There are nearly 350,000 results in the Amazon store when you search for the word “happiness.” Books like The Happiness Project and 10% Happier have sat on the bestseller lists for months, verifying our cultural obsession with the pursuit of happiness.
But what if I told you life’s biggest winners are motivated by something different from happiness. Would you believe me?
Winners Don’t Choose Happiness. (click to Tweet)
As a teenager I bought into the fallacy that happiness was the most important thing a person could attain. It’s why I wanted to work on Wall Street, because I thought money equated to happiness (also factually incorrect) and a career in finance would ensure solid monetary gains.
But when I was eighteen years old my mother gave me a copy of Victor Frankel’s Man’s Search for Meaning, which documented the psychological differences between those who survived inside Auschwitz and those who perished. His findings detailed a new field called logotherapy (logo is Greek for meaning), as he explained that those who survived were able to do so because they believed they had a purpose to fulfill beyond their time in the concentration camps.
Since then, I’ve closely studied the differences between meaning and happiness. They are often treated in conversation as the same thing, but they are wildly different. Jennifer Aaker at Stanford has conducted several great studies on meaning, and there is little doubt that one can live a meaningful but unhappy life (a nurse or teacher in certain contexts may experience great meaning with little happiness). Others can live happy lives with minimal meaning and high levels of happiness.
So which leads to higher performance?
Happiness expires. Meaning lights internal fires. (click to Tweet this)
The best performers across business, sports, and culture focus on a sense of meaning. It gives them another gear, a work ethic driven by a higher purpose, that those purely pursuing happiness don’t possess. Pursuit of happiness is often an understood byproduct of meaning, but it’s seen as a secondary outcome.
Think of people like Michael Jordan, Bill Gates or Oprah Winfrey. Do you think they consistently chose to take the daily action that would make them happiest? Or did they consistently choose to do the thing that would help them achieve what they believed they’re here to accomplish?
I guarantee Jordan didn’t spend all those late nights and early mornings practicing jump shots because they made him happy. It was because he wanted to be the best, he was driven by that singular purpose, and it’s what drove him to excel.
Discover your purpose and live it fully. (click to Tweet).
Please share what you believe to be your purpose in the comments below. You might even feel some real happiness in sharing it with the world 🙂
Nick
To build a better world by cultivating One Educated Generation.
Luba Sakharuk
Ever since I was a little girl, what made me the happiest was to make someone else a little happier or at least less sad. There was a girl once who stayed behind one grade (2nd year in a row), and when she was introduced to us (5th graders), she was a head taller, voice deep from already smoking for some time, half of her head was shaved and she looked really intimidating. Some kids laughed at her, some were scared of her and I found myself feeling really sad for her. I wasn’t all A student and far from the smartest in class, but I really wanted to help her and tutor her. It never happened, I don’t remember now exactly why not. But what I do remember, is that she was extremely nice to me. I couldn’t understand why. I think of that girl very often and wonder what she turned out to be. I have seen and worked with many nice people in the last 20 years of my career, but I have sadly seen many more who weren’t that nice. The y weren’t all jerks, no, those were exceptions. Generally though, there are fewer people who will go out of their way and their comfort to truly make others happy. I have been wondering for some time now if this is the quality that can be developed in a person. I work with people on their soft skills, I coach and I give feedback. I lead by example. I feel it is my purpose and it is truly my desire to add niceness to one person at a time.
Parminder
Hi Adam,
Great article! I’ve also enjoyed reading Pencils of Promise and proudly made some end-of-year donations towards Pencils of Promise. I’m very inspired by your work. But I’m a little perplexed by the fact that although your first spark of inspiration for Pencils of Promise came from a very poor child in India whose dream was to have a pencil, I don’t see any of your project work in India. Just curious if there is there any particular reason to for not building schools in India although that’s where the story really began. I think there is a great potential to touch those millions of lives in India living under crushing poverty without any access to quality education.
Thanks for keeping us inspired!
Parminder
Adam
You rock!
Parminder
You’re the one who really rocks!
I am still curious if there is there any particular reason for not building schools in India although that’s where the story really began. Would be great if you can comment on it.
