Tag: Fullfilment Framework

Knowing Yourself

Happiness, The Fullfilment Framework

Often it can be easy to become the things that those around us want us to be. With peer pressure, the pressure from modern culture to dress a certain way or act a certain way and the expectations of our parents all add to who we think we should be. However, this is not always who we actually are. If the version of ourselves that we present to the world is different from how we are in our own head, or in private, then something is wrong.


The problem is that if we live to other people’s expectations then we are never going to feel fulfilled, because all that we do will be for the benefit of others. To live life as your authentic self takes courage, because you will be judged by someone, maybe many, in your life. But if you do it, if you live as you with conviction then my friends you can become your best selves. Your achievements will then feel worth it.


When the way you live your life is aligned with your values and beliefs then your heart will feel full, contentment will permeate your thoughts and your levels of stress will be reduced. The thing to do is to get to know yourself, deeply.


Your Values


Your values are simply the things in life that you value. I know obvious right? What I mean is the things that you have strong feelings about. The things that stand out as important to you. Is it your family, your friends, is it justice or charity? Is it creativity or making money? None of these are good or bad, but they get to the essence of who you are.

I value creativity, stewardship, kindness and leadership very highly. I value my family highly too. I also value equality and respect for others. Figuring out what values are important to you will fill in part of the picture of who you authentically are.


Your Beliefs 


Beliefs are about how you think the world works and how you think people should behave. Beliefs include religious ideas as well as human ideas. It might be that God’s grace is real. It might be that karma is real. It might be that we should try to lift other up and not put them down. It might be that the winner takes it all and the loser dismissed.


There is a morality to figuring out our beliefs. They define what is right and wrong in your eyes. Figuring out what you believe about all sorts of things is really important. To question the beliefs that are given to you by others and decide if you too believe them, deep down in your heart, is very important too. We are all individuals and living life by someone else’s beliefs can be detrimental to us.

What Is Your Vocation

We all have jobs, generally speaking, but they are often not things that we have chosen because we deeply believe in the work we are doing. Often the job we have is simply a way of exchanging our time and energy for money to live on. If the work is in contrast to our values or beliefs then this can be a stressful situation. Some places of work are also focused on how much productivity they can squeeze out of us rather than helping us to reach our full potential.

Some of you will have things that you do outside of work, things that you have chosen to do. Things that you are passionate about. Things you are literally doing for free, because you love it. One thing I do is preaching in a Unitarian church. You might be a Scout leader, a volunteer in a charity shop, a volunteer in a food bank, a writer or a blogger. These are signs of the things that you could flourish at if you were doing it as you actual job. Your vocation can become your job if you have the courage to take a chance and go for it.

All of this is about figuring out who you are, how you work, what you deeply care about and living your best life, because you know your self. This is life’s mission, a personal journey such as this avoids a life that will feel wasted at it’s end, because you will be living on your terms, in your way, and not living your life through the expectations and peer pressure of others.

Go forth and discover your wonderful self and live according to your values and beliefs. Be courageous and live true to who you are.

Principles To Live By

Happiness, Success, The Fullfilment Framework

“A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.”
― Dwight D. Eisenhower

There are many sets of rules or principles in our culture that act as guides of how to live, if we choose to follow them. There are religious ones, self-improvement ones and business success ones. One of the oldest known in modern culture are the Ten Commandments, found in the Hebrew bible and the Old Testament in the Christian bible. There are others however.


There is the Golden Rule, ‘do to others what you would have them do to you.’ Which is found in most religious writings across the world, in one form or another. One of my favourite sets of rules is from the small but excellent book, The Go-Giver: A Little Story About a Powerful Business Idea by Bob Burg and John D. Mann. In it the protagonist learns 5 laws of stratospheric success. It is business orientated, but they apply to every day life as well. Here they are:

  1. The Law of Value: Your true worth is determined by how much more you give in value than you take in payment.
  2. The Law of Compensation: Your income is determined by how many people you serve and how well you serve them.
  3. The Law of Influence: Your influence is determined by how abundantly you place other people’s interests first.
  4. The Law of Authenticity: The most valuable gift you have to offer is yourself.
  5. The Law of Receptivity: The key to effective giving is to stay open to receiving.

In life however, I think living by rules can sometimes feel restrictive, as constructive as they might be. I personally think it is better to live by principles. This means you have a reason why you do what you do and what you do and how you do it are more flexible, as long as they align with your principles. I have put together ten principle as part of my reworking or the Fullfilment Framework. This is a work in progress, so as ever, feedback is welcomed in the comments.


Principles of a Life Well Lived


I have distilled down principles that are good to live by to ten specific principles that I believe will collectively help us feel happy and successful in life and as a result feel fulfilled. These are the principles of a life well lived, categorised into Self and Others.


Self: Growth

As human beings if we feel we are not growing as individuals then our lives feel like they are stagnating to some degree and we lose any kind of fulfilment. We need to develop in our jobs, if not in our spiritual or personal realms. To gain deeper understandings and to improve is a inner drive that is greater or smaller depending on your personality, but I would say it is always there.

We also need to have a growth mindset to get the best out of life. To have a destination in mind but to be flexible on the route. To favour hard work and problem solving over believing that we have fixed, innate qualities like being creative or not being good with numbers. We become good at anything with learning and practice. Water flows around obstacles and makes its own paths. Equally, a tree that bends in the wind will not break and it continues to grow, as this is its nature, much like growth is part of our nature.


Self: Equanimity

This is very difficult, it is the art of being calm and collected in any given situation, good or bad. It is mastery over our emotions. It is not getting emotionally pulled into situations so much that the situation dictates how we feel and what we do. Self-mastery includes equanimity, keeping experiences in perspective in the greater scheme of things. It is not abstaining from emotions; it is Mastery over them.


Self: Fortitude

We all have challenges in our lives, some are overcoming procrastination to work on something important to us and some are life changing events that threaten derail our whole lives. When we have a goal in life, a North Star that we are aiming for, we need the drive to work on this every day. No matter what our challenges are, having the fortitude to keep going when life pushes back will mean we achieve the good success we deserve.

Self: Seeking

Part of the Fullfilment Foundation is Acquiring Wisdom, which is part of Seeking. What I mean by Seeking is the act of exploring the unknown, to yearn for explanations of why things happen the way they do, but also to have the courage to step into the unknown in life when the prospect fills us with fear. This can be in our job, in relationships and in personal projects, and it can potentially challenge the values and beliefs that we have defined for ourselves.

This is part of the process of seeking, it is being open to change when new experiences bring new information, new wisdom that we have not been aware of before.It is following a spiritual path or a path of self-exploration, depending on your theological beliefs. It is the path of the wisdom warrior, to courageously seek a deeper understanding.


