As a psychiatrist, Frankl developed a method called logotherapy, that he used for treating patients who suffered from depression, substance abuse, anxiety, and various other problems.
It was based on Frankl’s observation that those people who survived the Nazi concentration camps during the Holocaust, were the ones who found the strongest will to live by finding meaning.
Frankl then surmised that the primary force that motivates people in life is to find meaning. He called it ‘will to meaning’.
Frankl’s insights have greatly helped many people who have faced existential questions. His methods helped them to find a meaning and a purpose, and thereby a will to live.
His ideas are quite profound and inspirational, and if you are a person that is searching for meaning and/or purpose, they can help you in that quest. Above all, they can give you a direction for your life.
His ideas are quite profound and inspirational, and if you are a person that is searching for meaning and/or purpose, they can help you in that quest. Above all, they can give you a direction for your life.
1. Find a Why
“Those who have a ‘why’ to live, can bear with almost any ‘how’.”
― Viktor E. Frankl quoting Friedrich Nietzsche
If you find your purpose, then you can overcome almost any challenge that life throws at you.
Finding meaning in your experiences, and having a purpose, can create a fortress of the mind that’ll shield you from life’s many hardships.
This reminds me of ancient Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius’ advice to be like a rock which breaks all the waves that crash against it. Having a why can make you into that rock.
Frankl found his why, and that turned him into a rock that nothing could touch. His mind became strong, and allowed him to survive in conditions where most perished.
2. Success and Happiness Must Ensue
“Don’t aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater.” — Viktor Frankl
To pursue success or happiness involves things are outside your control. Instead, success and happiness come out of your daily actions, and out of your mindset.
If you dedicate yourself to a cause greater than yourself, success and happiness will ensue as a direct result of you striving for that cause.
3. You Choose Your Own Attitude
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
― Viktor E. Frankl
There are unfortunately many things outside of your control, and they can impact your life greatly. Outside circumstances often hit hard, making life very difficult.
Viktor Frankl met one of the most horrible fates that you can imagine. He was locked up in a concentration camp, surrounded by death, at risk of dying himself. He called it Fate.
Yet he tried to make the best of his circumstances. He found meaning in his suffering, and this meaning got him through the worst of days. It carried him and willed him to go on when he was at the edge of death.
4. If You Can’t Change a Situation, Change Yourself
“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”
― Viktor E. Frankl
When you are faced with situations out of your control, you need to adapt to those circumstances. You need to find meaning in that situation. That is, to find what you can learn from it, and discover ways to carry you through.
5. Suffering Ceases to Be Suffering When it Finds Meaning
“In some ways suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice.”
― Viktor E. Frankl
6. Love is the Only Way to Grasp Another Human Being
“Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality.” — Viktor Frankl
7. The World Might Be in a Bad State, But We All Must Play a Part to Make it Better
“For the world is in a bad state, but everything will become still worse unless each of us does his best.”
― Viktor E. Frankl
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