The Meaning Of Life

The Meaning of Life

Universal Life Goals

Nathanael Garrett Novosel, April 23 2025

In my book, The Meaning of Life: A guide to finding your life’s purpose, I cover what people mean by “meaning” when they ask that question. The number one thing they mean by that is, “What goals should I have?” While “meaning” can refer to definition, purpose, significance, goals, or ethics, the one people most mean is goals. Why? Because...

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Meaning

Whether You Think That Life Has Meaning or Not, You’re Right

Nathanael Garrett Novosel, January 15 2025

There is a famous quote attributed to Henry Ford: "Whether you think you can, or you think you can't—you're right." While it's not 100% certain that he said that, it is generally accepted to be in line with his philosophy of life. The idea is that your beliefs affect your effort, which cause your reality to come true (either way). The psychology...

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The Meaning of Life

There’s No “Happily Ever After”—There’s Always the Next Thing

Nathanael Garrett Novosel, December 18 2024

There is a statement that will tell you everything you need to know about life. It explains the point and, therefore, how to approach it. It’s three simple words: “And then what?” When you understand this statement, you’ll understand life. There’s a famous video game series, Civilization, where the goal of the game (one of them, at least) was to...

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The Meaning of Life

Meaning Doesn’t Require You to Save the World

Nathanael Garrett Novosel, December 4 2024

When people talk about “higher” meaning or “greater” meaning, many of them know intuitively that it is about meaning outside themselves. But then they draw the logical conclusion that the more people they impact, the more meaning they’ll have and so they think that the best goal to have is to “change the world” or “save the world” for the...

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The Meaning of Life

Principles Behind The Meaning of Life Book

Nathanael Garrett Novosel, June 26 2024

When anyone writes a book, the first thing to figure out is what the book should be about. The second part is to figure out how to tell the story. When it comes to non-fiction specifically, that entails understanding what information to include, how to convey the information, and what you want the reader to take away from the information. As with...

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Meaning

What If You Don’t Find Meaning in Your Growth?

Nathanael Garrett Novosel, May 15 2024

The Meaning of Life discusses the eight driving factors that cause a person to find meaning in their life. The first—because it is essentially the meaning of life—is growth. Granted, you need all eight, so it’s a slight oversimplification, but it is the primary point. So that naturally leads to the question of growth without meaning. So let’s...

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Meaning

You Don’t Have to Save the World

Nathanael Garrett Novosel, July 26 2023

The most common cliché for people graduating from school is that they want to “change the world”. Of course, that is a very subjective statement since you change the world just by existing (because it’s different than if you didn’t exist) and there are plenty of ways to change everything—from the Pet Rock to travel to Mars—that can be seemingly...

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Meaning

Misconceptions about Growth-Oriented Meaning

Nathanael Garrett Novosel, July 12 2023

The idea that the meaning of life can be so simple and elegant is a tough one to digest; there’s a reason why people say, “What is the meaning of life?” as a joke when someone asks them to bring up a topic for light conversation. But if it’s that simple, then why do people ponder it so deeply and frequently? Well, the answer brings up many...

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Planning

Create Your Life Strategy in Four Easy Steps

Nathanael Garrett Novosel, May 18 2023

Having advised executives for roughly 20 years at the time of this posting, I can tell you that I’ve had over a thousand conversations on strategy. These conversations are/were about 30 minutes long, meaning that I’d have to convey a lot of information in a short period of time. That makes it necessary to simplify as much as possible, making the...

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Meaning

What You Need in a Meaning of Life Book

Nathanael Garrett Novosel, April 12 2023

There are a lot of books out there on the meaning of life and your existence in this universe. Some are focused on the religious or the spiritual, while others are focused on the philosophical or the ethical. Of course, there is only one that I know of that worked back from evolutionary biology and psychology to conclude the human drivers of...

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