Adam
I would love for PoP to eventually expand to India but we found great partners and regions of tremendous need in Ghana, Guatemala and Laos where the org currently focuses. Hopefully we’ll get to India one day 🙂
Sabrina
Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts, Adam. I was searching for my meaning, my purpose quite a while. To be honest, I just found and really felt it when I gave up thinking and struggling about it. It’s more like a deep inner peace which is guided by a strong belief that everything is all “right”, no matter what will happen. Living a life of purpose doesn’t make you happy all the time. Life is NOT all about happiness but about experiences. Happiness is just one of them – and I like to embrace and welcome it every time it passes my way and let it go, whenever it wants to leave. And by the way: thank you for writing The Promise of a pencil. Bought it last week for my long distance flight from Munich to NYC and love it so much. Take care!
Shazmeena
This all actually makes sense, I agree with what you are saying all the way! I am to study English Literature and creative writing at University as of next year, and I have had to do things that haven’t necessarily made me happy. But rather have a great meaning, and have taught me some vital lessons.
Such as, finally uploading my blog properly and letting people read my work despite any cruel opinions that may come my why.
Thank you for the inspiration!
Yours,
Shazmeena
Adam
Keep up your wonderful work Shazmeena!
Whaley
Adam-
Inspiring speech in Anchorage AK this week, thank you for taking the time to share your history and vision!
Adam
My pleasure!
Kyle Matthiesen
Hi Adam,
Great post here. I particularly appreciate the sentiment behind this quote:
“Do you think they (MJ, Oprah, etc) consistently chose to take the daily action that would make them happiest? Or did they consistently choose to do the thing that would help them achieve what they believed they’re here to accomplish?”
After giving it more thought, I wonder if these actions are even “choices” at all. Once you committed to your vision, did you ever question the tasks that were set in front of you? I’d assume that you accepted these challenges without question, regardless of the time-commitment or energy required to take them on. It was never a “choice”, but a duty you had to perform to fulfill your dream.
I’m searching for a similar dream. I don’t necessarily know if I’ve found it yet, but I’m confident I will. In the meantime, I’ve been greatly motivated by your work, blog, and book, and have leveraged your advice to help my with my goals. I’m currently a student at Indiana University and have launched several PoP fundraisers through my fraternity, Phi Delta Theta. Last year, we raised over $12,500 (Page only says 10k right now, last 2.5 are on the way) for PoP!
PoP fundraising has grown my leadership capabilities and entrepreneurial instinct in ways that could never have been done in a classroom or through an internship. Thanks !
Adam
So glad to hear it Kyle. I do think it is a choice for those leaders, they CHOOSE excellence. They’re people just like the rest of us, and it’s their will power that enables them to succeed, just like you are. Keep inspiring us all buddy.
Bernard
Excellent post.
Adam
Thanks Bernard
Shuva Rahim
Thanks for this post. I strongly feel my purpose is to share stories of ordinary people who do extraordinary things in hopes of inspiring other people. I’ve already done that as a writer, now as a photographer and a college instructor. This year, my goal is to take it up a notch to share stories of by way of multimedia. I love what I do and I can’t imagine doing anything else.
Adam
Keep dreaming big Shuva, love that sense of commitment and clarity.
Ieva Severinaite
Love this post! I couldn’t agree more with the idea that finding a purpose in life is what brings meaning to our existance on this planet and ultimately what fulfils our lives.
I believe my purpose is to help others find their own true purpose in life. And I believe education is the most important place to start. My goal is to create an educational environment where children feel inspired and empowered to first of all discover, and then follow their passions and pursue their dreams.
Adam
Amazing ambitions Ieva, I truly hope you’re successful and that the #PoPbook (http://amzn.to/1z7ZLRb) is a helpful resource along the way.
Ramiro Ocasio
I think my purpose is helping others have a better future through education. Just like you, Adam. I have been doing what I love the most in this world, which is helping people who have less than us. In a few months, my team and I will achieve one of my dreams to build a school in my second country, Honduras. I am so lucky and grateful I read your book “The Promise of a Pencil” reading this book gave me and the entire team in our foundation the motivation that all things are possible when you give hope and motivation to others. Thanks again, Adam for all the good things you do.
Adam
Love that mission Ramiro! So glad to hear there’s a kindred spirit out there.