Self: Self-Competition

In life, we often compare ourselves to others, we compete with them, even if this is only in our own minds. This will either make us feel self-important if we are ahead, or feel bad about ourselves, if we are behind. This is not productive at all if winning is everything. Comparing a standard of work with others can be useful, but it is best to compare our current selves with our previous selves. To be better today than we were yesterday.


This is how all the great achievers think, whether individuals or companies, those who innovate and change the world compete with themselves, not their competition. This means they can focus their Why, on bringing to life the vision they have developed from their Why.


Others: Stewardship

Greatness comes from leaving things better than you found them. Not being satisfied with the status quo because it kind of works OK. When this is done with the intention of improving things for others the benefit is magnified for yourself and others. It is planting trees when you know others will benefit from its shade. This is a kind of entrepreneurial spirit, the act of looking for things that need to be improved and making changes to achieve this.


Others: Servanthood

A good leader takes care of those around them, it is not a rank, it is a mindset. A good leader serves others. In life, we do not need to be in the position of a Manager or a Supervisor to be a leader, but we do need to have others who will follow us in our endeavours, to help us advance our vision. Servanthood is a rewarding mindset to have because our biochemistry rewards acts of generosity, kindness and compassion, and it is key to our happiness and feeling of fulfilment. However, it is not about being a dog’s body, it is a partnership of giving and receiving. It builds trust and cooperation and our relationships begin to thrive.


Others: Reciprocity

It is important to give, but it is also important to be humble enough to receive as well. It gives others the opportunity to give. Also, when we help others, we feel a sense of fulfilment, we feel good. Fulfilment itself is reciprocal because it requires the helping of others to find fulfilment in their lives. To help others grow and achieve, to feel joy and happiness. When we do this in our relationships and in our work, we feel fulfilled at the end of each day, but we must be able to accept the help from others too.

Others: Joy Making

Joy is different from happiness, because happiness evokes the idea that we are striving for something. Joy on the other hand is about bringing laughter and smiles to people’s faces. It is enjoying the moment, and we can bring this into our own lives through the attitude that we have, we can be joyful; and when we are the joy spreads. When we bring joy into the interactions, we have with others it feeds the souls, so to speak, it increases our wellbeing ten-fold and our lives and the lives of those around us are better for it. To be joyful is to enjoy life to its fullest, to be an ambassador of joy is to bring joy into the lives of others.


Others: Connection

There are two ways I think we should strive to be connected, with the people in our lives and what is often called the Great Mystery; God, Tao, Brahman, or just the Universe itself, that which is bigger that all of us but contains all of us. In life we need healthy relationships, in our personal lives and in our professional lives.

This involves things like regular contact, spending time together, preferably in person rather than via a device, and caring about the wellbeing of the people we know. When we are waiting for a meeting to start at work, or some other situation, asking how people are and listening to the answer, rather than checking our social media status or emails. This is how we build trust and loyalty, how we build depth into our relationships. Above all else it is caring about the other person beyond how you know them, compassion, empathy and love build strong bonds.

The Great Mystery or God can make some feel uncomfortable, even angry when the subject is brought up. However, I am not suggesting that you have to become religious if you are not. I feel that your beliefs should be dictated by your own conscience based, on your experiences and knowledge, and not the opinions or beliefs of others.

That being said, when we do not feel that we are connected to something greater than ourselves, then I think we can feel separated in our existence or full of self-importance, as if we are what is most important. Feeling connected to something larger than ourselves, even if this is the Universe itself, does two things. It helps us feel like we belong here and it keeps us humble to think of ourselves as like a drop of water in an ocean, an essential part of the greater whole.


Final Thoughts

These principles that I am suggesting will, I think, help you feel happy and successful. You might pick a few of them to follow and leave the rest. That is fine, it is not a definitive list, but I believe that they are the core of what it means to live well.

Something To Think About

Which of these principles would you follow? Also, what other principles have you already decided to follow or could you follow?

Book Recommendation: Start With Why by Simon Sinek

Book Recommendation, The Fullfilment Framework

Image Source: amazon.co.uk

Buy The Book Here

Why Read This Book

This book elegantly explains the importance of knowing your Why, which I believe is integral to living well, to be happy, successful and fulfilled. Defining your Why is an essential part of my Fullfilment Framework, a framework designed to help you live a fulfilling life.

Contents

INTRODUCTION: WHY START WITH WHY?

PART 1: A WORLDS THAT DOES NOT START WITH WHY

  • Assume you know
  • Carrots and sticks

PART 2: AN ALTERNATIVE PERSPECTIVE

  • The golden circle
  • This is not opinion, this is biology
  • Clarity, discipline, and consistency

PART 3: LEADERS NEED A FOLLOWING

  • The emergence of trust
  • How a tipping point tips

PART 4: HOW TO RALLY THOSE WHO BELIEVE

  • Start with WHY, but know HOW
  • Know WHY. Know HOW. Then WHAT?
  • Communication is not about speaking, it’s about listening

PART 5: THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE IS SUCCESS

  • When WHY goes fuzzy
  • Split happens

PART 6: DISCOVER WHY

  • The origins of a WHY
  • The new competition

 Summary

This book explores what it means to have a Why, which is the purpose behind all that we do. It is essentially a sum total of how we were raised and our experiences up to adulthood; it is who we are as an individual. We only have one Why and the level at which we can best use our Why to live a fulfilling life depends on our depth of understanding of it and if we can articulate it.

Simon Sinek used examples from business and history to explain the importance of knowing your Why. He explains what he calls the Golden Circle, which illustrate how we think and make decisions, we go from Why to How to What. He goes to discuss the impact of knowing your Why can have on leadership and how important it is to take care of those around us, especially if we are in a position of leadership. Also, the way that success can make our Why fuzzy and we can potentially deviate from our Why, as individuals and as a company, which causes problems. Therefore it is important to keep our Why in central focus to avoid getting lost.

 

5 Actions To Make 2020 The Best Year Yet

Achieving Goals, Happiness, Success

“Don’t mistake activity with achievement.”

― John Wooden

Figuring Out Your Beliefs and Values

This might seem a little too hippy for you to think about doing, but our beliefs and values are the prism through which we experience and act in the world. They are the reasons we do what we do and how we do it. If we believe it is wrong to steal we won’t, if we believe it is right to be generous then we will be.

Our beliefs are what we believe to be right and how we believe the world, and the universe, works. It is not just religious beliefs, which do also matter, but also beliefs about right and wrong, our morals and how people should behave. We also have beliefs about ourselves and how we allow ourselves to be treated. If we believe we are not worthy of respect, we will let people walk all over us, but if we believe we are worthy of respect, then we will expect it, or perhaps demand it.

