By Adolescence is the period following the onset of puberty during which a young person develops from.
Purpose can guide life decisions, influence behavior, shape goals, offer a sense of direction, and create meaning. For some people, purpose is connected to vocation—meaningful, satisfying work. For others, their purpose lies in their responsibilities to their family or friends. Others seek meaning through spirituality or religious beliefs. Some people may find their purpose clearly expressed in all these aspects of life.
Purpose will be unique for everyone; what you identify as your path may be different from others. What’s more, your purpose can actually shift and change throughout life in response to the evolving priorities and fluctuations of your own experiences.
Questions that may come up when you reflect upon your life purpose are:
* Who am I?
* Where do I belong?
* When do I feel fulfilled?
Adolescence And Life Purpose
Adolescents who feel a greater sense of purpose may be happier and more satisfied with life than peers who feel less purposeful, according to a recent study of more than 200 teens.
Studies with adults have suggested that a sense of purpose in life is an integral component of well-being that fuels hope and optimism and has a variety of positive effects on individuals’ physical and mental health.
However, less is known about the effects of purposefulness in adolescents, who, while characteristically hopeful, are in the throes of developing their identities, making choices that reflect who they are and aspire to be, according to the study.
“Teens who scored high on purpose were more satisfied with their lives and experienced more positive emotions and fewer negative emotions,” said Ratner, who collected the data while working as a postdoctoral associate at Cornell University. “Importantly, we found that on the days when these adolescents felt more purposeful than usual, they also tended to experience greater well-being.”
On the daily assessments, those in the study rated how much they were feeling four positive emotions — content, relaxed, enthusiastic or joyful — and four negative emotions — angry, anxious, sluggish or sad.
Participants’ composite positive and negative emotional affect scores, along with their life satisfaction scores, were used to assess their psychological well-being.
Feeling more purposeful than usual on any single day was a unique predictor of participants’ emotional well-being on those days, regardless of their dispositional level of purposefulness, the team found.
(c) 2024 Doyin Adenike Ojoola writes from Lagos, Nigeria.
