Tag: Live Well

Live Your Life Fully

Achieving Goals, Happiness, Success, The Pathway To Fulfilment

When we spend our time thinking about the future and what might happen or the past and what has happened, we fail to be present in the moment. When we live this way we miss a lot of beautiful moments through focusing on our own anxieties and dreams.

It is good to have concern over certain things in life and to have aspirations, but much of our concerns will never come true and we will not reach our aspirations if we do nothing in the present to achieve them.

We also miss an opportunity to fully experience and understand the things that happen in our lives. In order to do this we need to be more present, to be mindful of what is happening moment to moment. As a great Buddhist once said, when you sit, sit, when you stand, stand, when you walk, walk. In other words, fully do the thing you are doing. Get out of your head and into the moment.

Transforming Suffering

Happiness, Health, Success, The Pathway To Fulfilment

We all suffer, to some degree or another. For most it is to feel hungry or thirsty a few times a day, but we have the means to access food and drink. For some it is not having the ideal life that we want, but we have a lot of things that we do like. For some it is physical suffering like chronic pain. For some it is the mental anguish of anxiety or depression. We all fit on this spectrum at different places at various times in our lives.

When we are in the harsher end of the spectrum there is a trap that we often fall into where we think of ourselves as a victim and we ask ‘why me?’ This way of thinking makes us feel helpless. Having been there, I can tell you thinking that you are a victim makes what you are going through more intense and it lasts longer. There is a better option. We can think of the suffering in life as the curriculum we are given in order to live a fulfilling life.

I have Fibromyalgia and I am in pain every day and I often feel exhausted. I went through feeling like a victim and it did not help. I have realised that if I am to live a happier life I need to make changes to my thoughts and to my daily habits. I need to change my diet and to practice Chi Kung (Qigong) and to meditate every day, because this will reduce the pain in my body, increase my energy levels and put me in touch with the enormity of that which is outside of me.

When we suffer we can either think of ourselves as victims or we can take ownership of our journey through life. Taking ownership transforms your suffering into a curriculum and provides wise lessons, but you have to put the work in.

Cultivating Wellbeing

Mini Reflections

Wellbeing is often thought of as an ambition to feel better and laugh more. This is like looking at a garden and focusing on the need to have flowers. This is upside down thinking. If we were to plant the seeds, cultivate the soil, water the ground and ensure there is good sunlight, then flowers will appear. If we cultivate our bodies, so we may feel physically well, cultivate our relationships, so we may feel connected to others, cultivate our thinking, so we may feel mentally well, and cultivate our purpose, so that we have a direct towards which we work, laughter, joy, love and a feeling of wellbeing will blossom all by themselves. Without this wellbeing will never blossom.

How To Make The Best Out Of Life

Happiness

“One way to get the most out of life is to look upon it as an adventure.” William Feather

How do we make the best out of our lives? This is an age-old question that has seen many different suggested ways of achieving it. I believe that we find this question so hard to answer because we have grown up in a world that favours things more than relationships. If there is a scale of what makes people happy, I believe there would be relationships at the happy end and things somewhere towards the other end of the scale. I’m not saying that things can’t make us feel good; buying a new car, a new piece of clothing or a new mobile phone can make us feel good, but this is not happiness. This is a good feeling created because our bodies release dopamine, a hormone released by the brain.

Whenever we achieve something or we get something we want, our brain releases dopamine to make us feel good. This is partly how our ancestors survived, because finding food or a mate felt good, making us want to do it more and more, it is a survival mechanism. There are many other hormones that our brains release in different situations, causing us to be in different states, whether we are anxious or angry, sad or hungry, the state we are in can dictate how we behave and what we do or say. What state we are in matters, and I believe that we can, to some degree, affect what state we are in, by choosing what we focus on and how we respond to the circumstances that we find ourselves in.

If we let our circumstances dictate our lives, we will be like a ship without a rudder or a sale, and we may be thrown against the rocks by our circumstances. To illustrate this, I have an extreme example of how some, even under the most horrendous circumstances, can choose how they respond to these said circumstances. Viktor Frankl, a Jew, who survived being an Auschwitz concentration camp inmate, imprisoned by the Nazis during World War Two, years later wrote the book Man’s Search For Meaning, a reflection on his time in the concentration camp. Viktor Frankl’s experience and his training as a neurologist and psychiatrist gave him a unique perspective on finding meaning in the worst of circumstances.