Figuring out our values and beliefs sets the parameters for our lives. It gives us tools to navigate the world, to make good choices and will impact how our coming year and the rest of our lives will work out. If we don’t clearly define our beliefs and values we are kind of hitting and hoping with how we live our lives, which is certainly not a recipe for a successful, happy and fulfilling life.

Reviewing Your Priorities

Once we have our values and beliefs clarified we can set our priorities for the year ahead and look at how we are spending our time. If we look at our day or week we can see what percentage of our time we spend working, with friends, with family, engaging in hobbies, keeping fit, attending our place of worship, working on our goals etc.

Often we get stressed out because our life is out of balance. We sometimes spend too much time working or doing things for other people and not enough time for ourselves. Conversely, it is also not good to spend too much time doing personal activities and neglecting our loved ones or our jobs.

Finding a balance is a personal thing and therefore reviewing all the areas in our lives and thinking about what we care about is important. It may take a bit of time but it will mean your level of happiness, satisfaction and fulfilment in life will grow exponentially.

Removing The Bad Relationships

We all have relationships with other people, that is obvious, but the quality of those relationships matters. If someone in your life brings you down, makes you feel small, disrespects you on a regular basis or is just not good for you then you have two options.

The first option is to try and mend the relationship, to confront them on how they are treating you and stand up for your own wellbeing. All relationships should be built on equality and respect. They should include kindness, encouragement and generosity, if they do not then odds are they are having a detrimental effect on your wellbeing.

The second option is to cut them out of your life. If they are having a significantly negative impact on your life and confronting them on it either did not work or is not an option then they are not worth having in your life. Your life is wonderful opportunity to reach your full potential, to experience joy, success and fulfilment. No one has the right to get in the way of this and it your responsibility to manage your relationships, no one can do it for you.

Cultivating The Positive Relationships

On the flip side, we all have relationships in our lives that are very positive. People who give us love, encouragement, support and their time. These are the people we should be building our relationships. It can be easy to take these people for granted and assume that they will always be our friends and partner without any effort to cultivate these relationships.

However, if we do not spend time with these people, ask after their wellbeing, support them when they need us, and be a good friend or partner then we will grow apart and friends become acquaintances and partners move out of our lives.

it is also important to maintain and cultivate our relationships with workmates. These are people we spend a significant amount of time with and in order for the companies we work for, the team we work with and for us to thrive we need to build strong relationships with trust, loyalty and collaboration. All of these come from spending time with each other, face to face. Human being are social animals and we only trust people we know. We cannot do this over social media or by video conferencing, etc.

Reverse Engineer Your Dreams

We all have something we want to achieve, something big that lingers in the back of our minds, but seems too big to be able to get done. We usually tell ourselves that we will get around to working on this goal but life always get in the way. The reason we are not working towards this goal, whatever it might be, is that we are not prioritising it, we are not allocating time for it.

This might be because we have a mega busy lifestyle or it might be because the goal seems too big and we don’t think we will ever achieve, so we never start it. The first reason can be solved by breaking the goal into very small chunks and find time to slot these in during our day. For example, if you take public transport this is a perfect opportunity to read up on the goal in question or write assignments, notes, plans, etc.

The second reason is a lack of self belief. Depending on how deep this is you might just need encouragement from others or you might need something like Cognitive Behaviour Therapy if the issue is based on underlying bad experiences. If the latter is true there is no harm in seeking professional help to improve your well-being and quality of life, it can really help and is private.

Also, for the first reason asking someone who has a positive impact on your life to be an accountability partner can really help. Someone who knows your goal and who can check in with you on a regular basis to see how you are getting on and to give you encouragement and tips.

All of this is good, but you also don’t want the journey to your goal to take too long, so you need to speed up the process. To do this I recommend finding someone that you admire that has achieved the goal that you are seeking to achieve and study how they got there. Then you can reverse engineer the steps they took and take the same steps.

Some of the steps might not be applicable to you, or be things that are not available to you, but it will give you a road map. It will take some creative thinking and persistence. Once you have a plan it is important to set daily, weekly and monthly goals. Have a check list for time-frames like 3 months, 6 months, 1 year and 5 years. Take a course, read books, listen to podcasts, whatever it takes, you can do it. Have faith in yourself and go for it. We regret what we do not do more that the things that we do.

When you are at the end of your life in a nursing home don’t let this goal be a regret you wish you had tried to achieve. Good luck my friends, you can do great things with effort and persistence.

Something to think about

The limits we have in our lives are often created by ourselves, based on what we think the world expects of us. These limits are flexible barriers that can be changed or even removed. You are in charge of your reality.

The Foundation To A Life Well Lived

Achieving Goals, Happiness, Success, The Fullfilment Framework

“Time well spent leads to life well lived.”

― Martin Uzochukwu Ugwu

I have been working on my Fullfilment Framework and have made some developmental changes to it, which I will unveil fully in another blog post. I would like to focus on just one aspect of this new framework model in this post. That is the Foundation.

The Foundation is now made up of four sections, with the new addition of Healthy Relationships. This means that the four sections are Self Knowledge, Acquired Wisdom, Good Health Triad and Healthy Relationships. I realised through reflection and exploring what makes life fulfilling that I had omitted a significant aspect of all our lives, which is the relationships that we have. I will go into this in more detail later in this blog post.

Self Knowledge

I have put Self Knowledge at the bottom of the Foundation, as I believe self knowledge is the rock upon which we can build the foundation of our lives. If we do not know ourselves well then how can we know what we want out of life, what we value and what we believe. Self knowledge is the basis of what we think, say and do. If we do not have a good understanding of ourselves then we will be guessing what we want out of life and everything in it will be half-hearted and will not bring about fulfilment. We will also be living life either reacting to the events within it, not really having any direction or plan, or we will be living out other peoples plans for us, and our true selves become lost in a life wasted.

It has been a philosophical imperative since the days of Socrates to “Know Thyself.” It is also sage advice, as it will dictate what we get out of life, and whether you believe we only have one life or not, if we follow the path of others and do not explore what makes us who we are we will likely not spend our lives well, because we will not be forging our own paths through life.

Acquired Wisdom

Self knowledge will only get us so far in life. It will help crystallize what we want out of life and how we want to live, but we can still make mistakes along the way. Part of a life well lived is being wise about the choices we make and how we spend our time. The wisdom of others can help us here.

Whether you are a religious person or not our human history is filled with the words of wiser people than us. The wisdom of humanity comes from religious and philosophical writings, from scientists, from the native peoples of the world and from our own parents.

