3 Surprising Insights From Science To Find Your Purpose At Work!From the book The Art of Performance ... It’s deeply human to look for meaning in our lives. And it turns out that when we find our ‘why’, our long-term performance also improves drastically. Let’s take a look at some fascinating studies [in 3 "tips" documented as goals in this StratML rendition]The Performance FactoryTPF_b0bfb2f0-100d-11e6-9552-3a345b52ebadJeroen De FlanderJeroen De Flander is a globally recognized strategy execution expert and a highly regarded keynote speaker. He has shared the stage with prominent strategists like Michael Porter and reached out to 38,500+ leaders in 40+ countries. His first book Strategy Execution Heroes reached the Amazon bestseller list in 5 countries and was nominated for Management Book of the Year 2012 in the Netherlands. His second book, The Execution Shortcut, reach the #3 spot in its category on Amazon. He lectures at several business schools including London Business School and is co-founder of the performance factory.AuthorAristotlePhilosophizingThe famous philosopher Aristotle was one of the first to point out that people look for at least 2 ways to find happiness—pleasure, which he called ‘hedonic’—and purpose, which he called ‘eudaimonic’.Johns Hopkins UniversityPollingMore recently, when scientists at Johns Hopkins University conducted a poll of around 8,000 people and asked what they considered to be very important, 78 percent of all participants said that finding a purpose in life was their main goal. And similar surveys showed similar results. Besides satisfying our immediate needs—our pleasure—research shows that having a purpose in life is something we all long for. It’s a fundamental part of being human.Eudaimonistic lives_f825bf52-f08a-11e9-bd81-186593babdf6To help you find your purpose at work_f825c07e-f08a-11e9-bd81-186593babdf6EudaimonismPurpose in lifePurposeLook for meaning._f825c182-f08a-11e9-bd81-186593babdf6Tip #1Shoshana DobrowResearchResearchers Shoshana Dobrow and Daniel Heller recruited 450 amateur high school musicians. They wanted to find out if having a purpose would predict a different achievement in life. For the next 11 years, the musicians were followed and tested at regular intervals. Independent expert judges evaluated their skills level and purpose in life. Dobrow and Heller found that the students who scored high on the ‘why’ questions—those students who had a purpose—were able to become professional musicians regardless of their actual musical ability. As Heller points out, “our findings reveal an optimistic picture in which those with strong callings are more likely to take the risk, to persist, and ultimately succeed.”Daniel HellerResearchRyan DuffyResearchSimilarly, Ryan Duffy and his research colleagues followed medical students for a 2-year period to test the impact on life meaning. In line with the results from the high school musicians, students who were more advanced in their search for life meaning at the start of medical school were putting in more effort to get their degree. But intriguingly, even students who had not yet discovered their purpose but were actively looking had better performance results.Searching for purpose has value in itself ...And that’s good news. We don’t need a final answer to our why question. Even putting in the effort of looking for meaning already has a positive impact on our performance!_f825c344-f08a-11e9-bd81-186593babdf6[To be named][To be named]_f825c844-f08a-11e9-bd81-186593babdf6_f825c966-f08a-11e9-bd81-186593babdf6[To_be_inserted_by_user][To be described][To be determined]CommunityDetermine what community to serve._f825ca7e-f08a-11e9-bd81-186593babdf6Tip #2Amy WrzesniewskiResearchYale professor, Wrzesniewski, who studies purpose, points out that, “purpose is not discovered, it’s cultivated.”CommunitiesSo in search of our purpose, the first question we have to answer is “what’s the community I want to serve?” To do so, let’s define purpose as simply as possible. Purpose is the intention to contribute to the wellbeing of others.These others can be everyone on the planet (save the world), but mostly they are a much smaller group like our family, our friends, our neighbours, or co-workers. It’s our unique community. As a reader, for example, you are part of mine. Welcome! I sincerely hope my writing positively contributes to your life. Mutual ServiceFamiliesMutual SupportFriendsMutual SupportNeighboursMutual SupportCo-WorkersMutual SupportPurpose requires a community ... But how do we find our purpose? Is there a secret formula? Or do we just wait and hope we will bump into it? ...Like passion, purpose needs a deliberate effort to reach. So let’s learn how we can define our purpose. Let’s learn how we can dip into those purpose pools._f825cb78-f08a-11e9-bd81-186593babdf6[To be named][To be named]_f825cc90-f08a-11e9-bd81-186593babdf6_f825ce20-f08a-11e9-bd81-186593babdf6[To_be_inserted_by_user][To be described][To be determined]ContributionDetermine how to contribute to the wellbeing of the community._f825cf4c-f08a-11e9-bd81-186593babdf6Tip #3Roy BaumeisterReseachAnd research from social psychologists Roy Baumeister and Timothy Leary shows that belonging is one of the most important human needs. Here’s how it works: belonging is an entryway to a social relationship—a small cue of social connection to another person or group in a performance domain. It functions as a psychological hub and facilitates diverse important outcomes—from motivation and achievement to health and wellbeing. So if you can make someone belong, everybody wins.Timothy LearyReseachGreg WaltonExperimentationTo give you a better feeling for the importance of belonging on the way we behave, take a closer look at this amazing experiment by Greg Walton and Geoffrey Cohen, 2 American psychologists.Geoffrey CohenExperimentationYale UndergraduatesCommunity EffortA group of Yale undergraduates were invited to participate in a math experiment. At the start, the researchers announced they would all receive a complicated math puzzle. To prepare, they were asked to read a few short articles. One of these articles covered a story about former student Nathan Jackson. Jackson had gone to college not knowing what career to pursue and discovered he liked math. Today, he has a fine career in the math department at university. The one-pager also included Jackson’s biography including education, hometown, and birthday.Now here’s the clever part: Jackson’s story was completely fictional, put together by the researchers. For half the participants, Jackson’s birthday was altered to match their own. For the other half, it was not. “We wanted to examine whether something as arbitrary as having a shared birthday would ignite a motivational response,” Walton comments. Furthermore, unknown to everyone except the researchers, the math puzzle was insolvable. Cohen and Walton wanted to test how long the students persisted.When the results came in, even Cohen and Walton were surprised. In the ‘shared birthday’ group, the students’ motivation to perform exploded. They spend a whopping 65 percent more time trying to solve the impossible puzzle. And in a follow-up interview, they showed a more positive attitude towards math and greater belief in their own abilities. And all of this just by having a shared birthday.What’s more, when asked, these students did not even register the birthday match consciously. “It got underneath them,” as Walton points out, “they were in a room by themselves taking the test. The door was shut; they were isolated; and yet [the birthday connection] had meaning for them. They were not alone. The love and interest in math became part of them. They have no idea why. Suddenly it was us doing this, not just me.” They belonged to a community.Belonging is the key driver -- Next we ask ourselves, “How can I contribute to the wellbeing of my community?” This is where you connect your interest to your community.They key purpose driver here turns out to be belonging—a social connection to another person or group._f825d06e-f08a-11e9-bd81-186593babdf6[To be named][To be named]_f825d190-f08a-11e9-bd81-186593babdf6_f825d2b2-f08a-11e9-bd81-186593babdf6[To_be_inserted_by_user][To be described][To be determined]_f825d3d4-f08a-11e9-bd81-186593babdf62019-10-112019-10-17https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/3-surprising-insights-from-science-find-your-purpose-work-de-flander/_f825d50a-f08a-11e9-bd81-186593babdf6OwenAmburOwen.Ambur@verizon.net