How Exercise Can Help You Actualize Your Life Purpose
Exercise isn’t just good for your physical health — it can make you mentally stronger, too, and help you on your journey to fulfilling your life purpose.
Key takeaways:
- Exercise has various benefits for the body and mind
- It helps improve your health and lengthen your life
- Physical activity can improve cognitive functions and thought processes
- Regular, meaningful physical activity enables you to define and live your life’s purpose
The physical benefits of exercise are well-known — it helps your body run more efficiently and improves your quality of life. One often overlooked benefit of physical activity’s effect on your self, however, is the way it provides a sense of purpose. In fact, a 2021 study from the Journal of Behavioral Medicine states that those who have a greater sense of purpose are more likely to engage in physical activity, and, conversely, that physical activity contributes to a sense of purpose.
Your sense of purpose is the driving force behind everything you do. It’s the reason you get up in the morning, and the compass for your life. It is different for everyone and can be based on family, vocation, spirituality, or anything that feels important to you.
Studies reveal that people with a sense of purpose are more apt to pursue consistent physical activity and vice versa — people who exercise regularly tend to have a strong purpose in life and vice versa.
This article explores some benefits of having a purpose in life, the connection to physical activity, and five fun and effective ways to connect with your purpose through exercise.
The benefits of defining a life purpose
Knowing your life’s purpose and living with it at the forefront of all you do provides many potential advantages. They include:
- Becoming a better learner
- Experiencing a greater sense of belonging
- Feeling more optimistic, resilient, and hopeful
- Enjoying better physical health and a lower risk of death
- Greater career satisfaction
- Becoming a leader among your peers in the workplace
- Receiving a pay increase at work
- Experiencing more joy, happiness, and satisfaction
The health benefits of purpose go beyond changing your mood and lengthening your life, however. It also changes health-related behaviors. Older adults with a sense of purpose are likelier to prioritize sleep, eat nutritiously, and exercise regularly.
Incorporating your life purpose into your daily activities has physical, mental, and emotional benefits. Adding a physical element can increase those benefits. Together, fitness and wellness can help illuminate your life’s purpose.
The connection between exercise and purpose
Having a purpose in life requires you to engage in productive activities. You can find motivation, inspiration, and excitement along the way, including during a workout. Since exercise and movement directly contribute to better mental health, it’s not surprising that it also helps you realize your life’s purpose.
Exercising and raising your heart rate releases endorphins and other feel-good hormones that boost mood, decrease stress, and improve sleep. It also improves self-esteem and cognitive functions (thinking and brain activity) by creating new brain cells.
It’s easier to work on the things that really matter to you in life when you don’t have to sweat the small stuff.
Connecting with purpose by exercising
Exercising and movement increase awareness of your body’s power. Strengthening your mind and body connects you to something greater than yourself and helps define a life purpose. Incorporate the following simple tips to help make your exercise routine more meaningful:
Set your appearance aside
Many people work out to change the way they look. They may want to lose weight, gain muscle, or tone loose skin. The problem is that focusing on aesthetic goals only works briefly. After that, you need to find additional motivation elsewhere.
Concentrating on health goals such as reducing stress and improving your emotional well-being makes you more consistent with your exercise regime and happier with the results. You’re no longer concerned with superficial results but with long-term, authentic change.
Harness your strengths
Focusing on your assets boosts self-esteem, motivation, and social connections. Harnessing your strengths during a workout means choosing exercises you feel good about, are good at, and can execute well.
Focus your tenacity on increasing your reps and adding weight or resistance. Employing all your strongest resources during exercise helps you feel powerful and able to accomplish any goal.
Make every movement meaningful
You can connect to your higher purpose when you realize the meaning of your everyday actions, including physical activity. Remember how important it is to do this exercise and all the benefits you get from your routine before you start.
As you go through the movements and exercises, concentrate on how each muscle feels as it engages and how each breath affects your movements. Feel the strength in your muscles as they move and stretch.
Make social connections
An effective way to live out our life’s purpose is through our social connections. An example is joining in a physical activity that you can complete with other people.
Coaching or teaching a sport or dance class is another way to connect your life purpose to exercise, motion, and activity.
Performances
Sports, dancing, and other activities become art when you reach performance levels. When someone is so proficient at something that other people want to watch them do it, it can have a spiritual effect. You connect with people you may never see, but your actions move them. You’re living a purposeful life.
You can use movement to connect with your deeper self, community, and the people you love. Living a purposeful life means connecting with what matters to you in a meaningful way.
The benefits of exercise go far beyond homeostasis — the ideal physical balance of the body needed for survival and optimal functionality — to include mental health and finding peace within yourself. The next time you drop and pump out a pushup, think of all the benefits you’re gaining, and you’ll probably be able to do a few more than you thought possible.
Use the power of exercise to manifest your next level of success
Exercise and movement are integral elements of a full life. Add them to your arsenal of tools to help discover and reveal your authentic self on your journey of self-improvement.
My life’s purpose is to help people live more holistically and find true power in personal transformation. Check out my Medium, Twitter, and LinkedIn pages to see what personal transformation looks like and learn more about what it can do for you!
