives us a sense of meaning and fulfillment.

Importance of Purpose in Life

Having a sense of purpose is crucial for our overall well-being. It gives us direction and focus and helps us make sense of our experiences. Without purpose, we may feel lost or disconnected and struggle to find meaning.

Research has shown that a strong sense of purpose is associated with many positive outcomes, including better physical and mental health, increased resilience, and greater happiness and fulfillment. It can also help us navigate challenging times and overcome obstacles.

In short, purpose is a fundamental aspect of our lives that significantly impacts our overall well-being. We should strive to cultivate and nurture it throughout our lives.

Finding Your Purpose: Self-Reflection

When finding our purpose, self-reflection is an important first step. Examining our thoughts, feelings, actions, and motivations can help us gain clarity about what truly matters to us. Here are some sub-sections that can guide us in our self-reflection journey:

Identifying Your Values

Our values are the things that are most important to us. They are the guiding principles that shape our decisions and actions. Identifying our values can help us understand what we stand for and want to achieve. To identify our values, we can ask ourselves questions like:

• What makes me feel fulfilled?
• What do I care about most?
• What kind of person do I want to be?
• What kind of impact do I want to have on the world?

Once we have identified our values, we can use them to guide our decisions and actions and ensure that we align with what truly matters to us.

Recognizing Your Passions

Our passions are the things that bring us joy and fulfillment. They are the activities we love to do and make us feel alive. Recognizing our passions can help us identify the areas where we can make the most significant impact and find the most fulfillment. To acknowledge our passions, we can ask ourselves questions like:

• What activities make me lose track of time?
• What hobbies do I enjoy the most?
• What topics do I love to learn about?
• What kind of work would I do even if I didn’t get paid for it?

Once we have recognized our passions, we can look for ways to incorporate them into our daily lives and pursue them more intentionally.

Acknowledging Your Strengths

Our strengths are the things that we are naturally good at. They are the skills and abilities that come quickly to us and that we enjoy using. Acknowledging our strengths can help us identify the areas where we can make the most significant impact and find the most fulfillment. To recognize our strengths, we can ask ourselves questions like:

• What tasks do I excel at?
• What skills do I enjoy using?
• What do others compliment me on?
• What accomplishments am I most proud of?

Once we have acknowledged our strengths, we can look for ways to use them more intentionally and develop them further. By leveraging our strengths, we can significantly impact and find more fulfillment in our work and lives.

Self-reflection is an ongoing process that can help us discover our purpose and live a more fulfilling life. By identifying our values, recognizing our passions, and acknowledging our strengths, we can gain clarity about what truly matters to us and find the right path.

Finding Your Purpose: Setting Goals

Setting goals is an essential step in finding purpose. It helps us identify what we want to achieve and directs us to move forward. In this section, we will discuss short-term and long-term goals.

Short-Term Goals

We want to achieve short-term goals in the near future, usually within a few months to a year. They are stepping stones towards achieving our long-term goals. Here are some tips for setting short-term goals:

• Be specific: Define your goals clearly and make them measurable. For example, instead of saying, “I want to exercise more,” say, “I want to exercise for 30 minutes three times a week.”
• Be realistic: Set goals that are achievable within your current situation. Don’t set yourself up for failure by aiming too high.
• Write them down: Putting your goals in writing makes them more accurate and helps you to stay accountable.
• Break them down: If your long-term goal seems overwhelming, break it down into smaller, more manageable short-term goals.

Long-Term Goals

We want to achieve long-term goals over a more extended period, usually several years. They are the big-picture goals that give us direction and purpose. Here are some tips for setting long-term goals:

• Be specific: Just like with short-term goals, define your long-term goals clearly and make them measurable. For example, instead of saying, “I want to be successful,” say, “I want to start my own business and make a profit of $100,000 within five years.”
• Be realistic: Set achievable goals within your current situation but also challenging enough to push you out of your comfort zone.
• Visualize: Picture yourself achieving your long-term goals and what it will look like. This will help motivate you to keep working towards them.
• Write them down: Putting your goals in writing makes them more real and helps you to stay accountable.
• Break them down: Break your long-term goals into smaller, more manageable short-term ones. This will help you to stay on track and measure your progress.

