How to Find a Meaningful Project
3 Steps to Uncover a Meaningful Project
Image Credit-mpconstruct“If you aren't tired when you go to bed and excited when you wake up, you need a meaningful project that demands you at your best.”
-Dan Koe
Have you ever felt like the world is moving, but you're standing still?
That's how I felt before I discovered the power of a meaningful project.
Meaningful projects excite you, energize you, and fulfill you.
They bring out the best in you for the sake of solving problems for others.
It's easy to drift around with the tides of the world.
Work will assign you tasks you have little interest in.
You have responsibilities that take up your time.
You get sucked into social media or entertainment, too tired to do that thing that excites you.
The world on its own may never give you that exciting project, you need to develop your compass to move in the right direction.
Without a meaningful project you risk falling into routine work and lose a sense of excitement.
Here's how to develop your compass and find that meaningful project.
Ask yourself these 5 questions
To understand what is meaningful to you, you need to understand yourself better.
Because a project that excites me may bore you.
Here are examples from my reflection:
I'm Naturally Excited: When I read, play sports or exercise, and play games with friends.
The World Needs: Help with people finding their unique purpose and skillset.
I'm Good at: Solving problems and am passionate about finding purpose so I can combine them into practical ways to find purpose.
I'm Ignoring: My needs of consistency in relationships.
Small Steps to Take Today: I can work on one part of a service to help people find their unique purpose and play games for an hour with my friends.
Your Turn - Answer These:
What excites me naturally?
What problems in the world do I care deeply about?
Where do my passions and skills intersect?
What needs am I currently ignoring in my life?
What small steps can I take today?
Answering these questions is just the first step.
To truly understand yourself you need consistent self-reflection through journaling.
Passion journaling
You can answer these questions to get an idea of what is meaningful to you.
But to understand what you're like it's important to get data on yourself consistently.
Because we aren't robots. We have good and bad days.
Sometimes something that you like one day was because you were feeling particularly energized.
It may not excite you the next.
Here's an example from my journal:
I felt purpose yesterday because I spent 3 hours of quality time on my service to help people find their purpose.
I was in flow yesterday when I was using my creativity on that same project.
I felt joyful yesterday when I was interacting with people on my work live stream.
Reflect on these daily.
Moments that felt:
Purposeful.
Flow.
Joyful.
Every week take notice of patterns you see as you note these answers.
Find more tasks that bring those feelings and see yourself moving closer to a meaningful project.
The project
As you reflect and look at your questions you start to narrow down what you want to work on.
If you're not there yet keep doing the daily journal prompts and continue to look for patterns.
The next steps are to find a project based on your data.
We can craft a passion statement to further refine your next project.
Use this template and your data to find yours:
“I am passionate about [your passion data] and can create a project based on [one answer from the first 4 questions] and will take a small step towards it by [your small step towards the project].”
Here is an example from mine:
"I am passionate about [creating a service for other people] and can create a project based on [helping people find their unique purpose and skillset] and will take a small step towards it by [brainstorming ideas for the service]."
By creating your passion statement you can understand what meaningful project awaits you.
Final thought
If you're not sure where to start, start small, answer the first question and let it guide you forward.
It may be work related, or could be a new hobby you discover.
Any project will enrich your life and give you a deeper sense of purpose.
And your next big project could be the one that changes your life.
What will your project be?
I help undisciplined people wanting a change in their unfulfilling lives find purpose and progress towards their personal goals.
Follow me on YouTube: @1andrewrauch, Substack, and Twitter (X): @AndrewRauch00 to learn more.
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