Life has pain points. There are times when it feels like you’re living the wrong life. Times when it feels like you’re making decisions based on other people’s wishes. Times of feeling lost and confused in a world that seems difficult and pointless. Times of feeling hopeless about the future, or feeling that life is meaningless.
In this course, you’ll learn how to use the right lens to help you see the sources of meaning, using your authenticity, self-understanding, strengths, and values. For meaning to flourish, you’ll learn to look at your life in new, engaging, and evolving ways.
This course invites you on a journey of wonder. Yes, knowledge is power, but we also need to live with our eyes and hearts open to the unexpected. We need to appreciate that uncertainty will always be with us, and that uncertainty can actually lead us to see new ways of assembling what we know about life.
Meaning is much more interesting as a mystery to investigate than as a puzzle to assemble.
Join Michael F. Steger, the leading expert in the field, for an eight-week exploration of meaning in your life—including how to see and build meaning; locating meaning in your past, present, and future; and the connection of meaning and goals.
Weekly Themes and Key Concepts
Week 1: The Big Why
The course begins with a brief look at human history through the lens of meaning, touching on sources of meaning, your senses and meaning, and the idea that meaning doesn’t have to be complicated.
Week 2: It Begins with Me
Meaning starts with you. Knowing who you are is the foundation. Topics in this session include authenticity, self-understanding, strengths, and values.
Week 3: Uncovering the Source
Meaning is not elusive; it is pervasive. But it can be easily missed. In this session, you’ll learn how to use the right lens to help you see the sources of meaning, even in the mundane. By looking at your day in this way, you can keep the meaning momentum building from week to week.
Week 4: Time—Forward and Backwards
The way you look at time matters to meaning. In this session, you’ll explore nostalgia for the past and anticipation of the future, and discover how to use this “time travel” to expand meaning in your life.
Week 5: Your Story
This week, you’ll explore the power of owning your own story. You can look at your life as a journey—finding universal themes, seeing the people we meet as the heroes and heroines that we travel alongside, and living our aspiration. You’ll not only write your story, but also observe the narrative as you live it day by day.
Week 6: Good Goals
Choosing, planning, and pursuing what we want to accomplish is central to finding purpose and meaning. This week, we’ll explore the essential connection between meaning and goals.
Week 7: Helping Others See and Develop Meaning
It is better to give than to receive, and this may be true for meaning, too. You will learn to build your language for talking about and valuing meaning, and to share the tools you’ve created in this course, so you can help others on their own meaning journeys.
Week 8: Growing Wider and Deeper
Meaning is meant to grow with us, to embrace others and the world around us. As spiritual beings, we are always drawn toward growth and self-transcendence. We’ll conclude by turning our eyes toward the future as we continue to pursue meaning, purpose, and wonder.
Who This Course is For
Any adult seeking to increase understanding of meaning in their life and intentionally build that meaning
Health professionals, coaches, managers, and educators who seek to help others understand and uncover meaning in life and work
For those curious about meaning in life and its link to our authenticity; to our past, present, and future; and to our life goals.
Schedule and Time Commitment
Live classes will be held Thursdays from 12:00–1:30 pm ET, beginning Thursday, January 30. The course includes eight live webinars, with recordings available for those unable to join live. Each week’s webinar will conclude with evidence-based practical applications that can be adapted for use in a wide range of settings.
Assignments/Homework
In addition to webinars and reflection, you will also have one or two articles or videos to read or view each week.
You will also read at least the first half of Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning.
Final Project
To bring the experience together, you’ll create an object that communicates your history, where you are now, and where you hope your journey of meaning, purpose, and wonder will take you.