Niki
I completely agree that sometimes happiness is not forever, but you can make happiness the best outcome of your actions. I believe in random acts of kindness because making others smile gives me inner peace and a sense of happiness, whether it is with family, friends, colleagues, or strangers. Taking the extra step and effort to give others happiness, whether it’s long-term or temporary, is what I believe can help make the world a better place. As Mark Twain said, “kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.”
Adam
So true Niki. Happiness is an amazing outcome, just want to encourage people to pursue meaning and the inevitable byproduct will be incredible bursts of happiness. An equally powerful concept is gratitude. Hopefully will write another blog post on that soon if people want content on that too.
Courtney M.
I have been thinking a lot about meaning and purpose ever since your last post about Dan Fredinburg. I was inspired by Dan’s story and the way that he lived his life. After thinking a lot about this, I feel like what I am always looking for is to be able to help people. Although, this is what I want to be doing, I feel like this purpose lacks direction. I am a college student who has really just been starting to think about how to incorporate this into my future, which is really important to me. I think this is something that I am struggling with right now as I have received the opportunity to do an internship that doesn’t relate to this passion. I am trying to focus in on how I want to create change, but there are so many ways that I often become overwhelmed with everything I wish to do. I am left in this place where I am really trying to figure out my true purpose and how to accomplish this. If anyone has any suggestions I would love to hear them!
Adam
Appreciate your honesty Courtney, my best advice would be to grab a copy of my book at amzn.to/1z7ZLRb. It’s all about the 30 steps to finding your purpose and living it out fully. Hopefully it’s a helpful resource. Also, pickup Victor Frankel’s Man’s Search for Meaning and The Alchemist by Paulo Coehlo. All great reads!
Courtney M.
Thanks so much! I have actually read your book and I think that is what helped me to really discover that I would love to be helping people. My favorite line in the book ” The world has far too many problems, and you are way too smart and capable to not help tackle them. Your time is now.” Thank you for sharing your story because it has truly helped me in getting to this point and inspired me to start a PoP club at my school. I am optimistic about finding a way to incorporate this more in my future career. I am definitely going to put these books on my reading list for after finals! Thanks again for responding, it means a lot!
Adam
🙂
Sibel
I live in Switzerland and am currently busy with taking finals in order to be able to go to University and finally study what interests me the most!
I feel like my purpose is to be successful at what I do in order to continue being a happy person and pass on my own happiness to others 🙂
I think happiness is strongly connected to doing what you love, giving effort and accomplishing what you’ve been working for.
Have a great day everyone and don’t let bad things bring you down 🙂
Adam
Agreed Sibel, don’t let the bad things bring you down. Too much goodness in the world to focus on the negative.
Helen Carver
Hi Adam,
At the age of 50, having worked like a hamster in a wheel all of my adult life, I decided to indulge in 6 months of happiness…I quit my job, rented my house out and went off travelling around the world with my 19-year-old daughter. (My eldest daughter was working abroad as part of her year out from University).
We had an absolute ball, experiencing different foods and cultures, meeting wonderful characters along the way (many of whom are now life-long friends), and tried some really madcap things…white-water rafting, skydiving, hiking up glaciers, jumping off waterfalls and posing naked in front of one, to name but a few. Having experienced the absolute joy and liberation of ‘playing’ for six months, life was never going to be the same!
When I returned I wanted to tell the world what life should REALLY be like…happy, joyful, experiencing the unknown on a daily basis, exploring, discovering, meeting new people, making friends, having conversations, getting out of your comfort zone and realising that we are capable of just about anything if we put our minds to it and trust that we are guided by something much bigger than we are.
I wanted to tell the world that life is about LIVING, not just existing…and so I set to and wrote ‘Life Begins at Fifty’ about our hilarious antics, to inspire people, what ever their age, to live the lives they really want to, rather than the lives they think they should or they ought to, or they ‘must’.
I also set up a company of the same name to encourage people to start ticking things off their bucket list right now, rather than waiting for a rainy day that never comes. After all, if I hadn’t taken that leap of faith and gone off on the trip of a lifetime, I would still be doing the same old, same old things and regretting the face that I missed an amazing opportunity. What a waste!