It is important not only to listen to the wise words of those around us, but also to become avid readers. Acquiring the wisdom of others and applying it to our lives can mean that not only do we not have to rely solely on trial and error, but also we spend the time we have exponentially better. It helps us live more deeply and to be able to look back at the end of life and say we lived well.

Good Health Triad

The Good Health Triad is three areas where we should aim to have good health in order to have good wellbeing. The first is the most obvious, it is good physical health. Going to the gym once in a while won’t be enough. We need to consistently exercise to our level in ways that are not detrimental to our health. For some gentle and often is better, especially if they are physically disabled. For some running marathons is good for them. Find your exercise routine at your level.

This also means a good diet. Not just eating everything that we are told is good for us, but rather figuring out the best diet for your body. This could be more vegetables than fruit to keep your diet more alkaline than acidic, it could mean spicy food or not, it could be dairy free. There are lots of options. This involves research, listening to your body and trying different types of food. Most diet advice is good, but don’t go for every fad diet that pops up in the media. Find your best diet and go to see a nutritionist if needs be.

The third element of the Good Health Triad is good energy health. As Chinese medicine discovered a long time ago, and Western medicine is slowly accepting, we have an energy system that allows Qi or Chi to flow along the meridians within our body. Much like our blood flows through our veins and nerve signals travel through our nervous system, our Chi flows through our meridian system. If our Chi does not flow freely or is unbalanced our health deteriorates.

Practicing Qigong or Tai Chi every day can help, as well as going for Acupuncture or Qigong Acupuncture, which is done using the practitioners own Chi instead of needles, will help to maintain good, healthy Chi. Ensuring we cover all three areas of this Good Health Triad will mean we live longer and feel better, so we are more able to achieve what we want to achieve, do what we want to do and live fulfilling lives.

Healthy Relationships

We all have relationships, with our family, our friends, our partner, our work colleagues, and so on. Some relationships are better than others, but I would argue that they should all be healthy relationships. What I mean by this is ideally we should not have any relationships in our lives that are detrimental to our wellbeing. Relationships that cause us stress, anxiety or self loathing need to be removed from our lives. Stress is something that can have such a negative impact on our health that people can die due to the consequences of stress on their bodies.

Those we have relationships with, in whatever area of our lives, should lift us up and make us feel connected. They should make us feel like we are part of something, a collective of good people. Our relationships should make us happy more than sad.

We should also try to cultivate our good relationships so that they grow and become stronger too. All relationships need maintaining through spending time with those people, finding out what is going on with them, being there for them when they need us and not only caring about ourselves.

The biggest barrier to healthy relationships in our current culture is mobile phones and tablets. People are spending more time on their devices than with each other, even if they are together they are looking at screens. If there is a momentary lull in the conversation there is an urge to pull out our mobile phones and scroll through our social media feeds.

Relationships are built on the little moments between other things, when we are waiting for a meeting to start or for a bus to arrive we can strike up a conversation, ask how someone’s day is going, etc. This is how we build strong, healthy relationships. We should also avoid things like gossip, which are corrosive to trust and cooperation.

Something to think about

What three changes will you make in line with this Foundation to improve your life and wellbeing in 2020?

Are We Addicted To Our Mobile Phones?

Happiness, The Fullfilment Framework

“Gadgets helps the solo, not the soul.” 
― Amit Kalantri,Wealth of Words

Witnessing Addiction to Mobile Phones

Recently, standing on the platform of a tram stop waiting for my tram, I saw a lady walking along, headphones in her ears, watching a video on her mobile phone and hardly even looking ahead of her as she walked. My mind was filled with thoughts around how human beings have become slaves to our mobile devices, how we have become a society who craves instant gratification and how addicted we all are. Then, another lady walked passed a moment later holding up a book she was engrossed in as she too walked along the platform.

This stark contrast is only really a contrast in the source of their attention, rather than the activity they were engaged in.  It begs the question, are we missing life by becoming regularly absorbed by activities that do not promote good mental and physical well-being. In our western society, to get drunk and the morning after not remember what we did the night before is lorded as almost a badge of honour. To binge watch whole series of a program on our preferred online streaming platform is a common occurrence too.

Are We Zombies?

It seems we are losing the ability to just be, to be aware of what we are doing when we are doing it. Our search for activities that give us quick wins, and as a result, hits of addictive Dopamine, is turning us into zombies, of sorts. I say this as a fellow zombie, but seeing a lady walking along a tram platform watching something on her mobile, and not able to wait until she was at home or somewhere else more appropriate, and safer, woke me up to the realities of our current quick fix culture.

These observations also beg the age old question of how we should live. Should we follow the crowd and become absent from the world while we stare into our mobile devices, or is there a better way to live. There is some merit for living without the constant availability of entertainment. I am not sure I could do it, but will try to cut back on how much I watch things on my mobile phone.

There is also the question of what we watch. If we watch lectures on the merits of theological or philosophical positions, or we watch instruction videos to help us do yoga or learn a new skill or something else that improves our lives, is this not a good thing? I suppose mobile devices, and by extension social media, are tools that can be used to make our lives, and the world better, or they can be used to simply waste time, which we cannot get back. Time is a currency that can never be bought back. I use Facebook to try and create a community as an extension of this blog, to try and get people to help each other live well. Even social media can be a beneficial in our lives.

The answer to the question of how we should live, I would suggest, trying the improve the lives of others, to help others find meaning and to be happy, and if this means we use mobile devices and social media to achieve this, then I am all for it.

Something to reflect on:

If we let the things we watch, mobile devices and social media dictate our thoughts and actions, then we must ask are they in charge of our lives?

Making The Most Of 2019

Achieving Goals, Happiness, Success, The Fullfilment Framework

“There is a plan and a purpose, a value to every life, no matter what its location, age, gender or disability.”

– Sharron Angle

Why new year resolutions are hard

At the first month of every year the same phrases are banded around, “new year, new you,” “make 2019 your year,” etc. It is also the time when we set new year resolutions that we rarely keep past the end of January. I think this is because we set resolutions that are picked from the collection of universal resolutions that are suggested by our culture. The key, I think, is not to find a resolution that we want to do, though this is important, but to figure out why we want to do it. Why do we want to lose the weight or give up smoking. What is our motivation?

Resolutions are typically hard to keep up, which is why we tend to give up on them a few weeks in. We will give up on anything that is hard unless there is a compelling reason to continue. This reason has to be either a serious one that affects our health or well-being if we don’t, or it is in alignment with our ‘why’, our reason for being.

