How to Give Your Life New Meaning After 40?

There’s more to life than the daily grind. Yet, we’re so involved in the mainstream route of living that we forget to ever look past it.

It’s usually when people have lived their first 3 to 4 decades of life and fulfilled the usual "requirements" of their society that they begin to feel the emptiness. Well, you’ve had your education, built a career, got married, started a family, but now what? What’s the meaning of it all?

If the dilemma has hit you hard, you’ve come to the right place.

To understand YOUR life’s purpose, you need to first understand what life’s purpose is.

Be very clear on one thing:

Life’s purpose isn’t a clear cut given instruction manual that you’re going to find in a treasure hunt. It isn’t a universal truth that applies to everyone.

Everybody’s life has a different meaning. In fact, even one human’s life purpose evolves with time. Maybe when you’ve reached one stepping stone, it will lead you to another, and this way your goal setting?and aim keeps changing with time.

So, if you’re expecting to find a long explanation of what exactly you should be doing in life, you need to shift your mindset. You have to let your unconscious mind take the lead. Let it give you a push in the right direction so that you can then make conscious efforts to fulfill your purpose.

With that being said, you shouldn’t shy away from making all possible efforts to figure out why you were born into this world. It’s never too late to understand the meaning of life.

What’s even better is that you don’t have to go far to get your answers. You don’t need to read through a hundred inspirational books or listen to spiritual lectures (unless you want to).

The answer is within YOU.

All you have to do is answer some simple questions about yourself. Pay attention to what your mind, heart, and body are trying to communicate. This simple effort can help you find the purpose that you’re looking for.

Here're the questions to ask yourself:

1. What Makes You Look for a Life Purpose?

You didn’t just click on this post aimlessly. You were intrigued. Your interest has kept you reading this far. So you can’t say it was a coincidence or a meaningless read.

You could’ve been living your normal life reading or listening to something else. But what made you want to know more about your life's purpose? What triggered your mind to pay attention to this issue?

On the surface, the click on this post was a random act. But that’s not actually how your mind works. Sit down and think about the trail that led you to this point.

Go through all the events, occasions, talks, thoughts, and occurrences that made you think about the meaning of life, even for a split second. You’ll have to think hard, of course, but once a trail starts developing in your head, you’ll find the connection yourself.

Even if you think this was the first time you thought about this issue, maybe it is your mental state that encouraged you to find out more.

When you start pushing your brain to think in this direction, not only will you be able to find the required links, but you’ll also gradually start to make meaning out of these connections. This is going to serve as the biggest anchor point for you to find the final answer.

2. What Are You Most Passionate About?

Everybody is passionate about something?in life. Find out what this thing is for you.

This isn’t hard to do at all. You just have to notice the things that you always look forward to. For example, if you’re always excited about the annual family trip, your passion can be traveling or your relationship with your family.

Pay attention to figure out why you’re passionate about these things.

3. What Do You Want to be Most Passionate About?

You may or may not have a passion in life already. Regardless, there is always something that you wish you could spend more time doing.

Think about what things you want to be more eager about. Your life’s purpose is hidden somewhere in these things.

4. What Drains You?

It’s time to focus on some negatives now. What you need to focus on here are the things that exhaust you physically or mentally. They don’t necessarily have to be chores or tasks that you dislike. You may enjoy them, but, as a result, you feel drained. Due to this final feeling of an extreme low, the small amount of happiness you felt doing the task is overridden.

These low-lows are not just any lows. Everyone goes through ups and downs. Either of these feelings fades with time. However, the low-lows seem to take away all your energy and motivation.

This category can include work tasks, house chores, certain people, and pretty much anything else. Once you can put your finger on such draining parts of your life, it’s time to move far away from them. This sense of tiredness that you feel is a sign from your body, mind, and heart that this isn’t the right thing for you.

5. What Does Your Heart Agree to Do?

You’re not looking for the opposite of low-lows here. This question connects to your beliefs,?values, and morals.

We’ve all been brought up with certain values that stick with us for life. Despite being deeply rooted in our lives, some of them just feel wrong.

First of all, keep in mind that it’s okay if you’ve been doing something "wrong" your entire life. What matters is that you fix it when you learn the mistake.

So, start keeping track of all the things that your heart disagrees with. Alongside that, take notice of the things that you feel are right. You can even create a list in the long run. Do some points seem to be shifting categories? Are their certain points that you feel very strongly about?

Once again, these are signs from your heart and mind that you’ll have to find the meaning of.

6. What Are the Things You Think About the Most?

Things that are always on your mind definitely have a purpose. Make it a habit to note down your concerns and thoughts every day so that you can look back on them to find a pattern.

If you can’t seem to put your finger on what exactly has been going through your mind, there’s a simple trick to help you here.

Open your Twitter or any other social media that you use the most. Look through what you’ve posted.

Try to recall what was going through your head that made you post everything that you have. Where did you get?the inspiration?to write the caption that you chose? Look through the comments to remember what and how you felt regarding the response that you received.

Throwback Time

When you’re finding answers to all the aforementioned questions, don’t forget to look back on the life that you’ve lived. You’ll always find a hidden connection between your passions, low-lows, and everything else with your past.

Involve your parents and other family members to hear stories of your past to learn more about yourself. Weigh your existing feelings with your past to find out how you’ve grown emotionally.

How to Utilize This Information to Find Your Life's Purpose

Once you’ve gathered all the information from the answers to these questions, it will all start to make sense.

Of course, the things that you’re passionate about, that your heart agrees with, and that you find a recurring pattern of are related to your life’s purpose. Similarly, the opposites are what drive you away from the path that you’re meant to be on.

You may not find crystal clear answers, and that’s completely okay. As long as your brain is triggered to think in a certain direction, an explicit answer?isn’t necessary.

Just make sure to collect all the information for however many weeks or months it requires. In the end, you’ll be able to put two and two together yourself.

At the end of the day, nobody in this world can tell you what the purpose of your life is. You should never let anyone define it for you either.

Yes, it’s time-consuming and will definitely take some deep thinking. But in the end, when you feel complete and at peace with the right answers by your side, it will all be worth it!

Leon Ho?is the Founder and CEO of?Lifehack?– a productivity blog he started in 2005. He was listed as Business Week’s #4 “Top 24 Young Asian Entrepreneurs” and has grown Lifehack into one of the most read self-improvement websites in the world – with over 12 million monthly readers. You can check out his book?The Full Life Essential Guide, and take a look at his self-improvement mastercourses?here?or join one of his free classes?here.

This article originally appeared on Lifehack.