I became aware of Ayse Yemiscigil´s work through her article (co-authored with Ivo Vlaev) The bidirectional relationship between sense of purpose in life and physical activity: a longitudinal study. I was excited to discuss with Ayse her work which is one of the first to look at these two things together. Ayse also shared stories of her own involvement in sport as well as insights from her other work looking at purpose and meaning in people´s lives.
In the first part of our conversation, we get to know Ayse´s personal story in academia. We then distinguish important concepts, including how meaning and purpose are different, and how purpose in life relates to well-being. We also learn to know about Ayse’s other research work that has explored how purpose in life changes in retirement. Perhaps surprisingly, her research has shown that for some people, retirement (which has been often viewed as withdrawal and loss of purpose) can actually be accompanied by an increasing sense of purpose in life. For more details, see the article The Effects of Retirement on Sense of Purpose in Life: Crisis or Opportunity?
Part 1 here:
In the second part of our conversation, we dig deeper into the relationship between purpose in life and physical activity. In her research, Ayse has shown that involvement in physical activity is positively associated with a sense of purpose in life in the future (while controlling for the previous level of purpose in life). In the conversation, we explore possible whys behind this finding and Ayse shares some personal reflections on how purpose and sport have played out in her life. We also discuss the challenges that athletes might experience in finding purpose in sport, and how imagining sport differently might help.
Part 2 here:
Dr Ayse Yemiscigil is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard University. Her research has explored the relationship between work and well-being, sense of meaning and purpose in work and physical activity, and the impact of retirement on purpose in life. Interested in finding out more? See Ayse’s homepage here.