Journaling Prompts for Finding Meaning and Purpose
The question of purpose is one of the oldest and most persistent human questions—and it's often most acute not during times of obvious crisis but during ordinary stretches of life that somehow feel insufficient. You're functioning. Nothing is catastrophically wrong. And yet something is missing. The search for meaning isn't a luxury problem. It's a fundamental human need. Writing about purpose isn't about landing on the one answer. It's about staying in honest conversation with what matters to you—which, like most living things, changes and deepens over time.
Journaling Prompts
When do you feel most like your life matters—not performing that feeling, but actually experiencing it? Describe the specific activity, connection, or moment. What is present in those times?
If you could only keep three things in your life—three sources of meaning, not possessions—what would they be? What does your answer tell you about what's actually central versus what's peripheral?
What problem in the world genuinely moves you—makes you angry, sad, motivated? Not the fashionable one or the expected one. The one that actually keeps your attention. What would it mean to let that inform your direction?
What did you care about intensely at fifteen that you might have abandoned or buried since? Is there something worth retrieving from that younger version of your passion?
What would you want people to say about you at the end of your life—not your accomplishments, but the kind of person you were and the difference you made? Does your current life point in that direction?