In this book he wrote “We who lived in the 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 an extreme example, as I have said, but I believe what was said in the quote applies to any human experience. Some circumstances will undoubtedly make it very difficult to “choose one’s attitude,” but I believe that this is the key to making the most out of our lives and how we can lead a happy life rather than the opposite. I know from personal experience that this is not easy, but with practice it is possible.

Another example from history is that of Nelson Mandela, who is famous for memorising the poem Invictus, which was read to you earlier, and how the poem helped him stand when all he wanted to do was lie down, during his time in prison. On the first day he arrived at the prison on Robben Island, that would become his home for the majority of his 27 years in prison, he insisted that the guards address him as Mr Mandela, he would not respond to anything else. In the end, the guards gave in and did so. Nelson Mandela chose his attitude to the circumstances and demanded to be treated as an equal. 27 years later, as he was released from prison, becoming a free man, he realised that if he continued to hate those who imprisoned him, he would never be free. He decided to forgive, and in doing so he lead the whole country as its President to peace through forgiveness.

Choosing one’s attitude to the circumstances we find ourselves in is a powerful way to get the most out of life, it puts us in the driving seat of our lives. It allows us to respond to circumstances rather than react to them. One way to do this, that I have found helps me, is to focus on being grateful for as many things as possible. Grateful for having a family, for having a home, for the air I breath, for the relationships I have, for the challenges that test my patience, for opportunities that life sends my way. It is very hard to be angry and grateful, or sad and grateful.

If you are lucky enough to be born in the western world you have effectively won the lottery. There are countries where the citizens do not have access to the Internet or the government controls the media they have access to and people can be executed for things we take for granted in our day to day lives. These are extreme examples but they are true. A large percentage of the world’s population live on less than £1 a day. In comparison, many of us live a dream life. So, perspective can be a great motivator to become more grateful, and gratitude is a powerful force that can bring happiness to your life.

Sometimes life can seem to give us challenge after challenge to the point where we struggle to keep ourselves going. The impact of the Coronavirus pandemic have brought us many struggles, financial and social, many have lost loved ones or have felt the difficulties of isolation, as we keep our distance from each other in order to keep each other safe. Sometimes life can seem out to break us, but what can keep us strong is the relationships we have. Our strength often comes from other people, others pick us up when we are knocked down by life and we pick up others in the same way. We all live in a community of human connections. We may sometimes feel that we have to go on alone, to stand strong by ourselves, but just asking for a little help can change our whole perspective on what is happening.

Sometimes, when life becomes hard, we can feel that we are not making any progress, we might be making little steps forward towards our goals, but because they are little steps they don’t feel significant. However, baby steps still count, as long as we are moving forward. When life is hard we can end up focusing on the negative, which does two things, it can make us feel miserable and it can mean we miss opportunities that come into our lives. This is when we need to consciously focus on the positive and to create an opportunity mindset, which everyday looks for opportunities. You may believe in God, you may believe in Karma, you may believe in luck, but if we don’t see the opportunities that come into our lives then we will miss out. This reminds me of a story I once heard about a flood that left a man stranded on the roof of his house, surrounded by water. A man came past the house in a small boat to help people to safety, but the man refused the help and said, “God will save me.” Then a helicopter came to pick him up and again he refused saying “Gods will save me.” Soon the water level rose above the house and the man drowned. When he went up to heaven he asked God “Why did you not save me?” and God said “I tried, I sent you a boat and I sent you a helicopter.” Sometimes we need to open our eyes to get the most out of life.

Some say that religion can help you live a good life, which I believe is partly true, it depends on how you apply the teachings of the religion. Most religions have good teachings, but like in the Biblical reading, if the teachings are taken to heart, they do form a strong foundation for our lives. The teachings of the world religions invariably preach forgiveness, gratitude and love, they promote the necessity of community and that we should be generous in spirit, these are the ways in which we can make the most out of our lives. We all know this, but we do not always put it into practice. I am guilty of this myself, as we all are, but if we try every day to be better than we were the day before, then we can make our lives a wondrous experience, full of hope and joy, of friendship and love. We can create a community that includes as many people as we choose to include.