Finding your purpose

The beginning of a new year is always a good time to take stock of our lives, look back at where we have been and decide on where we are going, but more important, I believe, is to figure out our why. This is a key component of living a fulfilling life. I recommend that you have a look at something called Ikigai, pronounced ikee-guy. This is a Japanese method of figuring out your priorities and motivations, to find your purpose for being.

It works by asking you to put things from your life into a Venn diagram with four categories and four cross-over areas.

Finding Your Reason For Being

I found it beneficial to start with What You Love, then What You Are Good At, then What You Can Be Paid For and finally What The World Needs. Then to fill in the things that fit both categories in the cross-over areas called Passion, Profession, Vocation and Mission. This order worked for me, but you can do it in any order you wish. The aim of Ikigai is to figure out what your passion, profession, vocation and mission are, and they should be based on deep self knowledge. Ikigai is achieved when all of these are aligned with each other in your life. It is the sweet spot of purpose and being.

Once you have found your Ikigai you will have your mission, your profession, your vocation and your passion. Whatever order you decide to complete you Ikigai Venn diagram in, I believe that our mission should be the driving force behind all areas of our lives, it is essentially our Why. Your profession is important because it is necessary to work, so you can pay your bills, but it also affords the biggest opportunity to bring your mission to life, because we spend most of our time each day working.

If you are going to set a goal for 2019, if you have not already, I would work through the process of figuring out your Ikigai and find one big change that you want to make, something embedded in your Ikigai. If you do, it will bring into view the metaphorical mountain that you are going to climb. The summit is your destination, your life’s purpose will show you a big achievement that you want to complete. Once you figure this out you will be at your base camp looking up at your mountain.

Finding a mountain to climb

Next, plot your path to the summit. Like all good mountain climbers, reverse engineer your journey from the summit back to the base camp and then get started. It is time to take the metaphorical mountain that you have been putting off or have not been aware of. Once you have a big 2019 goal don’t let yourself get in the way. Build rituals and habits that support your climb and jettison your unhelpful habits. And don’t forget to use your Ikigai Venn diagram as your compass, because every decision, your thoughts, speech and actions, should come from your Ikigai diagram.

This might all seem like a big undertaking, but remember, small steps count too, as long as you are going forwards. Draw on the support you have around you and find someone that you trust to share your big 2019 goal with, so they can be your accountability partner to keep you on track. Many believe that you only get one life, but even if you believe in reincarnation, it is best to make the most of this human life. I wish you good Ikigai my friends, so that you can live blessed lives in order to be a blessing to others.

Something to reflect on:

Purpose in life should be an equal balance of following our heart and making the world a better place than it was the day you were born into it.

Fearlessness is a dangerous road

Happiness, Success, The Fullfilment Framework

“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.”

– Nelson Mandela

 

Fearlessness

In our culture today there is a great emphasis on the need to be fearless. It is found in common turns of phrase, the media. It is also found in advertising, whether it be men’s aftershave or energy drinks, the word ‘fearless’ is banded around as if it was held at the same level as integrity or fortitude. I think we are mistaking being fearless with having courage, and they are not the same thing. The problem with being fearless that it encourages us to mask or block out our emotions and to discount our very natural physical responses to danger and stress, responses that have developed throughout the evolution of human beings in order to keep us safe.

If we were truly fearless then we would have no fear of running in front of a car or train, or skydiving without a parachute. These are extreme example, but this is the point, to be fearless means that there is less preventing us from going too far and putting ourselves  and others in danger. It would be profoundly stupid to skydive without a parachute, and our intellect and experience would tell us that this would not be a good idea. However, there are situations that have unknown aspects and if we leap without looking, without consulting our intelligence, our experience and our capacity for rational thought then we do not know if we are putting ourselves in danger. A balance is needed.

The other extreme is to be so paralysed by anxiety that we do not try anything new and we retreat into our selves, even becoming housebound by our anxiety. I have had my own challenges with anxiety, that caused me to have pain in my chest and my hands to shake when in certain circumstances. This is not a good place to be, to put it mildly. As I have worked through the roots of my anxiety and developed strategies to reduce it, I have found a profound truth about fear that can put us on a more even keel. Fear is an essential part of our defense mechanism, it is integral to our survival, but it is supposed to appear when we are in danger and then dissipate when the danger has gone. To use a well worn example, if our cave man ancestors mistook a rock for a tiger in the long grass, causing then to run fast in the other direction, they would be safe. If they mistook a tiger for a rock and didn’t run, then they would have been the tiger’s lunch.

Finding A Better Path

Some of this is obvious to point out, but I feel in a climate and culture where being fearless is seen as a lordable quality, especially in men, then I think the obvious truth of the situation needs to be pointed out. We should not be pushed into either being fearless or to living with anxiety, a middle road is needed. There is one quality that I feel should be the focus of our intention in life, and that it the quality of courage.

Courage is not the same as being fearless, it is in fact acting in a positive way in spite of fear. It is feeling the fear and doing it anyway. As Nelson Mandela tells us “…courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.” This of course needs to be reserved for situations that are not life threatening. We are are not, after all, talking about being a soldier or anything like that. I am talking about having the courage to go to job interviews, to tell someone that we love them, to stand up to those who bully us, to stand up for what we think is right, to follow our dreams, to try and improve our skill-set. All of these things are about living a fully, deeper life.

I do think that it is important to try new things and to push past our current limitations, to grow and improve our skill-set, especially in our careers. To live at the edge of our skill-set is a very courageous thing to do. There is also a very important reason we should try and get very familiar with the things that scare us in life. If we run from the things that scare us then we internally harden our hearts. We close down our compassion and we restrict our love. We close ourselves off from having meaningful, deep relationships with people. The people we care about becomes limited to family, friends and those who share our beliefs and values. We become tribal and divided, we get aggressive,  even violent in extreme cases. We become part of the problem that divides up the world into us and them.

If we can extend our compassion to include others we disagree with, those who look different from us, even those who treat us badly, then the world will be better for it. Be warned though, it take courage to love your enemies, but if you can do it, then you will have no enemies.

Something to reflect on:

If you can get familiar with the things that scare you, and have the courage to live there, then the fear will dissolve and you will be stronger for it.

How to find fulfilment

Happiness, Success, The Fullfilment Framework

“Your soul is the power and

core of who you are.

Feed it well.”