Setting goals is an essential step in finding purpose. Short-term goals are stepping stones toward achieving long-term goals. When setting goals, be specific realistic, and write them down. Break down your long-term goals into smaller, more manageable short-term goals.

Finding Your Purpose: Taking Action

When it comes to finding our life purpose, taking action is crucial. Without action, our dreams and aspirations will remain just that – dreams and aspirations. In this section, we will discuss two essential sub-sections to help us take steps toward finding our life purpose.

Creating a Plan

Creating a plan is the first step toward taking action. With a plan, we may feel safe and confident about what to do next. To create a plan, we need to identify and break our goals into smaller, manageable steps. We can use a table or a bullet point list to organize our plan and make it easier to follow.

Breaking down our goals into smaller steps makes them more manageable and helps us stay motivated as we can see our progress along the way.

Staying Motivated

Staying motivated is the second crucial step towards taking action. It can be easy to lose motivation when we encounter obstacles or setbacks. To stay motivated, we need to remind ourselves of our why – why we started on this journey in the first place.

One way to stay motivated is to create a vision board. A vision board is a visual representation of our goals and aspirations. We can create a board using images, quotes, and affirmations that inspire and motivate us. We can place the board somewhere we will see it every day, such as our bedroom or office.

Another way to stay motivated is to find an accountability partner. An accountability partner will hold us accountable for our actions and provide support and encouragement. We can share our goals and progress with our partners and vice versa.

Finding Your Purpose: Overcoming Obstacles

When trying to find our purpose, we will inevitably encounter obstacles. However, it’s important not to let these obstacles hold us back and prevent us from achieving our goals. This section will discuss two important sub-sections to help us overcome obstacles: Handling Failure and Maintaining Resilience.

Handling Failure

Failure is a natural part of the journey towards finding our purpose. It’s important to reframe our thinking about failure and view it as an opportunity for growth rather than a setback. When we fail, we can learn from our mistakes and use that knowledge to make better decisions in the future.

One way to handle failure is to practice self-compassion. We must be kind to ourselves and recognize that failure does not reflect our worth as individuals. We can also seek support from others, whether it be through talking to friends or family or seeking guidance from a mentor.

Maintaining Resilience

Resilience is the ability to bounce back from adversity. It’s an important trait to develop when overcoming obstacles and finding our purpose. To maintain resilience, we must care for ourselves physically and mentally.

One way to maintain resilience is to prioritize self-care. This can include getting enough sleep, exercising regularly, and eating a healthy diet. We can also practice mindfulness and meditation to help us stay present and focused.

Another way to maintain resilience is to cultivate a growth mindset. We must believe that we can learn and grow, even in the face of challenges. This can help us stay motivated and focused on our goals, even when things get tough.

In conclusion, overcoming obstacles is an integral part of finding our purpose. By handling failure with compassion and maintaining resilience through self-care and a growth mindset, we can overcome any obstacle that comes our way.

Finding Your Purpose: Continuous Learning

Continuous learning is an essential part of finding purpose in our lives. It is the process of acquiring new skills and knowledge continually over time. By constantly learning and upskilling, we can develop personally and professionally, open doors to new opportunities, and achieve our full potential. This section will discuss two sub-sections that can help us in continuous learning.

Seeking New Experiences

One of the best ways to learn is by seeking new experiences. Trying new things can help us gain new perspectives, learn new skills, and develop new interests. For example, we can take up a new hobby, travel to a new place, or attend a workshop or conference related to our field of interest. By stepping out of our comfort zone and experiencing new things, we can broaden our horizons and learn more about ourselves and the world around us.

Constant Self-Evaluation

Another important aspect of continuous learning is constant self-evaluation. We must reflect on our experiences, successes, and failures. We can identify areas where we need to improve and set goals. We can also seek feedback from others, such as mentors or peers, to gain new insights and perspectives.

