There are few things that alter the trajectory in your life more than your worldview.
So for those who want to improve their life’s trajectory, a good place to assess is worldview.
What’s a worldview?
The short and sarcastic answer is how you view the world (and life within the world).
Why does this impact your life’s trajectory?
Good question! Let’s use a quick example…
In general, the fundamental worldview question “What is the overarching meaning of life?” is most commonly answered in one of these ways:
- There is no overarching meaning of life.
- There is an ovearching meaning of life, but it’s discovered.
- There is an overarching meaning of life, but it’s assigned.
Let’s pick on #1 for a second, from a very low-brow standpoint.
Do you think #1 is more motivating than the other two options?
I personally find it very hard to find much hope, inspiration, and motivation from the notion that life is pointless – and I don’t think I’m alone in that perspective.
The reason why a motivating worldview is important is because regardless of what your worldview is, there is a base-level of hardship that we all experience in life, and depending on what our worldview is, this can have a great impacton how we respond to hardship.
And if there’s anything we know about life, the manner in which we respond to hardship is a major contributing factor to the quality of our lives.
Think about this for a moment. If I feel that life is pointless, and I fall under hardship, does that nudge me closer to giving up or not? I think so.
Now let’s pick on #2…
You often see in many self-helps books phrases like “Go find yourself” and “Seek your purpose from within” are aplenty.
Although this does sound much more motivating then “Yeah, life sucks, then you die”, but, the issue I see with this perspective is, if we already had all the answers, why would we ever wrestle with this ages-old question of the meaning of life?
Why is suicide, depression, anxiety, identify crises, and antisocial disorders on the rise; if we’re already all-knowing?
Now, to be fair, even though this perspective is far from perfect, it’s certainly superior to option #1, in my humble opinion.
Let’s review option #3 now…
Here is a question to ponder for a second…
Is it even possible for there to be an overarching meaning/purpose “assigned” to us in life, that’s applicable to everyone en masse, but yet still offers “freedom in the framework” for each of us individually to craft our own inspiring missions and visions that are aligned to the overarching theme?
If you don’t believe this is possible, then I encourage you to do some research.
Some of you may think that I’m getting ready to make a religious insertion here – and let me be clear; I have no qualms doing that! However, it’s not even necessary to do because we can find examples within research of high-performance businesses around the world.
For example, within high-performance cultures, you tend to find sub-cultures that have values and behaviors in-place that (a) yield stellar performance for the sub-culture while (b) are STILL aligned to the ovearching organization’s mission.
It’s more of an interdependent relationship, rather than what most people choose, utter independence or dependence.
Now for me personally, my personal religious faith is the absolute most inspiring, motivating, and exciting part of my life – and I’m unashamed to say so, so for me, option #3 is the most motivating worldview.
For me, I get to have it all. I get freedom to carve my own path while having a system of consistency to and accountability to guide my actions via ages-old wisdom; to save me from making stupid mistakes that will only derail me.
Now, what about you?
Reset your mind for a moment…
Read the three options at the beginnign of this insight, and decide for yourself, which worldview is the most inspiring for you?
Even if the answer isn’t entirely clear, you still have a starting point for exploring this further – and I highly recommend you do that.
A worldview adjustment can yield a higher intellectual ROI than anything else.
Blessings,
J. Patrick