– Anonymous

 

 

Recently I have been reflecting a lot on what is meant by fulfilment, whether it is selfish or generous to seek it. How it is that we might find fulfilment and what it actually is. As human beings, we are all unique in our likes and dislikes, our personality and our passions, our behaviours and our tendencies. So, it makes sense that fulfilment would be an individual attainment, it would not be the same for everyone.

cropped-the-fullfilment-project-logo-profile-pic-black-white-red-v32.jpg

Since February last year I have been writing this blog about fulfilment, which I call The Fullfilment Project, with Fulfilment spelt with ‘FULL’ at the beginning, to signify a full life. I have been exploring happiness and success and what they mean in relation to fulfilment and I have come to believe that for fulfilment to occur we need to have both happiness and success, which to some degree is obvious. However, many who are looking for either happiness or success, I believe, focus on unfulfilling goals, as they are misguided by our culture and unhelpful beliefs. I am not now or have I previously claimed to have figured out the way to find fulfilment, I am an explorer looking for answers by asking questions and diving into hypotheses, and I have found some conclusions along the way, which I would like to share with you in this blog post.

I have created what I call a Fullfilment Framework, pieces of the puzzle of how to live a fulfilling life. These are drawn from personal experience and meditations, as well as seeking wisdom from both secular and religious sources. Wisdom comes in many forms, but it is still wisdom. In order to live a fulfilling life, I believe we need to begin with a good foundation, which is the core of a life well lived. There are three things I think we need in our fulfilment foundation.

Firstly, we need good self-knowledge, a deep understanding of ourselves, through self-reflection, knowing our values and beliefs and being tested in difficult situations and seeing how we deal with them. Secondly, we need acquired wisdom. Self-knowledge is not enough to guide us on a fruitful path, we also need to be steeped in wisdom, from secular, philosophical and religious sources. Thirdly, we need what I call the Good Health Triad. This is focusing on building for ourselves good mental health, good physical health and good energy or Chi health. Chi is an Eastern word for the life energy that flows within us and to have good health we need good Chi. All of these things we cannot do alone, we need friendships, companionship, and sometimes professional support, we need to learn good dietary and exercise habits and ways to boost and maintain our chi, all of which are good things.

From this Foundation comes our values and beliefs, which are like a prism through which we see the world, through which we think, speak and act in the world. The next level of finding fulfilment, I think, is to find out our ‘why’, our reason for doing all that we do. It is the purpose that guides us, distilled from our values and beliefs, from our self-knowledge and acquired wisdom. It can be difficult to figure out our ‘why’ with clarity. Often, we borrow from quotations or religious and philosophical ideas. I attend a Unitarian church, which was built on the idea that each individual person has a right to explore their own theology, to search for their spiritual truth rather than be told what The Truth is. All Unitarians connect with that, which is why they gather together and attend a Unitarian church. However, for each of them this may not be their personal ‘why’, because everyone is an individual, with different histories, experiences, values and beliefs. This is why I believe it is so important for each of us to search for what we believe our purpose to be in this life. It should be our North Star that guides us through both the calm and the troubled waters of life.

“…our North Star that guides us through both

the calm and the troubled waters of life.”

 

Simon Sinek-Start With WhyThen, when we discover our ‘Why’ we must discover how we are going to bring this ‘Why’ to life in our day to day lives. This is what I call our ‘Way’. In his book, Start With Why, Simon Sinek sets out the importance of finding your ‘why’ in order to live a purposeful life. He talks about how companies also need to clearly define their ‘why’, companies such as Apple have a clearly defined Why, to empower the individual against the big system. He also gives individual examples of Martin Luther King Junior who gave the “I have a dream” speech, not the “I have a plan speech”, as Simon Sinek puts it, and the Wright Brothers, who figured out powered manned flight for the first time, working out of their bicycle shop, with the intention of changing the world with their invention.

Simon Sinek says that we need to have clarity of our why first, then we can work outGolden_circle ‘how’ we express this why and then finally ‘what’ we do to prove the why we have. He calls this the Golden Circle, in the centre is the Why, then next the How and on the outside of the circle is the What, and it looks a bit like a bullseye. The important point here is that our human brains work from the why to the what when making decisions. The part of the brain that is responsible for decision making and our feelings like trust and loyalty is the Limbic Brain, which has no capacity for language. This is why we more easily agree with things that match our values and beliefs, not the details and the factual information.

My personal exploration of fulfilment has led me to a phrase that has hit home for me. The phrase is “To help others find fulfilment is to fulfil what it means to be human.” When this phrase first popped into my head I dismissed it as flippant and without substance, but through further reflection and meditation on this I have come to think that it has a certain depth to it that I did not initially appreciate.

“To help others find fulfilment is to

fulfil what it means to be human.”

On an evolutionary level we have evolved to be social animals, and during caveman times there would have been some in the group hunting and gathering food while others in the group would perform other functions for the survival of the collective whole. We evolved to have what Simon Sinek describes as a circle of safety, that everyone in the tribe made sure that they were all protected from the dangers outside of the tribe, whether this be the weather, dangerous animals or the scarce food and resources. It is hard-wired into our DNA to uplift those in our tribe, whether this is our family, our team or our congregation.

To encourage us to behave in a way that supports the tribe, evolution gave us some hormones that control certain behaviours. Our bodies produce Dopamine when we make achievements, it is an incentive to progress and we get a hit of Dopamine whenever we hit a milestone or tick something off our to-do list. Our bodies produce Serotonin when we perceive that others like or respect us. Our bodies produce Oxytocin when we are with our closest friends or trusted colleagues, it is the feeling of friendship, love and deep trust. All of which feel good.

The point I am making is that we have evolved to have hormones that actively encourage us to build meaningful, deep relationships, to strive for progress and try and get the affection and respect of those we care about. In other words, to feel happy and successful, on a biological level, we need other people. We need friends and family, loved ones and people we love. These relationships are key to living a fulfilling life. There is a problem though when we actively look to get these feelings that come from these hormones in unhelpful ways. For example, when we use social media and we get a like or a notification we get a hit of Dopamine, which feels really good, so we do it more, effectively replacing people with a device.

Life is beter in flip flopsAdvertising companies tell us that we will become either happy or successful if we buy their product or service, only to be told a few months down the line that a new product or service will do the same, but neither a product or a service will make us happy, as they are invariably transient, they change or break and the happiness promised is really only excitement and joy. We are often told that the measure of success is the amount of money we have or the amount of things we own, but it really does depend on how we measure success, as individuals.

I believe that success is very much intertwined with happiness and that you cannot have one without the other. As human beings we are hardwired to strive after progress, but if we are deeply unhappy or depressed, progress is not a clear focus for us. So, you could say that we need to be happy to succeed and we need to succeed to be happy, but the success really does need to be in an area that we passionately care about, something that is in line with our values and beliefs, in line with our ‘why.’ Which is why it is so important to figure out what our ‘why’ is.