To help us with self-evaluation, we can create a personal development plan. This plan can include our goals, strategies for achieving them, and timelines for completion. We can also track our progress and make adjustments as necessary.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are some practical steps to finding your life’s purpose.

Finding your life’s purpose can seem like a daunting task, but there are practical steps you can take to help you along the way. First, take some time to reflect on your values, interests, and passions. Consider what activities bring you joy and fulfillment. Next, set some goals and take action towards them. Don’t be afraid to try new things and explore different paths. Finally, seek out support from friends, family, or a mentor who can provide guidance and encouragement.

How can taking a purpose quiz help you discover your passions?

Taking a purpose quiz can be a helpful tool in discovering your passions and interests. These quizzes are designed to help you identify your strengths, values, and goals. They can provide insight into what motivates you and what you find fulfilling. However, it’s important to remember that these quizzes are not a definitive answer to finding your life’s purpose. They are simply a starting point for self-reflection and exploration.

What are some common misconceptions about finding your purpose?

One common misconception about finding your purpose is that it is a one-time event or that it can be found through external validation or success. In reality, finding your purpose is an ongoing process that requires self-reflection, exploration, and growth. Another misconception is that your purpose is a specific job or career. While your career can certainly be aligned with your purpose, it is not the only way to fulfill it.

How can faith or spirituality play a role in finding your purpose?

Faith or spirituality can provide a sense of meaning and purpose for many people. It can help you connect with something greater than yourself and provide a framework for making decisions and living a fulfilling life. If you are exploring your purpose and feel drawn to a particular spiritual tradition or practice, consider exploring it further and seeking guidance from a trusted spiritual leader or community.

What are some ways to overcome obstacles in finding your purpose?

Obstacles are a natural part of the journey towards finding your purpose. Some common obstacles include fear, self-doubt, and external pressures. To overcome these obstacles, it can be helpful to practice self-compassion and self-care. Take time to reflect on your values and goals, and remember that setbacks and failures are a natural part of the process. Seek out support from friends, family, or a therapist if needed.

How can identifying your values and strengths lead to finding your purpose?

Identifying your values and strengths can be a helpful starting point in discovering your purpose. Your values represent what is important to you, while your strengths represent what you are good at. By aligning your values and strengths with your goals and actions, you can create a sense of purpose and fulfillment in your life. Take time to reflect on what matters most to you and what you excel at, and consider how you can use these to make a positive impact in the world.

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Work Life is Atlassian’s flagship publication dedicated to unleashing the potential of every team through real-life advice, inspiring stories, and thoughtful perspectives from leaders around the world.

Contributing Writer

Work Futurist

Senior Quantitative Researcher, People Insights

Principal Writer

How to build critical thinking skills for better decision-making

It’s simple in theory, but tougher in practice – here are five tips to get you started.

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Have you heard the riddle about two coins that equal thirty cents, but one of them is not a nickel? What about the one where a surgeon says they can’t operate on their own son?

Those brain teasers tap into your critical thinking skills. But your ability to think critically isn’t just helpful for solving those random puzzles – it plays a big role in your career. 

An impressive 81% of employers say critical thinking carries a lot of weight when they’re evaluating job candidates. It ranks as the top competency companies consider when hiring recent graduates (even ahead of communication ). Plus, once you’re hired, several studies show that critical thinking skills are highly correlated with better job performance.

So what exactly are critical thinking skills? And even more importantly, how do you build and improve them? 

What is critical thinking?

Critical thinking is the ability to evaluate facts and information, remain objective, and make a sound decision about how to move forward.

Does that sound like how you approach every decision or problem? Not so fast. Critical thinking seems simple in theory but is much tougher in practice, which helps explain why 65% of employers say their organization has a need for more critical thinking. 

In reality, critical thinking doesn’t come naturally to a lot of us. In order to do it well, you need to:

• Remain open-minded and inquisitive, rather than relying on assumptions or jumping to conclusions
• Ask questions and dig deep, rather than accepting information at face value
• Keep your own biases and perceptions in check to stay as objective as possible
• Rely on your emotional intelligence to fill in the blanks and gain a more well-rounded understanding of a situation

So, critical thinking isn’t just being intelligent or analytical. In many ways, it requires you to step outside of yourself, let go of your own preconceived notions, and approach a problem or situation with curiosity and fairness.

