Finding Your “Life Worth Living”
Life can feel overwhelming, especially when the negatives seem to outweigh the positives. For some, this imbalance leads to despair or hopelessness, making it hard to imagine a future that feels worthwhile. In Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), we believe that every life is meaningful and everyone can have a life that they experience as worth living. This blog post will introduce the idea of building a “life worth living” and provide suggestions to help you start identifying your own life worth living goals.
What Is a Life Worth Living?
There is no prescription for a life worth living. It’s entirely up to you to decide what you want in your life. This can be empowering, but it can also be daunting. Below, we provide some guidelines on how to get started brainstorming your life worth living goals.
It’s important to remember that your life worth living goals are not treatment goals or expectations set by others. Instead, they reflect your own hopes, preferences, values, and priorities. Life worth living goals do not have to be achievable in six months, or even a year. These goals will likely evolve over time, and that’s okay. What matters is that they reflect what you value and care about most deeply.
Getting Started
Here are some questions to get you thinking. Aim to identify 1-5 life worth living goals. Consider writing your answers out or treating the questions as a mindfulness practice. These questions are for brainstorming purposes. Brainstorming requires nonjudgment, reality acceptance, and curiosity.
Imagine a life that feels worthwhile: What would it include? Consider all aspects of life, such as relationships, work, recreation, education, finances, and activities. Let go of judgments and expectations. Do you want a certain job? To pursue a particular activity? To live in a certain location? To have a romantic relationship? What about friendships and family relationships? Do you want a certain amount of money or to be your own boss? Do you want to live on your own? Pursue a particular type of education? Do your best to brainstorm without constraints. Most people put too many restrictions, expectations, and “shoulds” on themselves when they think about their life worth living goals. Try to push that all aside and ask yourself what you want most.
Practice nonjudgment: Most people limit themselves far too much when considering what they really want. Write down your ideas without judging or evaluating them. There are no bad ideas.
Look to others for inspiration: Think of people who seem to have fulfilling lives. Who do you know whose life really seems worthwhile to you? What do they have?
Reconnect with your past self: What did you want before life’s challenges made those dreams seem impossible? Be honest with yourself.
What fills you up? What activities, people, or moments bring you joy? This can include both big joys, like pursuing a passion or spending time with a loved one, and small joys, like a walk with your dog.
Ask yourself how you want to be remembered. Thinking about your legacy can shed light on your values and priorities.
Pinpoint your values: What is most meaningful to you? What energizes you or gives you purpose?
Acknowledge barriers: Reflect on what stands in the way of creating a life worth living. Are there skills you need to develop? Support you’re lacking?
Troubleshooting: What If You’re Stuck?
If you’re struggling to define your LWL goals, try these exercises:
Do a values card sort: This activity helps you prioritize what matters most. You can do it online or with a therapist.
Focus on what you do want, rather than what you don’t want: Instead of dwelling on what you don’t want (e.g., "I don’t want to feel lonely"), reframe it into what you do want (e.g., "I want to feel connected").
Ask "Wouldn’t it be great if...": Use this phrase to spark ideas about what you’d like to achieve, feel, or have in your life.
Bring this exercise to your therapist: If you’re stuck, and especially if being stuck is contributing to your distress, be sure to bring this exercise to a qualified therapist and get support in identifying your life worth living goals.
From Goals to Action Steps:
Recall that life worth living goals are big picture goals and aspirations. They’re not necessarily “right now” things. You don’t necessarily need to have every goal in hand to feel more hopeful and less miserable. Just knowing that you are taking meaningful steps (including small steps) toward your life worth living goals can change your day-to-day experience.
For each life worth living goal, identify a short-term goal that will bring you closer to your life worth living goal. Your short-term goals should be achievable in the next 6-12 months.
For each short-term goal, identify an action step. An action step is what you can do right now to get closer to your short-term goals.
Make sure to bring your life worth living goals to your therapist. It’s easy to spend all of your time in therapy focusing on treatment goals (e.g., reducing symptoms, learning new skills). Treatment goals are very important. But improving your wellbeing in the long-term requires making consistent progress towards your life worth living goals, in addition to your treatment goals.
If you would like more help with setting or working towards your life worth living goals, consider working with a DBT therapist. If you’d like a free informational call to consider comprehensive DBT with us at DBT Works, please complete our interest form.
