65 Examples of Life Purpose

John Spacey, updated on September 22, 2022

Life purpose is the reason that an individual feels driven in life. This is often described as the answer to -- why? Although much is made of trying to "find" your purpose in life, people innately feel a sense of purpose in areas such as existence, relatedness and growth whereby most people feel a sense of drive in one direction or another. Nevertheless, it is also common for people to rethink their purpose and to adopt a new purpose. The following are illustrative examples of a life purpose.

Acceptance & Inclusion Learning to accept others and working to include them in things.	Aesthetic Life Pursuit of beauty and other aesthetics such as minimalism.
Being Yourself Pursuit of what comes naturally.	Being a Good Person Doing good as you see it.
Bravery Overcoming fears.	Building Up Others Working to create opportunity for others.
Business The pursuit of value creation and capture.	Comfort & Convenience Avoiding effort and pain. Generally viewed as a low / undesirable purpose.
Competition The pursuit of competition and winning including games, sport and real life competitions.	Connectedness Building social connections and relationships.
Conservation / Animals Working to save animals or make things better for them.	Coolness Not caring about the things that don't matter.
Creative Expression Pursuit of creative expression such as art, design or craft.	Cultural Life Pursuit of cultural experience, immersion and expression.
Deep Emotion Cultivating emotional depth and understanding.	Deferring Judgement Becoming less judgemental / opinionated.
Ding in the Universe Contributing in some small way to the direction of the future.	Dreams Making the imagined real.
Environment Working to help save the environment.	Epic Experience Pursuit of adventure and other thrilling experiences.
Existence The drive to survive.	Family Family experiences and fulfillment of your role in a family such as parenting.
Finding Yourself Pushing yourself into challenging situations to learn about yourself.	Freedom Living free and working to preserve your freedoms.
Friendship Reciprocal relationships with people you like and respect.	Gratitude & Humility Living with a sense that you rely and others and appreciate how they have helped you.
Grit Developing social, economic and personal toughness.	Growth Constantly improving your material, social and personal situation.
Humor Embracing the dark oddities of life with humor.	Knowledge Pursuit of curiosity and learning.
Leadership Becoming a person that others follow.	Learning Developing talents and knowledge.
Life Experience Pursuit of the human experience.	Living in the Present Learning to live in the moment without obsessing over past and future.
Love Unconditional admiration and mutual support.	Mastery Refining and perfecting a talent.
Mission Pursuit of a goal such as something you want to become.	Nostalgia The pursuit of a past that is gone never to return.
Overcoming the Past Forgiveness and other processes that help you to overcome the past.	Personal Expression Expressing who you are.
Personal Presence Becoming socially dominant.	Personality Developing positive character traits and retiring negative ones.
Perspective Establishing a healthy view of things (e.g. seeing that a particular problem is not the end of the world).	Play Pursuit of joy for the sake of joy.
Pleasure Pursuit of self-indulgence.	Profession & Career Mastering a profession and pursuit of a meaningful career.
Redemption & Atonement Making up for things in the past that you're not proud of and overcoming them so that they no longer define you.	Relatedness Social acceptance and inclusion.
Relationships Cultivating and sustaining relationships.	Respect Being a person who is worthy of respect.
Responsibility Doing what you have committed to do.	Safety & Security Reducing danger.
Self-awareness Trying to understand yourself with a process of introspection.	Selflessness Trying to be of service to the world.
Sense of Wonder Gratitude for the small mysteries of life.	Social Experience Moments of friendship and other social interactions.
Social Issues Working to help improve social issues.	Social Status Pursuit of respect without necessarily deserving it.
Spirituality & Religion Pursuit of the meaning of life.	Style Pursuit of style in personal expression, living and creative expression.
The Journey The idea that the process is the purpose.	Transcendence Overcoming painful elements of the human experience to operate at some higher level.
Vision Pursuit of a vision of the future.	Wealth Building up financial resources.
Worthy Mission Being part of the solution to big problems.