What's worse than a life without purpose? At best, such a life is unsatisfying. But at worst, it can drive you to despair and depression. Enduring is not enough; you should enjoy and celebrate life. And to do that, you need purpose.
The tricky part is that purpose can have different definitions for various people. Here, we'll define it as "the reason you get up in the morning." And while it's not a definitive list, you can often find your purpose in one of three categories: your mission, your career, or your hobby.
Here are several life purpose questionnaires that can help you discover your own meaning. For best results, you should take as many of them as you can and see where they all overlap. None of them are definitive on their own, but together these life direction quizzes can point you in the right direction.
Life Purpose Tests to Find Your Life's Mission
Simply put, your mission is what you want to accomplish by the time you leave this world. Ironically, while most of us think we know what we want (such as to make a lot of money, travel the world, or run a successful business), a few pointed questions can reveal that we were wrong all along.
Let's look at some life purpose quizzes to help you figure out if your mission is a proper fit for you.
1. Mark Manson's Seven Strange Questions
Mark Manson's philosophy is that conflict is inevitable and life is about solving problems. According to him, finding one's mission is synonymous with figuring out what's important and figuring out how to spend as much of your time as possible on that.
His seven questions are simple, challenging, and insightful. And true to the title, they aren't ordinary self-help questions either.
This is more of an essay than an interactive quiz, but it will challenge you to think regardless. Mark challenges you to ask "What can I do with my time that is important?" instead of the more common "What should I do with my life?".
2. Tina Su's 15 Questions
Here's a simple exercise that only requires pen and paper; Tina Su's questions get straight to the point. She doesn't tell you what you should do. Rather, she gets you to explore those answers on your own. The exercise will probably only take you 10 minutes or so, but the more seriously you take it, the more useful the results will be.
After you complete the questions, there's a section to help you form a personal mission statement for your life.
3. Jessica Heslop's 30 Questions
Though similar in process to the two questionnaires above, Jess Heslop's questions are aimed more towards finding your passion. It doesn't cover your mission as much, though the two can be the same.
Again, this is an exploration exercise, but with 30 questions on deck, it's sure to get you thinking about elements you hadn't considered before.
4. Jan L. Bowen's Life Purpose Quiz
If you're looking for a more traditional quiz setup, have a look at this page. It presents you with 20 questions that each have three possible answers. Each one essentially comes down to yes/no/sometimes, so they're not anything crazy.
After you complete the test, you do have to enter your email address to get the results, which may put some off. But it's worthwhile if the previous questions didn't help you learn more about yourself.
Free Passion Tests for Finding Your Ideal Career
Finding purpose and identity in your career or occupation can work, but it's not something we recommend for everybody. It's too easy to devote excessive time to work at the expense of important relationships and other pursuits.
Still, finding the right job can be an amazing way to live out your personal mission on a day-to-day basis. Knowing that your job matters can make it easy to get up in the morning.
5. Clarity on Fire's Passion Profile Quiz
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This is a quick quiz containing only a few questions, so don't expect it to provide any life-shattering answers. Based on your responses, you'll be sorted into one of four categories: Firestarter, Tribe Member, Side Hustler, or Thriver.
Upon completion, you'll get a PDF that explains the category, its strengths and challenges, and what you should look for going forward.
6. WTF Should I Do With My Life?
This site is one of the most interesting ways to find your passion in life. It doesn't contain any questionnaires, essays, or quizzes. Instead, the site presents you with a randomized sequence of potential occupations, such as Virtual Reality Director or Park Ranger. You can keep rejecting these until you find one that interests you.
Each occupation is tied to an interview with someone from that field who explains what the job is like, why they love it, and the kinds of challenges they regularly face. It can be a great way to discover careers that you would have never encountered otherwise.
7. O*NET Interest Profiler
If you're looking for a more serious career path test, give this a try. You'll hate to rate 60 jobs on how much you'd enjoy doing them. Afterward, you'll learn more about your interest profile and potential job zones, followed by some careers ideas that should fit you.
It's important to answer these without worrying about the potential salary or whether you have the requisite skills. The main goal of O*NET is to find your best fit career so that you can pursue the training necessary to succeed in that field.
8. Holland Code Career Test
Similar to the above, this is a serious career test that asks you to rate how much you'd like doing specific jobs. It takes several minutes to complete and the results come in three parts:
- Your scores across six interest areas
- Job tasks, core values, and personality traits that fit your interests
- Potential careers that match your interest area results.
These, plus the advice on the next steps, can be helpful in discovering yourself. The site also advertises a premium report with more information, but it's not necessary for most people.
Life Purpose Quizzes to Find a Hobby You'll Love
A lot of people believe you should turn your hobby into a job, so it won't feel like work. But for most people, the opposite happens: your hobby begins to feel like work and loses its luster.
As such, it might be better for you to pick up any job that pays the bills, then find satisfaction and fulfillment in a non-paying hobby. The right hobby can even help you feel happier.
9. BoredomBusted's Hobby List
While it's not really a quiz, this should be your first destination when looking for new hobbies. It's an enormous list comprised of hundreds of hobby ideas. While they are broken into categories, it doesn't include descriptions for each one, so you'll need to do some searching for more info.
Once you have an idea of the kinds of hobbies you'd like to check out, you can try other quizzes or perhaps join online communities to see which are good matches for you.
10. BuzzFeed's Aptitude Quiz
Many of BuzzFeed's quizzes are silly, and while you shouldn't take this as professional advice, it might help generate an idea for you. Use a slider to rate your interest in certain topics, the level to which you agree with personal statements, how much personality traits match you, and factors for your hobby.
Again, it's not going to shake your life outlook to the core, but it's a fun counterbalance to the more intense quizzes above.
Find Your Passion: Tests Can Help
When someone feels that their life lacks purpose, they usually hate their job and feel stuck in life. If you can relate, you should try taking the quizzes and tests above. Hopefully, they'll at least make you think. Even better, you may hit a spark that revives the part of you that feels lost or stuck.
For more like this, take a look at the best fun online psychological tests.
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