Our lives are not just our place of worship community, our job community, our family and friends community, we often live at the intersection of the relationships we have with others, but this is not a bad thing. The best in life exists on the boarders of two neighbouring places, just look at the edges of jungles and open land, or where fresh water meets the sea. Life thrives in these places, and it is the same in our own lives. Our relationships are in a way the framework of our lives. Our beliefs are our foundation and both are needed to be strong enough to withstand the storms of life. Let us all strive to be grateful and generous, joyful and respectful, loving and open to new opportunities, and focused on building positive relationships with those in our lives.

Launching The Pathway To Fulfilment

The Fullfilment Framework

I have done some work on what I have so far called the Fullfilment Framework and renamed it the Pathway To Fulfilment, a more linear and simpler journey. My intention is to create a process by which people can start to live well, and therefore have fulfilment. This is not a life hack or magical cure for what ails you. It is a deeply personal journey of self-discovery, of life balancing and purpose finding. There are four steps of this process which are foundational to a life well lived, they are Self-Knowledge, Acquired Wisdom, Good Health and Healthy Relationships.

The Principles Of A Life Well Lived have been folded into the Acquired Wisdom. I have separated these foundational steps and the other steps of the Pathway To Fulfilment, six steps in total, into Where To Begin, What To Maintain and How To Live Well. Now that I have an outline of a process that I believe will bring about fulfilment in ones life, I aim to add in the detail of the activities and actions you will follow within each step of the journey towards fulfilment and a life well lived. Watch this space and the Facebook Group Community and on Instagram for up and coming updates. This new Pathway To Fullfilment can also be found on the page on this website of the same name.

WHERE TO BEGIN

Step 1: Self-Knowledge

The process begins with getting to know yourself more substantially than you may have before; figuring out what really makes you tick, what you believe and don’t believe, what you think is true and false, what you think is ethical and not ethical, etc. Also, what happiness and success look like to you, personally. It is broad and deep self-knowledge. This is your starting point.

Step 2: Acquired Wisdom

You acquire the wisdom of others, from a variety of sources, spiritual and secular; wisdom that will challenge you and enlighten you, as wisdom should. Often this is achieved by extensive reading, but, with the internet, a lot of this same wisdom can also be obtained through videos, audio books and pod-casts, however you learn best. This wisdom will feed into your self-knowledge, and influence how you see yourself and how you choose to live.

Connected to Acquired Wisdom are ten principles that I believe generate fulfilment, because they are wise principles that will help you navigate the world skilfully and live your life well. I have divided them into those that relate to Yourself and those that relate to Others. The principles related to Self are Growth, Equanimity, Fortitude, Seeking and Self-Competition, and those related to Others are Stewardship, Servant-hood, Reciprocity, Joy Making and Connection. I will be sharing more detail on these moving forward.

WHAT TO MAINTAIN

Step 3: Good Health

Your health should be of great concern, because good health is essential for your well-being and having an active, fulfilling life. I have included the usual physical health and mental and emotional health, and also energy health; all of which could be thought of as a triad of good health. Good physical health includes diet and exercise. Good mental and emotional health includes mastering your emotions and balancing your thoughts. Good energy health includes mastering the Chi (Qi) that flows through your energy system, like blood through your bloodstream, detailed in Traditional Chinese Medicine. To have good health you need to work on all three of these areas.

Step 4: Healthy Relationships

You look at your relationships, and identify those relationships that are good for you and those that are not, and those that are a mixture of the two, that need work to become good. You should continuously work towards all of your relationships being healthy ones; meaning that they bring you happiness rather than stress, they uplift you rather than bring you down. These relationships are in circles of community, which are relationships with yourself, your partner, your family, your friends, your colleagues and your acquaintances, and all are interconnected.

HOW TO LIVE WELL

Step 5: Defining Your Purpose

After working your way through this journey so far, you will have a solid foundation for how to start living your life better. From this knew understanding of yourself, your defined beliefs and ethics form part of what I call your Purpose Prism, the third piece of this prism being your purpose. You will go through a process of building on your beliefs and your ethics, weaving in Acquired Wisdom and Principles Of A Life Well Lived, and define your personal purpose. This prism is the filter through which you will see and experience the world, and it will influence your thoughts, speech and actions, making them wiser in nature. Your purpose comes from a vision of a better world that you want to help create.

