It seems like just 6 months ago I was writing on this blog about our little kids and helping them navigate “little kid stuff”… like having a dog walking business, kids sports, etc. Now we all of a sudden find ourselves with young adults in late high school and we’re trying to figure out college! Based on the number of “Student Driver” bumper stickers in the 80238 I know we aren’t alone in this navigating the teen years adventure.
It’s very cliché, but time flies. As the kids become young adults, we want to continue to support them and help them navigate life. Young adults, just like us not so young adults, can get so busy “doing, doing, doing” all the time that we don’t often take time to look up and see where we’re going. What are we working towards? What is our purpose? How can we help our young adults find their purpose that feels authentic to them and will pull them through all the hard things that will inevitably come their way?
When I heard about the book titled, “The Path to Purpose: How Young People Find their Calling in Life”, by William Damon, I was intrigued. I read it, will summarize a few key points below and if the take-aways below resonate with you I’m happy to drop off a copy on your Central Park porch. (if you promise to read it, apply it and then give it to someone else!). The first 3 people that email me their local address and express interest will receive a free copy courtesy of the Central Park Scoop.
Spoiler alert…even though the book is written to help you guide your young adults towards finding their purpose, I suspect you’ll also find yourself contemplating your own purpose. Double win!
A few of my high-level take-aways from the book:
- People with a sense of purpose are filled with joy, despite the constant sacrifices that they are called upon to make.
- We all need “steady dedication to something larger than ourselves. This steady dedication counteracts our destructive tendencies toward self-absorption.”
- When young adults don’t find purpose, they are more open to the messages of the world to fill that void, which will tell them to focus on themselves and material wealth.
- Our schools are good at teaching knowledge and skills, but they fall short in terms of teaching them why what they’re learning matters and how they may use it in life. (Remember saying “When the hell am I going to use this in real life?” when you were a kid? You were onto something! Schools don’t make the connect between knowledge and how it can be applied! We as parents have to help fill that gap for our kids.
- One of the main differences between a young adult that’s thriving and one that’s struggling is a sense of purpose in life.
- Without a purpose young adults are left on the hedonistic treadmill, focused solely on the short- term pleasure and comfort seeking that never brings true joy. (How much of this applies to us adults?!)
- This lack of purpose is a large contributing factor to the epidemic of anxiety and depression that if felt in young people today.
- Driven students that can appear “successful” can still be lacking in purpose. They might be good at achieving, but don’t be fooled, they still may not see any larger meaning in what they’re doing.
- “The intriguing paradox is that the happiest people are rarely those who expend a lot of effort trying to attain pleasure for themselves.” (Biggest paradox I’ve seen in life and one that I have to continually try to remind myself of because I’m wired by the world to seek comfort and pleasure)
- “What does matter for happiness is engaging in something that the person finds absorbing, challenging, and compelling, especially if it makes a valued contribution to the world.” (in other words, something that gets you into “flow state”!)
- “Purpose leads to personal satisfaction by bringing people outside themselves and into an engrossing set of activities. People with purpose stop thinking about themselves, becoming fascinated instead by the work or problem at hand.”
- A purpose will force young people to endure ups and downs and will help them develop resilience, courage, problem-solving skills & more. It’s the purpose that they’re excited about that ends up causing them to learn all these things without intentionally doing so. It pulls them forward.
- Our role as parents is not to decide the purpose for them, it’s to put them in position to find their purpose on their own. It’s also to then help them strike a balance between meaningful and realistic as they pursue their purpose.
- We may not be passionate or even like our young adult’s purpose, but as long as it’s not a harmful path we should support and encourage them. (it’s not about us!)
- We as parents can share more about our work, our aspirations, our experiences, our goals, our failures, our challengs with our kids. We often don’t share much of this because we don’t think they’re interested or to shield them from the adult world. This doesn’t help them, it actually leaves them in the dark guessing about the world of adults. How freeing is it for them to hear that we have all the same challenges they have!
- Our role is to plant seeds. To expose them to different things so they can choose their path. Some seeds will wither and die (totally fine!) but some will grow and become their purpose.
So how does the book help you guide your child toward their purpose? I won’t cover every suggestion here, but here are a few key ones to consider:
- Be curious and ask generative questions. The goal is to look for a “spark” of interest based on their responses to your probing and then to fan the flames by encouraging more of what they seem naturally drawn towards that’s positive and could be a potential purpose.
- Let kids try things and fail. When we jump in, clear all the roadblocks or even do the actual work for them towards their purpose it sends the message they can’t do it on their own. Let them try and fail, even if you know better upfront. Your role is then to probe and gently suggest ideas, letting them then take the reins and try again.
- Don’t jump into too much lecturing or go straight into parent advice mode. It’s so tempting for us parents to jump in and tell a young adult why something won’t work based on our one limited experience, but that’s not always helpful and can leave them feeling shut down.
This book has much more to offer in terms of specific suggestions on how to encourage your kid or young adult in their goal of finding their purpose. Hopefully this post helps though and if it resonates with you I’d highly encourage you to get the book and explore it further. Of all the things you do for your kids or young adults in your life, I can’t think of anything more important than fostering in them a sense of purpose.
“A life without a goal to do something, to make a difference, is like a race without a finish line.”
