The ObservatoryMeaning and purpose
The sense that life matters and that what you do feels important.
Questions to ask yourself
- 1How meaningful does your life feel right now, overall?
- 2Which parts of your everyday life feel most meaningful?
- 3Where in everyday life do you run on autopilot, without it feeling important?
- 4For whom or what does what you do matter?
- 5How could an ordinary day become a notch more meaningful?
In the app, you rate the area 0–10, answer the questions, and watch how your answers shift over time.
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