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

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 diagnose the reasons why one can be growing and not feeling meaning (hint: it’s from lacking the other 7 drivers).

If you are not finding meaning in your growth, it is likely due to one of the following reasons:

• You are not having the right type of experiences – If you wish to learn a sport, you might prefer to practice or play than read a book. You might prefer to learn a language via solo practice instead of being stuck trying to remember words in a conversation with a stranger. The right experience for the right growth is important to your sense of meaning and fulfillment. Additionally, you might be working too hard and not be getting enough rest, nutrition, or other necessary factors to growth. Growth is not only about effort; rest, recovery, fuel, and hydration are conducive to optimal growth.
• You are growing in areas that you do not want to or believe you should grow – If you are not interested in the growth, it will not have meaning to you. That is why you might be bored sitting in a botany class memorizing the various names of plants but know the name of every type of rock. In another instance, you might only be learning an instrument or language because someone told you that it would be useful later. In that moment, without the desire or belief, the meaning isn’t there even if you are improving.
• You are not in the right mood – You might be doing something that you just don’t feel like doing at the moment. Since emotions are signals, it likely is signaling that you don’t want it, believe it, or need something else like rest and so your body is telling you to stop. This is redundant with the previous bullets, but this is the immediate cause that will have the previous items as the root cause. Note, however, that other areas of life could be dragging you down in this area, such as a breakup hurting your school work. When you are down, it is easy to lose a sense of meaning in what you are doing.
• You are doing it in the wrong way – Clearly, if earning money is your goal and you decide to steal it, you will likely feel guilty as a result. Lying, cheating, stealing, and other immoral acts will suck the meaning out of whatever you’re doing.
• You are not benefitting (or involving) others – Humans are a social species. A hole in one feels better when everyone celebrates with you than if you hit one by yourself. Similarly, your impact on the world is much greater both in your eyes and others’ eyes if you help others in addition to yourself. So if you’re only doing things to stay alive without other people, you might not feel the same significance to your actions as if you had responsibility for other people’s well-being and growth.
• You are making bad choices of where to focus – Sometimes, you might be growing in one area at the sacrifice of other areas that matter to you. Also, you might have picked the wrong area to grow in where it just doesn’t interest you. You can do 1,000 finger curls today and 1,001 tomorrow, and you’ll have grown in your finger-curl count and yet that just might not matter to you or anyone else. You can’t just grow in any area and have it magically be meaningful; it has to be in an area that matters. What “matters” can be what other people applaud you for, what seems significant to you, or simply what makes you happy. But only you can make the right choices on what to do with your life—if it is not (or no longer) working, make a different choice.

So, yes, while growth is the meaning of life, not all growth will make you feel fulfilled. Everyone has his or her own path in life. What you care about will be different what from someone else cares about. That’s why there are eight drivers to meaning: you grow through experience in areas that you want to and believe you can improve in, and your emotions are telling you that you are doing it right. If you do something unethically or alone, you might feel like you’re missing something. Only you can decide what is right for you.

So, if you are not finding meaning in your life, the number one culprit is that you’re not growing in any meaningful way. But if you are growing and not finding meaning in it, it is likely one of the other seven usual suspects for what is causing you to feel unfulfilled. Diagnose the issue, and you always have the opportunity to tweak one or more of those eight areas to fix it.