Step 6: Living Your Purpose

You will then be set to start applying your beliefs, ethics and purpose to your life, to find your best way to live them out in your thoughts, speech and actions, to act on your vision of a better world through everything that you do. This is living your life on purpose. All of this work will mean that both happiness and success become personal, and therefore fulfilling, all three of which are bi-products of a life well lived. They then feed back into your self-knowledge, acquired wisdom, health, relationships and your beliefs, ethics and purpose, and on it goes, because this journey is a life long endeavour. Follow the path to fulfilment and live well my friends.

The Fullfilment Framework Remastered

Happiness, Success, The Fullfilment Framework

I have reworked my Fullfilment Framework, so it has a better journey towards fulfilment. This is a brief summary of the journey, which I will expand on later on this blog. This summary can be found on the Pathway To Fulfilment page.

Where To Begin

The Fullfilment Framework is a pathway to fulfilment. It is a deeply personal journey of self-discovery, of life balancing and purpose finding. The structure of the Fullfilment Framework begins with getting to know yourself more substantially than you may have before; figuring out what really makes you tick, what you believe and don’t believe, what you think is true and false, what you think is ethical and not ethical. Also, what happiness and success look like to you, personally. It is broad and deep self-knowledge. This is your starting place, the first level of the Foundation of the Fullfilment Framework. Next, you look at the wisdom of others, from a variety of sources; wisdom that will challenge you and enlighten you, as wisdom should. This wisdom will feed into your self-knowledge, and influence how you see yourself and how you should live.

Next, you look at Principles of a Life Well Lived, which are divided into those that relate to Yourself and those that relate to Others. The principles are; Self: Growth, Equanimity, Fortitude, Seeking, Self-Competition, and Others: Stewardship, Servanthood, Reciprocity, Joy Making, Connection. These are very much connected to Acquired Wisdom, because they are wise principles that I believe will help you navigate the world skilfully and live your life well.

What To Maintain

Next, you look at your health, which has three areas of concern in this framework. We have physical health, we have mental and emotional health and we have energy health; all of which make the Good Health Triad. Good physical health includes diet and exercise. Good mental and emotional health includes mastering our emotions and balancing our thoughts. Good energy health includes mastering the Chi (Qi) that flows through our energy system, like nerve signals through our nervous system. To have good health we need to work on all three of these areas.

Next, you look at your relationships, and identify those relationships that are good for you and those that are not, and those that are a mixture of the two, that need work to become good. You work towards all of your relationships being healthy ones; meaning that they bring us happiness rather than stress, they uplift us rather than bringing us down. These relationships are in circles of community, and these circles are relationships with yourself, your family, your friends, your colleagues, your acquaintances, and all are connected.

How To Live Well

After working your way through this journey so far, you will have a solid foundation for how to start living your life better. From this new understanding of yourself, your defined beliefs and ethics form part of what I call your Foundational Prism, the third piece of this prism being your purpose. You will go through a process of building on your beliefs and your ethics, weaving in acquire wisdom and the principles of a life well lived, and define your personal purpose, which completes the Foundational Prism. This prism is the filter through which you will see and experience the world, and it will influence your thoughts, speech and actions, making them wiser in nature. Your purpose is a vision of a better world that you want to help create.

You will then be set to start applying your foundation, principles and purpose to your life, to find your best way to live them out in your thoughts, speech and actions, to act on your vision of a better world through everything that you do. This is living your life on purpose. All of this work will mean that both happiness and success become personal, and therefore fulfilling, all three of which are bi-products of a life well lived, and they feed back into your Foundation and your beliefs, ethics and purpose, and on it goes, because this journey is a life long endeavour. Follow the path to fulfilment and live well my friends.

Always strive to be inspired and inspiring.

#LiveWell

Our Life Long Journey-What Path Should We Follow?

Happiness, Success

“Your life is a journey. Your attitude is the guide.”
― PJ Ferguson

Caught In a Pandemic

Today we are globally in difficult times with the Coronavirus pandemic, but different countries are handling it differently; some better than others, as these are unprecedented events. America seems to be falling into division and chaos, and in the UK there seems to be confusing advice on what we can and cannot do, leading to anxiety in some and other taking advantage and not following sensible advice to keep us. Other countries have done better and worse, depending on your point of view. It can seem that the future is uncertain and full of difficulty, but we cannot necessarily tell what the future will hold, as it has yet to happen.

