How to Find Your Purpose

What's your purpose? Jordan Grumet thought that becoming a doctor would give his life meaning and direction... but he was wrong. He spent his days doing things he didn't really enjoy and dreaded waking up in the morning.  Finding a purpose that is authentic to you can be transformative - and it doesn't have to be some grand goal like curing a disease or founding a company. Jordan, author of The Purpose Code, explains how we can all find seemingly small and everyday activities which will fill our lives with joy and fulfillment.  Jordan also hosts the Earn & Invest podcast.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Leaders aren't just generals, presidents and CEOs. You're probably a leader too! Someone in your home, school or workplace might look to you for guidance - and that's leading. So how do you inspire the people around you and make yourself the best leader you can be? Columbia Business School's Adam Galinsky (author of Inspire: The Universal Path for Leading Yourself and Others) reckons we can all learn simple lessons that will make us better and more encouraging colleagues, parents and friends.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

To improve your life you might decide to prioritize your own personal happiness, or find meaning in helping the people around you. Few of us consider pushing ourselves well beyond our comfort zones. It might take a lot of effort and risks pain or disappointment.    University of Chicago professor Shige Oishi thinks to live fully we all need to push ourselves to find "psychological richness". He tells Dr Laurie that we should look for daily opportunities to explore, get lost, mess around and have random encounters that challenge our routines and expectations.    Read more about Shige's work in Life in Three Dimensions: How Curiosity, Exploration and Experience Make a Fuller, Better Life.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Love Factually is a new podcast looking at what "rom com" movies get right and wrong about relationships. Dr Laurie Santos joined the hosts Eli Finkel of Northwestern University and Paul Eastwick from UC Davis to talk about her favorite 80s teen movie, Say Anything. In this episode, they discuss what Cameron Crowe's 1989 film tells us about what constitutes stalking; and the transition when romantic partners supplant our parents as our closest relationships.   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the absence of better advice, we learn a lot about love and dating from rom com movies - but is the depiction of relationships in these films leading us in the wrong direction? Let's find out.  Eli Finkel of Northwestern University and Paul Eastwick from UC Davis are both accomplished relationship experts - but for fun they’ve launched a podcast called Love Factually exploring what the makers of rom coms get right and wrong about how humans really find love.   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Do you go on endless dates hoping to find the perfect partner only to be endlessly disappointed? Or have you stopped meeting people because you've decided that you're undateable? Maybe you need to start dating like a scientist.  Behavioural scientist Logan Ury has studied the common mistakes we make when looking for love - and thinks science can shows us a better way.   Logan is the director of relationship science at the dating app Hinge. She’s also the dating coach for the new Netflix showThe Later Daters and author of How to Not Die Alone. Check out Logan's website at loganury.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Stress can suck, but it's part of life - it’s normal and even useful. Many of us drown in our stress - worrying about past events and fearing upcoming challenges. We even stress about feeling stressed. So how can we reset our relationship with stress - benefitting from its positives and avoiding those negatives?  Dr Jenny Taitz has some effective tips to help you greet stress more healthily. A clinical psychologist and the author of Stress Resets: How to Soothe Your Body and Mind in Minutes, Dr Jenny explains that if we think differently about challenges and tough situations and take action, then stress can become a friend rather than a foe.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Negative emotions like fear or anger are part of being human. These feelings tell us something - perhaps prompting us to take action or bring about change. However, they're powerful and disruptive - and if they hang around too long or are too intense, they can take a huge toll on our happiness and wellbeing. We need to shift them... but how? Psychologist Ethan Kross knows. He's the author of Shift: Managing Your Emotions So They Don't Manage You and founder of the Emotion and Self Control Lab at the University of Michigan - and shares his top science-backed tips to rein in feelings like sorrow, disappointment or rage. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As children we think we're at the center of the world - but as adults we need to learn to see the perspectives and problems of other people. It helps us connect with those people, but also makes us realise that our own problems aren't unique or especially awful. In short, to be happy you need to know ... How to Get Over Yourself.  Dr Laurie hears how to stop being egocentric and start being allocentric from Bruce Hood - a professor at the University of Bristol and the author of The Science of Happiness: Seven Lessons for Living Well. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Perfectionism isn't just wanting to be perfect... it's the feelings of failure and shame when we simply can't perform at a superhuman level all day, every day. To be happy, we have to accept the reality that perfection is impossible. So this episode is... How to Feel Like You're Enough.  Dr Laurie is joined by fellow recovering perfectionist Dr Ellen Hendriksen - who is a clinical psychologist at Boston University's Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders and author of “How to be Enough: Self-Acceptance for Self-Critics and Perfectionists”. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.