The Big 5 for Life: Charting Your Course to a Meaningful Existence
Have you ever stood at the edge of your life and wondered if you’re living it fully? If you’re pursuing what truly matters to you, or simply drifting with the currents of circumstance and others’ expectations? Today, I invite you on a journey to discover your “Big 5 for Life” – the five experiences, achievements, or contributions that would make your life feel complete and meaningful when you reach its end.
What Are the Big 5 for Life?
Imagine yourself at 90 years old, sitting in a comfortable chair, surrounded by those you love. As you look back across the decades, what five accomplishments or experiences would make you smile with deep satisfaction and think, “Yes, I lived my life well. I did what I came here to do.”
These aren’t simply goals or bucket list items – though they may include elements of both. Your Big 5 are the core purposes that align with your deepest values and unique gifts. They represent not just what you want to do, but who you want to be and how you want to contribute during your brief time on this planet.
Why Five?
Five is a powerful number – large enough to encompass different dimensions of a well-lived life, yet small enough to focus your energy. With five guiding stars, you create a constellation unique to you, one that can navigate you through the darkest nights of doubt and distraction.
Too many priorities means no priorities at all. By limiting yourself to five, you force clarity. You separate what’s merely interesting from what’s truly essential to your sense of purpose and fulfillment.
Discovering Your Big 5
Finding your Big 5 isn’t about a quick brainstorming session. It’s a process of excavation – digging beneath surface desires to unearth the bedrock of your authentic self. Here are some pathways into this exploration:
1. The Deathbed Perspective
Imagine your final days. What would you regret not having done, been, or experienced? What stories would you wish to tell? What impact would you hope to have left? Often, when we place ourselves at life’s end, our true priorities crystallize with startling clarity.
2. The Childhood Window
Return to your earliest dreams, before practicality and others’ expectations clouded your vision. What did you love doing for hours on end? What made you lose track of time? What did you imagine becoming? Our childhoods often contain the seeds of our most authentic purposes.
3. The Joy Compass
Track what brings you genuine joy – not just fleeting pleasure, but profound satisfaction and meaning. When do you feel most alive? Most like yourself? Joy is often life’s way of pointing us toward our true path.
4. The Contribution Question
Ask yourself: What unique gifts do I have to offer the world? How might my particular combination of talents, passions, and experiences serve others in a way no one else quite can? Our greatest fulfillment often comes from contributing our distinctive gifts.
5. The Values Excavation
Identify your core values – the principles that matter most to you. Is it beauty? Justice? Connection? Knowledge? Adventure? Your Big 5 should be expressions of your most cherished values, allowing you to live them fully rather than just admire them from afar.
Examples to Spark Your Imagination
Your Big 5 will be as unique as your fingerprint, but here are some examples to illustrate the concept:
For a natural connector: Create a foundation that builds schools in underserved communities, write a book that transforms how parents connect with their children, master the art of conflict resolution and teach it to others, build a multi-generational home where family can gather for decades to come, learn five languages fluently to connect across cultures.
For a creative soul: Complete a series of paintings exhibited in a major gallery, write a novel that touches readers deeply, create a sustainable artistic community in your hometown, master three distinct artistic disciplines and create works that blend them, document disappearing cultural traditions through photography and storytelling.
For an adventurous spirit: Live on every continent for at least three months, build a sustainable off-grid home with your own hands, complete a solo sailing journey across an ocean, start a travel company that supports indigenous communities, climb the highest peak on each continent.
For a nurturing heart: Foster children through their most challenging years, create a healing garden that serves as community sanctuary, establish a grief support network in your community, become a midwife and help bring 1,000 new lives into the world, write children’s books that help young people navigate difficult emotions.
For an analytical mind: Solve a mathematical problem that has stumped others for decades, create an invention that makes clean water accessible to those without it, build a business that models ethical capitalism, develop an educational approach that makes complex concepts accessible to all learners, create a database that preserves endangered languages.
Living Your Big 5
Once you’ve identified your Big 5, they become both compass and filter. Each major decision can be evaluated through their lens: “Does this move me toward or away from my Big 5?” They help you say no to the good so you can say yes to the great.
Unlike typical goals, your Big 5 aren’t necessarily meant to be “completed” and checked off (though some might be). Rather, they’re the themes around which you organize your days. They’re the answer when someone asks, “What are you about?”
Your Big 5 may evolve over time as you grow and change – and that’s perfectly fine. They aren’t a prison but a framework, flexible enough to accommodate new insights while solid enough to keep you from drifting aimlessly.
The Courage to Choose
Defining your Big 5 requires courage. It means acknowledging that you cannot do everything, be everything, experience everything in one lifetime. It means choosing what matters most to you, even if others don’t understand or approve.
But in that choosing lies freedom. When you know your Big 5, decisions become simpler. Distractions lose their power. The opinions of others, while respected, no longer dictate your path. You gain the quiet confidence of someone who knows why they’re here and what they’re about.
Begin Today
Your Big 5 won’t reveal themselves in a single sitting. They’ll emerge over time through reflection, experimentation, and listening deeply to your inner wisdom. Start the process today:
- Set aside quiet time for reflection
- Journal on the questions provided above
- Notice what lights you up when you consider it
- Be willing to revise and refine as insights emerge
- Share your emerging Big 5 with trusted others who can reflect back what they see in you
Remember, this isn’t about creating a perfect list but about discovering what truly matters to you. Your Big 5 are already within you, waiting to be recognized and lived.
What will your life story be? The pen is in your hand. Your Big 5 are the chapters you most want to write.
What would make your list? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.
