From Shattered Goals to Meaning in Life: Life Crafting in Times of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

The novel COVID-19 pandemic has created an extraordinary situation for our generation, with many countries being on lockdown. With this new situation comes many psychological challenges, not only for health care workers and people suffering from COVID-19, but also for the general population. Adapting to the new situation can be demanding. Experts have suggested that emotions during this situation are very similar to grief, and people experience emptiness and sadness about the loss of their normal lives, which can even lead to a loss of meaning in life. In this paper, we argue that life crafting could offer a way to help people cope with the situation and renew their sense of meaning. A life crafting intervention is based on theoretical insights from multiple areas of research, like positive psychology, expressive writing, and the salutogenesis framework. Life-crafting interventions help people find meaning in life by focusing on their ideal future, and helping them set goals, make concrete plans to achieve those goals and overcome obstacles. Since having a clear purpose or meaning in life has been shown to have many benefits, we propose that it can also help people to cope with the psychological effects of the pandemic. A life-crafting intervention can offer people a chance to evaluate their goals in a time of uncertainty and rediscover meaning in life to guide them through these difficult times.

Meaning in life and impact of COVID-19 pandemic on African immigrants in the United States

“…The inability to achieve one's life goals can lead to a sense of despair and a lack of purpose ( Steger, 2017 ). In general, attainment of life goals has been shown to have many benefits for mental as well as physical well-being ( De Jong et al., 2020 ), especially during a crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic ( Trzebiński et al., 2020 )…”

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on stress, mental health and coping behavior in German University students – a longitudinal study before and after the onset of the pandemic

“…Those who rated the impact as high had higher stress and mental health scores of anxiety and depression. Regarding intangible existence, it is notable that from other studies not only feelings of boredom were reported facing the COVID-19 pandemic [56,57], but also feelings of emptiness and sadness about the loss of normal life, which can even lead to a loss of meaning in life [58].…”

Trust in crisis

“…Second, there is the relationship to religion to consider. People in crisis situ ations, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, seem to be more likely to experience a loss of meaning in life (de Jong et al 2020;Schnell and Krampe 2020), and the role of religion in managing the emotional and social fallout of a crisis seems more clear-cut, as a traditional route for handling the crisis and loss of meaning.…”