It’s a challenge, but it’s well worth it. Critical thinking skills will help you connect ideas, make reasonable decisions, and solve complex problems.

7 critical thinking skills to help you dig deeper

Critical thinking is often labeled as a skill itself (you’ll see it bulleted as a desired trait in a variety of job descriptions). But it’s better to think of critical thinking less as a distinct skill and more as a collection or category of skills. 

To think critically, you’ll need to tap into a bunch of your other soft skills. Here are seven of the most important. 

Open-mindedness

It’s important to kick off the critical thinking process with the idea that anything is possible. The more you’re able to set aside your own suspicions, beliefs, and agenda, the better prepared you are to approach the situation with the level of inquisitiveness you need. 

That means not closing yourself off to any possibilities and allowing yourself the space to pull on every thread – yes, even the ones that seem totally implausible.

As Christopher Dwyer, Ph.D. writes in a piece for Psychology Today , “Even if an idea appears foolish, sometimes its consideration can lead to an intelligent, critically considered conclusion.” He goes on to compare the critical thinking process to brainstorming . Sometimes the “bad” ideas are what lay the foundation for the good ones. 

Open-mindedness is challenging because it requires more effort and mental bandwidth than sticking with your own perceptions. Approaching problems or situations with true impartiality often means:

• Practicing self-regulation : Giving yourself a pause between when you feel something and when you actually react or take action.
• Challenging your own biases: Acknowledging your biases and seeking feedback are two powerful ways to get a broader understanding. 

Critical thinking example

In a team meeting, your boss mentioned that your company newsletter signups have been decreasing and she wants to figure out why.

At first, you feel offended and defensive – it feels like she’s blaming you for the dip in subscribers. You recognize and rationalize that emotion before thinking about potential causes. You have a hunch about what’s happening, but you will explore all possibilities and contributions from your team members.

Observation

Observation is, of course, your ability to notice and process the details all around you (even the subtle or seemingly inconsequential ones). Critical thinking demands that you’re flexible and willing to go beyond surface-level information, and solid observation skills help you do that.

Your observations help you pick up on clues from a variety of sources and experiences, all of which help you draw a final conclusion. After all, sometimes it’s the most minuscule realization that leads you to the strongest conclusion.

Over the next week or so, you keep a close eye on your company’s website and newsletter analytics to see if numbers are in fact declining or if your boss’s concerns were just a fluke. 

Critical thinking hinges on objectivity. And, to be objective, you need to base your judgments on the facts – which you collect through research. You’ll lean on your research skills to gather as much information as possible that’s relevant to your problem or situation. 

Keep in mind that this isn’t just about the quantity of information – quality matters too. You want to find data and details from a variety of trusted sources to drill past the surface and build a deeper understanding of what’s happening. 

You dig into your email and website analytics to identify trends in bounce rates, time on page, conversions, and more. You also review recent newsletters and email promotions to understand what customers have received, look through current customer feedback, and connect with your customer support team to learn what they’re hearing in their conversations with customers.

The critical thinking process is sort of like a treasure hunt – you’ll find some nuggets that are fundamental for your final conclusion and some that might be interesting but aren’t pertinent to the problem at hand.

That’s why you need analytical skills. They’re what help you separate the wheat from the chaff, prioritize information, identify trends or themes, and draw conclusions based on the most relevant and influential facts. 

It’s easy to confuse analytical thinking with critical thinking itself, and it’s true there is a lot of overlap between the two. But analytical thinking is just a piece of critical thinking. It focuses strictly on the facts and data, while critical thinking incorporates other factors like emotions, opinions, and experiences. 

As you analyze your research, you notice that one specific webpage has contributed to a significant decline in newsletter signups. While all of the other sources have stayed fairly steady with regard to conversions, that one has sharply decreased.

