When you are most alive and, in the flow,  

Who are you?  

What are you doing?  

Who are you with? 

What’s happening around you at that moment? 

You rarely ask ourselves such questions. You are too busy attempting to untie the twisted knots of your life to get at what you hope will be the magic treasure inside. 

You often plan and have goals for escaping the prison you’ve found yourself in. 

You’ve been digging tunnels looking for a way out. You become short of breath from running after your life, trying to catch up or get ahead so that someday you can have the life you really want. It’s the life you are planning to have…  

As soon as (fill in the blank) the house is paid for, the kids are in college, they find the career (or partner) you love, this current misery ends, you find out what you want. 

So, what is a fulfilling life?

First, let’s understand the meaning of fulfilment, well the Web definition of fulfilment is: 

“The achievement of something desired promised, or predicted.” 

So, it is a result of an action or a certain achievement. But what we do not realize is that actions need to be linking to our internal core, our true heart that is motivated to create a rich, full life.

People are focused on their goal as the means of fulfilment: the thing, the answer, the solution, is invested with the power to grant fulfilment or happiness. Actually, this puts the emphasis in the wrong place; fulfilment is not something you can get or own. It is something you must live. 

It starts with knowing what you want out of life. That’s a big step for lots of us. Lots of people have never really asked themselves that question, not at the deepest level. “No, really. What do you really want in your very own life? You get to create it from a blank page.” 

To actually claim that life means breaking free from golden cages that may have become quite familiar and neatly decorated, lined with the soft illusion of safety. These golden cages may look comfortable, but so do those cushy, satin-lined coffins. 

Living a fulfilling life is a radical act. We all live in a world that favours, supports and provides incentives for going along to get along. Honouring who we really are can mean making difficult choices and experiencing transformation. 

Fulfilment and Values 

In its simplest expression,  fulfilling life is one in which important values are honoured on daily basis. 

What is a value: 

Web Definition: 

“One’s judgment of what is important in life” 

Values represent who you are right now. They are principles that you hold to be of worth in your life. People often confuse values with morals. Values are not chosen. They are intrinsic to you. Your individual values are as distinctly yours as your fingerprints or DNA. 

They are not ideals to be worked on or acquired; they are expressed in the living of your life. If they are important values and they are NOT being expressed in your life, dissonance will show up. On the other hand, if you are living a life honouring your values resonance will show up and then you will feel fulfilled.

By discovering and clarifying your own values, it will help you create a map that will guide along the decision path of your life. When you clarify your value, you will learn more about what makes you tick in life: what is important and what is not. This will eventually help you to take a stand and make choices in your life that will result in fulfilment. 

So, honouring your value will eventually be fulfilling even when it is hard. For example, if authenticity is a very high value for you, you will experience times when you must suffer discomfort in order to live according to that value. The discomfort will eventually pass and a sense of integrity or congruency with your values will remain. On the other hand, if the value is not honoured, you will feel a certain tension and dissonance, almost a feeling of selling out on yourself. 

Resonance vs Dissonance 

As you step forward to change your life, an inner alarm goes off. Homeostasis — or the tendency to maintain the system — is a strong, universal force and your plans to make changes in your life will certainly tilt the well-oiled machine. All of us have a self-sabotaging inner voice — or voices! — That holds us back. Preserving the status quo is part of this Saboteur’s job. So, it’s no wonder that when people contemplate moving forward in a big way, it wakes up the Saboteurs. The bigger the dream, the heftier the Saboteurs become that you will be wrestling with. 

Sometimes called the “Inner Critic,” the Saboteur has all the reasons ready for why this plan (whatever you have in mind) is a stupid, dangerous, hopeless or otherwise ill-advised course of action. The Saboteur is particularly skilful at taking a small piece of the truth and fabricating it into the blanket reason for stopping, or never starting. 

A good approach to control the saboteur is by identifying his presence. One attempt could be by trying to personify it, by asking for example Who is speaking here? What is this voice saying? Is it my true voice or the saboteur’s voice? 

Once it becomes really clear that you and the Saboteur are NOT one and the same, then you could clearly choose who’s going to be the boss here. 

 Imagine that you walk into your home, picture yourself opening your front door, to your surprise, you realize that your home is filled with gifts, wall to wall floor to ceiling, gifts everywhere you look, they are all wrapped in beautiful wrapping paper. You start examining the gifts, and you notice there are gift tags, next to word from there is your own name. Then you realize that these gifts are not for you, they are from you. You look to see what name next to the word To, all blank, so no idea who is these gifts are for and no idea what to do with them. These gifs represent the gifts inside of you, your ideas, your unique wisdom and your values that only You possess. They could be trapped inside of you, undelivered and unopened and you could take it with you all the way to your grave unless you start embrace reaching your full potential in life by living your true values and be constantly striving for fulfilment. 

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes once said, “Too many people die with their music still in them.” Living in Fulfilment gets you to sing your own special song and dance their own special dance. 

As a call to action, I invite you to unpack your values, discover what is behind a conflict that you feel within you, that gets you to feel that you are selling out on any aspect in your life. Take the first step to create the momentum that will enable you to live your life on your own terms. If you want to find out more, let’s talk about this, reach out to me on [email protected]