Many religious scriptures tell us that in order to be happy we must first help others be happy. I think this is partly because we are hard-wired with our hormones to feel good when we help others to be happy in their lives. Their smile makes us smile, especially if we are the cause of it. However, this comes with a warning, we must ensure that we take care of ourselves as well. If we are not careful we can spend all of our time making sure everyone else is OK and we do not look after ourselves. A balance is needed, which is why we need a good fulfilment foundation.

When it comes to success, achieving success with others feels more magnified than a solo achievement. Even athletes who take part in sports events individually could not achieve success without a coach and their loved ones supporting them. When we focus on goals that are innately selfish, like earning a large amount of money, we often sacrifice our relationships to earn the money, which is an empty success when achieved, because it brings very little happiness. But if we do it with the motivation to help others we feel great happiness when we succeed, because of the positive effect we have on others.

I am now a firm believer that both happiness and success are reciprocal, in that they are received, in part, when we give them to others. And as fulfilment is largely dependent on both happiness and success, fulfilment is reciprocal as well, but it is not something that we can go out and find, like a treasure hunt, fulfilment is a sense of being that comes from living life well, through positive relationships, a good understanding of ourselves, the wisdom of others, good health, and living in a way that brings more joy, love and peace into the world than their opposites. To help others find fulfilment is to fulfil what it means to be human.

 

Something to reflect on:

Whether you believe that we only get one life or not, to live deeply is to live well. cultivate positive relationships, help others when you can and strive to be your best self, so you can help other to do the same. This is a worthy goal and we need a worthy goal to live a fulfilling life.

The Power of Yet

Achieving Goals, Success

“I truly believe in positive synergy,

that your positive mindset gives you

a more hopeful outlook, and belief

that you can do something great

means you will do something great.”

-Russell Wilson

 

It is all in the mindset

Much in life comes down to whether we think we can do something or if we cannot. These choices can sometimes seem fixed, but nothing could be further from the truth. Our brains are in a constant flux of change. Every new experience changes how we understand and view our past experiences and our memories can change as a result. Often there is a tendency to tell ourselves that we cannot do something, because either the evolution of our brains is trying to keep us safe by sticking to a cautious approach or we have had bad experiences trying new things in the past and we consequently back away from anything that is new or difficult.

 

It is our mindsets that are either fixed or flexible. The terms fixed mindset and growth mindset describe mental states that are both self imposed and imposed by our environment. If we are told that we have been successful because we are smart then we assume unconsciously that success comes from fixed personality traits. People with this mindset crumble when they hit a challenge beyond their capabilities. They do not have the mental flexibility to navigate around a challenge. If we are told that we are successful because we work hard then we assume unconsciously that success comes from hard work and determination. People with this mindset become lateral thinkers, they think outside of the box and when a challenge is beyond them they are more likely to keep trying until the challenge is overcome.

 

We are the architects of our lives

What we tell our children about their success becomes part of their mindset throughout life. Importantly what we tell ourselves can be with us throughout our lives as well. If you find yourself saying that you cannot do something out of a belief that it is beyond you then I encourage you to add the word ‘yet’ to the end of the sentence. “I can’t drive a car yet.” “I can’t draw yet.” “I can’t play the guitar yet.” “I can’t find a new job yet.” “I can’t run a marathon yet.” Whatever it is, there is power in the word ‘yet.’ Give it a try.

 

Something to reflect on:

Your power or your weakness is often based on a belief that you hold, whether consciously or not. Behaviour is based on conscious and unconscious beliefs. What beliefs do you have that are holding you back?

Where fulfilment comes from

Achieving Goals, Happiness, Success, The Fullfilment Framework

“The rain began again. It fell heavily, easily, with no meaning or intention but the fulfilment of its own nature, which was to fall and fall.”

– Helen Garner

 

Many of us, throughout our lives, strive to find fulfilment; something which can often seem illusive. I think the reason we can find it so difficult to achieve it consistently, is that it can be difficult to define in the first place. According to the English Oxford Dictionary ‘Fulfilment’ is defined as “The achievement of something desired, promised, or predicted.” or “Satisfaction or happiness as a result of fully developing one’s potential.” This, to me, means that we must have both happiness and success in order to gain fulfilment. In this understanding of fulfilment, you cannot have it with only one of these things, both are needed.

This poses another problem; how do we define happiness and success. What criteria should we use? Should we judge our happiness and success by other people’s criteria or our own? I have spent quite some time thinking about how one goes about finding happiness and success, and therefore fulfilment, and I think I have figured out at least some contributing factors necessary to experience these things. Part of the problem is that we often treat happiness, success and fulfilment as goals, but I don’t believe that they are things that we can go and get; you cannot buy them, rent them, borrow them or even steal them from others. They are instead, I believe, biproducts of living lives well. The task, therefore, is to figure out how to live our lives well.

We can turn to the knowledge that comes from wise sages, prophets, scientists and philosophers that have come before us and guide us to a deeper understanding of the human condition and how to live a wise and good life. There are some clear ways in which to live our lives well. This wisdom forms the first part of what I call our individual foundation. The second part is a deep understanding of ourselves. Our happiness, success and fulfilment are fundamentally connected to the type of person we are, what we like and don’t like, what our values are and what our beliefs are, which are influenced by the first part of this foundation, and both parts are needed.

With this self-knowledge and wise-knowledge, we will have a solid foundation to decide our values and beliefs on how we should live. It is our values and beliefs which comprise a sort of prism through which we view the world and it influences what we think, say and do in every moment of our lives. If we do not allow the wisdom of humanity to influence our values and beliefs, then we can go astray and behave in ways which detract from our happiness, success and fulfilment, rather than adding to them.

I want to explain here what I mean by happiness and success. Happiness, according to the English dictionary is “The state of being happy.”[1] Simple enough, but I would add that it is the state of being happy ‘consistently.’ True happiness is not fleeting, it is a constant state created by a wisdom and frequent practice of wise actions, which allow us to experience a consistent state of happiness. It is a result of how we live our lives each and every day. Success is defined in the English dictionary as “The accomplishment of an aim or purpose” or “The attainment of fame, wealth, or social status.” What I mean by success is the consistent attainment of the aims and purpose which align with our values and beliefs. If we are to be consistently successful in our lives then it should come from our values and beliefs, otherwise it will not feel genuine and we will move away from experiencing fulfilment. Both happiness and success are similar to fulfilment, in that they too are a bi-product of living a life well.