You decide to move on from your other hypotheses about newsletter quality and dig deeper into the analytics. 

One of the traps of critical thinking is that it’s easy to feel like you’re never done. There’s always more information you could collect and more rabbit holes you could fall down.

But at some point, you need to accept that you’ve done your due diligence and make a decision about how to move forward. That’s where inference comes in. It’s your ability to look at the evidence and facts available to you and draw an informed conclusion based on those. 

When you’re so focused on staying objective and pursuing all possibilities, inference can feel like the antithesis of critical thinking. But ultimately, it’s your inference skills that allow you to move out of the thinking process and onto the action steps. 

You dig deeper into the analytics for the page that hasn’t been converting and notice that the sharp drop-off happened around the same time you switched email providers.

After looking more into the backend, you realize that the signup form on that page isn’t correctly connected to your newsletter platform. It seems like anybody who has signed up on that page hasn’t been fed to your email list. 

Communication

3 ways to improve your communication skills at work

If and when you identify a solution or answer, you can’t keep it close to the vest. You’ll need to use your communication skills to share your findings with the relevant stakeholders – like your boss, team members, or anybody who needs to be involved in the next steps.

Your analysis skills will come in handy here too, as they’ll help you determine what information other people need to know so you can avoid bogging them down with unnecessary details. 

In your next team meeting, you pull up the analytics and show your team the sharp drop-off as well as the missing connection between that page and your email platform. You ask the web team to reinstall and double-check that connection and you also ask a member of the marketing team to draft an apology email to the subscribers who were missed. 

Problem-solving

Critical thinking and problem-solving are two more terms that are frequently confused. After all, when you think critically, you’re often doing so with the objective of solving a problem.

The best way to understand how problem-solving and critical thinking differ is to think of problem-solving as much more narrow. You’re focused on finding a solution.

In contrast, you can use critical thinking for a variety of use cases beyond solving a problem – like answering questions or identifying opportunities for improvement. Even so, within the critical thinking process, you’ll flex your problem-solving skills when it comes time to take action. 

Once the fix is implemented, you monitor the analytics to see if subscribers continue to increase. If not (or if they increase at a slower rate than you anticipated), you’ll roll out some other tests like changing the CTA language or the placement of the subscribe form on the page.

5 ways to improve your critical thinking skills

Beyond the buzzwords: Why interpersonal skills matter at work

Think critically about critical thinking and you’ll quickly realize that it’s not as instinctive as you’d like it to be. Fortunately, your critical thinking skills are learned competencies and not inherent gifts – and that means you can improve them. Here’s how:

• Practice active listening: Active listening helps you process and understand what other people share. That’s crucial as you aim to be open-minded and inquisitive.
• Ask open-ended questions: If your critical thinking process involves collecting feedback and opinions from others, ask open-ended questions (meaning, questions that can’t be answered with “yes” or “no”). Doing so will give you more valuable information and also prevent your own biases from influencing people’s input.
• Scrutinize your sources: Figuring out what to trust and prioritize is crucial for critical thinking. Boosting your media literacy and asking more questions will help you be more discerning about what to factor in. It’s hard to strike a balance between skepticism and open-mindedness, but approaching information with questions (rather than unquestioning trust) will help you draw better conclusions. 
• Play a game: Remember those riddles we mentioned at the beginning? As trivial as they might seem, games and exercises like those can help you boost your critical thinking skills. There are plenty of critical thinking exercises you can do individually or as a team . 
• Give yourself time: Research shows that rushed decisions are often regrettable ones. That’s likely because critical thinking takes time – you can’t do it under the wire. So, for big decisions or hairy problems, give yourself enough time and breathing room to work through the process. It’s hard enough to think critically without a countdown ticking in your brain. 

Critical thinking really is critical

The ability to think critically is important, but it doesn’t come naturally to most of us. It’s just easier to stick with biases, assumptions, and surface-level information. 

But that route often leads you to rash judgments, shaky conclusions, and disappointing decisions. So here’s a conclusion we can draw without any more noodling: Even if it is more demanding on your mental resources, critical thinking is well worth the effort.

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