The ObservatoryPart of your existential wellbeing
Meaning and coherence
The experience that one's life and activities matter and can be understood as a whole.
How it's measured
3 statements in the wellbeing assessment, scored from "doesn't apply at all" to "applies completely".
- My life feels meaningful.
- What I do in my daily life feels significant to me.
- I can see a coherent whole in my life, even when things don't go as planned.
Where you work with it
The life areas in this section — assess yourself, answer the questions, and track them over time.
Meaning and purpose
Not ratedThe sense that life matters and that what you do feels important.
Acceptance and reconciliation
Not ratedBeing able to accept what cannot be changed, and make peace with the past.
Spirituality and connection
Not ratedThe feeling of being part of something bigger, religious or not.
Getting started
Self-assessment
How is meaning doing?
Four scales that split meaning into its parts (coherence, direction and mattering), plus the search for it.
4 min · Rationality
Article
Meaning is not an answer you find, but a direction you choose
The question of life's meaning sounds so big that it can paralyze. But meaning is rarely hidden in the big things. It is built in the small, again and again.
2 min · Compassion
Exercise
Purpose statement
Map where your time and thoughts actually go, listen for the pattern beneath the surface, and formulate your own 'I am here to'.
25 min · Rationality
Exercise
Meaning journal
Capture a small moment that felt meaningful, and see what made it so. Meaning grows in things you can repeat.
12 min · Compassion
Exercise
Meaning through giving
When your own life feels empty, staring harder at it rarely helps. The way out often runs through someone else, in smaller form than you think.
10 min · Compassion
Exercise
The small thing that's enough
Four scenarios about giving when you yourself feel empty, and a promise to one small action this week
9 min · Compassion
Tool
The meaning map
See where meaning actually lives in your life right now, and which corner has been forgotten.
8 min · Rationality
Exercise
Two minutes: room for the hard thing, one step anyway
Let the hard thing come along, and do one small thing that matters to you
2 min · Discipline
How's your meaning and coherence?
The wellbeing assessment gives you a profile across all six dimensions, and you see it change over time. Free account, no payment.