In order to live our lives well we can try to cultivate wisdom by studying the best of human philosophy, theology and science, and try to understand ourselves more deeply on a daily basis. One of these nuggets of wisdom I have recently learned about is something that Tony Robbins calls ‘choosing your state.’ Tony Robbins is an American author, entrepreneur, philanthropist and life coach. Our state is the emotional and psychological state that we are in. If we let the experiences we have and the people in our lives dictate our state, then we lose control of our sense of self. Actively choosing how we feel about the circumstances we are in is not only empowering, it is also a path to happiness, success and fulfilment. If we have a choice, why would we ever choose to be demoralised, upset, jealous, angry or frustrated? This is not easy, but it is possible with practice.

Viktor E. Frankl knew this more than most, he was a Psychiatrist and a survivor of a Nazi concentration camp, and he witnessed first-hand the horrors the inmates were subjected to and the effect of this on their psyche. In his book Man’s Search For Meaning, he talked about his experiences in the camp and he said:

“We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that 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.”

 

This is part of the path to experiencing true fulfilment, to choose one’s own way. There are some practices which help us to achieve this. Two of these practices are contentment and gratitude, both of which are necessary for us to choose the state we are in. Two of the emotions that mess us up the most are fear and anger. You cannot be fearful and grateful at the same time. You cannot be angry and grateful at the same time. Starting each day by spending 5 to 10 minutes reflecting on 3 things to be grateful for can set up a positive mindset for the day. Trying to be content with what you have rather than grasping for new things can bring peace of mind and a sense that you are happy with your life. Gratitude and contentment are states of being that we can control and sustain with daily practice. Striving to make others happy is also a wonderful way to create happiness in our own lives.

The Dalai Lama said “If you make others happy, you’ll be happy. If you make others unhappy, you’ll be miserable.”[2] The same applies to success; if we help others to be successful then we will be successful. If we listen to wisdom and our own inner selves, if we find our own way to live that illuminates the best in others, then we will truly live deeply and fulfilment will be our constant state of being.

[1] https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/happiness

[2] https://twitter.com/DalaiLama/status/528116683810938880

The Fullfilment Framework

Happiness, Success

This is a summary of the Fullfilment Framework, which is a framework aimed at helping you live a life full of happiness, success and, of course, fulfilment. This forms one of the pages on my blog, but I wanted to share the framework with the world more directly as well, so I am writing it as a blog post as well.

When talking about happiness, success or fulfilment the subject of setting goals is often centre stage, it is often seen as a pre-requisite of achieving these things. However, I believe that none of these three are things that can be ‘achieved’. I believe that they are a result of living well rather than a way of aiming to achieve happiness, success or fulfilment. I believe that fulfilment itself is dependent upon two pillars, the pillars of happiness and success, and each of these is dependent on how we live, rather than having these as the goals we set ourselves. For example, those who help others be happy are happy themselves as a result. Those who help others be successful become successful as a result, because they are trusted, respected and recommended by their peers. So, it makes sense to take actions every day that are in keeping with this philosophy. Many religious, philosophical and secular texts from around the world back this up, which I and many others consider to be wisdom. This is why I believe it is so important to actively acquire wisdom from such sources, on a daily or weekly basis.

I’m not saying that we should not set goals, of course we should, but the goals should be focused on the betterment of ourselves and others. For example, to live with integrity or to hustle (work hard) consistently. Setting the goal to be happy or to be successful is self-defeating, because these are states that we cannot go out and get, they are states of being, they are ways of living and to a large degree they are states of mind. For example, to be content with what we have is a catalyst for being happy in our lives. I believe that to be happy, to be successful and therefore to be fulfilled we have to break things down to key elements; our Foundation, our Why, our Way and our Happiness and Success Principles, which I will explain below.

Foundation & Prism-Illustration of the Fullfilment Framework

It is important to have a deep knowledge of ourselves. To know thyself is an age-old command and one that will allow us to act in our best interests and live a good life. The combination of self-knowledge and the acquiring of wisdom culminates in what I call the Foundation of living a fulfilled life. This Foundation then allows us to discover and decide on what our beliefs and values are. This is who we are at our very core, and that which dictates what we think, say and do every day, based on our self-knowledge and acquired wisdom, or lack thereof. Our thoughts, speech and actions open or close doors, they create or obscure opportunities. Being the captain of our soul and the master of our fate, to paraphrase lines from the famous poem Invictus, means that we have a solid foundation, beliefs and values that we live by every day of our lives. Our beliefs and values are what I call our Foundational Prism, through which we see, understand and interact with the world.

Principles-Illustration of the Fullfilment Framework

Our Foundation and Foundational Prism feed directly into the two pillars of happiness and success, and the principles I have associated with these pillars. The Happiness and Success Principles in the Fullfilment Framework are some of the things which I believe will result in happiness and success respectively. They are not a complete list, but I think they are likely to yield happiness and success. I have split them into actions focused on the present moment, which I refer to as Grounding and into actions focused on the present and the future, which I refer to as Vision. This is intended to be used as a way of being grounded in the present with the intention of living a good life moving forwards. The Vision is of the life we want to have had when we look back while breathing our last breath. It is living our legacy in the present moment.

Why and Way-Illustration of the Fullfilment Framework

There is an important step that comes between the Foundation and the Grounding, and that is the finding of our Why. This is a concept popularised by Simon Sinek’s book Start With Why, which is about finding the reason why we individually do what you do, finding our reason for being. Yours or my Why is the star that guides us on our life long path.  Mine is to try and help others live a fulfilled life. Finding our Why can be hard, it takes a lot of soul searching and self-discovery. We have our Why formed by the time we get to our 20s, but many of us spend most of our lives not really identifying what it is. Finding our Why, however, is vital to living a happy, successful and fulfilled life. Once we know our Why the next step is to find what I call our Way. This is the thoughts, speech and actions we make every day to manifest our Why in our lives, and this is done through living the Happiness and Success Principles, and other acquired wisdom, as well as being true to ourselves. Living the Happiness and Success Principles, and other acquired wisdom, each day also feeds back into our self-knowledge, because every day of our life long adventure we learn something new about ourselves, and the cycle continues. All of this, I believe, will result in a fulfilling life.

This may seem like a lot to be able to do, but if you start small, by understanding yourself and reading, watching and listening to the wisdom of others every day, soon you will have your Foundation from which to build and to live your life well. This is not about being the best or the brightest, it is about finding what we were meant to be doing in this life, as well as the fact that a human life is a wonderful opportunity to make the lives of those around us better, to help them live fulfilled lives by helping them be happy and successful, to make the world better for the generations that will follow us, and for setting an example for them to continue in the same way. This is deep living, this is the path of fulfilment that we can all walk together.

Always strive to be inspired and inspiring.

#LiveDeeply    #FullfilmentFramework