Dear Dartmouth,

It’s Spring Term! A new term is a fresh opportunity to reset yourself mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually. A chance to refocus, recenter, and re-envision who and how you are as a Dartmouth student and a person in the world. And finally, it’s an opportunity to take a deep breath, let your mind settle on what you want this term to be about, and then put things in motion.

With all of this in mind, we’re focusing on the topic of purpose to start this term, and encouraging you to join us in an intentional (and even purposeful) way! Here’s how my intention-centered colleague, LB, described this month’s theme:

“Purpose on Purpose… …is all about taking time to pause and reflect on what truly matters to us, where we are actually headed and more importantly the “why” behind all of that. It’s about aligning our actions with our values and asking ourselves, ‘HOW is it that I want to live my life right NOW?’.”

Personally, I’m thinking about all of this through the lens of running. About a month ago, I decided I wanted to increase my physical activity, and for whatever reason, running was what had the most appeal for me. As someone with little experience running, I launched myself into it – gasping for air, pausing to walk when needed, and generally matching my experience with expectations like “running is hard,” “it’s not supposed to be fun it’s a workout,” and “if you can’t push through then that’s on you.” I wasn’t thinking too much about why I was doing this. I just knew something in me wanted to move.

While doing some reading about mindfulness for work, I happened across an article that described the author’s experience running with the Nike Run Club app. She particularly focused on the ‘guided runs’ that Nike had developed in collaboration with Headspace that integrated mindfulness principles with the practices of effective running. Intrigued, I downloaded the app and on my next run, headed out for the 20 minute guided “First Run,” which was not connected to Headspace, but seemed like a sensible place to start.

Over the past 8 years, I’ve helped to develop coaching programs that focus on student wellbeing for several colleges and universities, and provided direct coaching to a number of students. But I’ve never really been coached before myself. So even though I knew all of the principles in play, it was still a shock to me that within the first minute of this run, the voice in my ear asking me to check in with myself seemed to understand my experience with such clarity. That voice belonged to Nike Running Global Head Coach Chris Bennett, and in less than two minutes, he guided me to completely reset my perspective on the run I was engaged in at that moment.

He suggested that I was probably working too hard. He was right. He said that this first run was not about pace, distance, or duration – it was about starting it, ending it, and wanting to do a next run. I was curious. He told me to slow down. I didn’t. And then he said it again. I knew he wasn’t speaking to me directly, but it FELT LIKE IT because what he was describing so closely matched my experience. I slowed down. I focused on effort instead of pace. I felt better. I finished the run without needing to stop. I felt good in both body and mind, and was excited to go again. And to my surprise, my pace for that first run was actually a little faster, overall, than the labored runs I had been putting myself through prior to that moment.

What does all of this have to do with purpose, with Spring term, with you? At the heart of this coaching lie three big phrases that get repeated again and again: “This is about running,” “This is not about running,” and “Every run has a purpose.” For me, that first phrase meant that when I was running, I could let go of everything else and focus on the run at hand. The second phrase suggested that even though this was true, the things we learn about ourselves through any activity can inform every other part of our life. And the final phrase…well…that’s where the rubber really met the road for me.

Something fundamentally changed for me when I started thinking about the purpose of the run. Not any run. The run that I was on that day. The run I was engaged in at that moment. Each time the prompt came up, my mind flooded with possibilities: finding joy, getting over fear, building confidence, believing in my abilities, valuing myself enough to practice self-care, thinking about the contributions I want to make in the lives of the people in my family, my workplace, and my community… Suddenly I was running with purpose, and that did more than make the running meaningful in and of itself – it made running a part of what it means for me to live meaningfully.

Purpose as a core element of wellbeing refers to “a sense of clarity concerning personally meaningful aims and values that one is able to apply in daily life” (Dahl, Wilson-Mendenhall, & Davidson, 2020, p. 5). Stated slightly differently, purpose is “a forward-looking directionality, an intention to do something in the world,” says Anthony Burrow. “It’s different than a goal, which can be accomplished. Wanting to be a father is a goal because it is achievable. But to be a great father is more of an intention than an achievement. On some days, one might come closer to the ideal than others, but it is never a completed task.”

We invite to to take the beginning of this term an opportunity to get some clarity, to think about what’s meaningful for you and set some intentions for who you want to become and what kind of life you want to create for yourself. Much like every run has a purpose, we might also say that every term has a purpose. That purpose is made up of two big things: life aims and values.

Life aims provide an overarching narrative that can help you make sense of life, so consider:

• When you look back on this term, what is the story you will most want to tell about this time in your life?

Values guide your behavior, helping you persevere through challenges by orienting toward what is personally meaningful and important. They inform “how” you go through life each day, so also consider:

• How do you want to show up in life this term, both for yourself and for others? What qualities do you most want others to see in you?

You might even take this process to a more granular level, considering that each week of the term brings different challenges. So perhaps every week has a purpose or purposes that are unique compared to the others. However you want to approach this, just know that this is not a peripheral, detached exercise. A strong sense of purpose has been directly linked with many benefits for wellbeing, including better physical health, mental health, and academic achievement.

This is something that you can do for yourself, something that can help you move, step by step, day by day, week by week, and term by term, ever closer to who you want to be, how you want to live your life, and what you want to contribute to the lives of others in the world around you.

And you might just feel better and DO better as a result.

We hope you’ll join us at this starting line. And as always, we’re ready to meet you on each of the starting lines that will appear along the way over the next 10 weeks. Please explore what we have to offer, and don’t ever hesitate to reach out.

Take care and be well,
Todd

 

Follow up note from Todd: 4/20/2021

I just read a fascinating article by Adam Grant in the NY Times on how the pandemic has impacted our mental health and wellbeing. While it does not speak directly to the topic of purpose, I thought one of the most interesting findings is that flow (i.e. absorption in a meaningful challenge where your sense of time, place and self melts away) is the most effective antidote for languishing. So following this wellbeing process, it seems like purpose keeps me running, running helps me access a flow state, and regularly experiencing flow helps me thrive. All of which begs the questions:

Where do you experience flow in your life, and how could you use purpose to access that flow state more regularly in your daily or weekly activities?