I also read Pencils of Promise last year and was so moved by your story that I decided to fund raise, in order to build a school, both through sales of my book and fundraising events. It gives me tingles down my spine, just typing this. That is the difference between happiness and meaning. Happiness is a wonderful state of being, but meaning, to me, means fulfilling your life purpose…doing something meaningful that will hopefully impact many people and lead them to leading much more joyous lives. That, in turn, makes me happy 🙂
Adam
Wow Helen, what a story! You are a true inspiration. Please email Susie at sharrison@pencilsofpromise.org to help support your fundraiser for PoP.
Dwayne Morris
Interesting fact: I’ve been working on this question for the past three days. I have landed on this: My purpose is to help people leverage their life for a greater good. In my world, that good is a life that honors the Creator…God. If I can help someone realize the dream He places on them, then I am fulfilled. Like your post, my fulfillment is not based on what I can get; it is based on what I can give!
Adam
Love that you’re committed to giving Dwayne. Thanks for sharing.
Cherelle Reid-Johnson
All I can do is write right now to give people mostly fans the hope that they will get to live their dreams with the boy they love and I hope one day that they do, also to educate as I put in some very difficult words that I know most may not understand due to their ages. I’m a teenager and I try very hard to give back to the ones that make me so easily happy. By learning that they enjoy my made up stories and how much they do it gives me internal happiness that I’m sure loads of people may claim to have felt and I’m sure they have, but with every different feel of love towards me and my writing there is a different emotion and it helps me to fight through very tough situations that I’m currently facing, which are quite literally messing with my life. Just having them comment or send me nice messages give me a sense of support and I believe that is my happiness, I’m sure if I give back more the more I grow and the wiser I get the greater my happiness will be. I’m not the wealthiest nor the poorest but I know for a fact that happiness is not about money it is about making sure your happiness has a true reason to exist, just by having that one comment that shows that they’ve appreciated my writing allows me to know that I’ve don’t something that’s worth me having happiness. Pain and loss that I have appearances has been put into my writing and I know they appreciate that and it means a great deal. I don’t know whether that is right or wrong but I just liked to share my feelings and belief. My belief is that I was made to fight for those who can not, I’ve recently become a UNICEF ambassador at my school and hope to join bigger committees like yours to ensure that less fortunate people get the education they so rightfully need and should have. I know it’s not much but I’m still young and still have a lot to learn in what happiness is and what my purpose is in life but so far this is what I can understand.
Cherelle Reid-Johnson
Sorry for the big paragraph
kruegermedicalservices.com
Thank you for sharing this amazing websites!
Gina C
That’s awesome. I’m 20 and it took me 19yrs to figure out exactly what I want to do in life, but you’re already goal orientated and eager to make a difference. Keep up the great work, we need more teenagers like you!
Adam
Love this, especially the community supporting one another!
Bill
Great article from The Atlantic from a few years back takes this idea into greater depth.
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/01/theres-more-to-life-than-being-happy/266805/
Adam
Great share Bill, really appreciate you contributing this.
Maggie
Finlaly! This is just what I was looking for.
Diane
I take my purpose from a line in a Ralph Waldo Emerson quote:
To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.
While I certainly can’t make this happen every day, I feel I’ve been put on this earth to help people in every capacity of my life – primary care giver to an aging mother, wife, friend, rescue dog mother, sibling, employee, volunteer, aunt, global citizen. And I *try* to do it all with a loving heart – not always possibly, but I *try*.
Adam
Beautifully said Diane, whether it’s one life or many, positively impacting others is why we’re each here.
Cameron
I believe my purpose is to create things people can enjoy or relate to.
I’ve felt immense satisfaction from hearing people talk about enjoying things I’ve created or helped to create (games, music, etc). That’s a feeling that makes all the effort of actually creating worthwhile.
Adam
Awesome Cameron. Any games or things in particular?
Jay Schimke
Thanks …,
I make it easier to simply lead-&-support one’s life-&-spirit as ‘WELL’ …
Adam
So much power in that Jay. Thanks for sharing.
Chris Christian
I am a 66 year old white man and about 3 years ago got a calling to establish a charter school for K-3 students who struggle learn in the minority community. I don’t intend to rescue these children but to empower them to rescue themselves.
Adam
Empowering others, a great mission Chris!
Nikita
I believe serving is what my purpose is.
Adam
Absolutely.
“Service is the rent we pay for being. It is the very purpose of life, and not something you do in your spare time.”
-Marian Wright Edelman