Whatever our future holds, let us follow the wise words of those who came before us, who led with compassion and love, those who shone a light of hope in difficult times, like the prophets of our many religions and people like Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela; leaders who helped us move towards a better way of living. Let us always have hope for the best, and as we make our way into the future, many things will come and go, and we will move past this pandemic, hopefully learning collectively and individually how to live a more balanced life. As we have slowed down and been confined indoors it has been an opportunity to pause and reflect on how we want to live. As many have said, when things go back to normal, it will be a new normal. It is up to us how this new normal will look for us, how our beliefs and ideas about life will influence our lives moving forward.

Our Journeys

As we move forward, we will all have different experiences and different journeys that we each take everyday. Before the Pandemic, there were both every day and religious journeys that we would take, those that work had a journey that they took to get to their job each day; whether by car, bus or train. Many are now working from home, including myself. Others who don’t work will have things that they did and places that they went to regularly, which have also changed.

Whatever we do with each day there are habits that we form, and familiar routines that we go through, as we go to familiar places. These journeys always seem to take less time and are comforting in some way, perhaps due to their familiarity, and the fact that they form part of the fabric of our lives and are connected sometimes to our habits and routines, like walking the dog or going to the pub on a Friday night. These journeys can be down the road, or to another town or city, or even to another country. Whatever the journey, and whatever the destination, there is always a reason for the journey, a purpose for going.

The Events In Life

Many of us have significant events that happen to us on the many journeys that we take, occasionally it is an event which we feel we are lucky to walk away from, a car crash, an illness, a decision which might of ended badly if we had made a different choice, all of these can be life changing, they can make us reassess our lives and our priorities. Sometimes these events are something a little less extreme, like meeting someone and falling in love, having a baby, getting the job you wanted, or just coming to a realisation that causes a change in direction in our lives. Everyday any of these things can happen, life is changing all the time, and our interactions with others are often what cause these changes.

We Go Through Life Together

The journey that we each take through life is one that we share with our friends, and our family, and the things that we do are witnessed by our children. Even though we spend our efforts passing on wisdom and knowledge that we have discovered in the course of our lives, we also pass on examples of how to behave through our actions, we are role models for our children and the actions that we take, and the path through life that we choose, can be copied. The path we take can become the path that our children take, so it would be best to live in a way that we want our children to live, to live up to the wise lesson that we try to instill in them.

We are never alone in the life we lead, there are always people with which we interact; people at work, people on the bus, people in a congregation, friends and family. We live very interconnected lives, and in doing so we learn from each other everyday, we always know more than we did the day before, we are always learning through our experiences, our education, our everyday interactions.

Putting Things Into Perspective

In a way this is how mankind has evolved over the centuries, our interactions have manifested in a collaboration of ideas and knowledge, that has given us the development of human beings from early man to our current level of intelligence and development. This trend will continue, and the paths that we all take will inform the wider community, and the human race as a whole. We are all part of a greater society, and our actions are like drops of water in a lake, the ripples spread out along the water’s surface, eventually having a far-reaching effect on the rest of our world.

We are all parts of a whole and we all have individual lives to lead as well. It is a paradox of sorts. We all want to do what is best for ourselves, yet we also want to do what is best for others too. So how then should we live our lives? What paths should we take on our journey from birth to death? That is something we all have to work out for ourselves, though I do advise looking into the teachings of the many prophets, spiritual leaders, and wise sages that have contributed to the pool of spiritual knowledge that can be found in any of the holy texts and scriptures that every culture has.

Every culture has this knowledge because each of them have had someone who has understood it and documented it, and because this knowledge is not restricted to any one culture, it is a universal wisdom which is part of the universe, and is there to be discovered by anyone who has the ability to see it and understand it. So, think about what path you want to make through life, and how you want to live, then take that first step and keep walking.

Something to think about…

Sometimes life gives us a challenge that can be an opportunity. What challenges do you have currently that could be an opportunity?

The Missing Piece Of A Life Well Lived

Happiness, Success, The Fullfilment Framework

“People who truly understand what is meant by self-reliance know they must live their lives by ethics rather than rules.”

Wayne Dyer

Our Beliefs

We all have our own beliefs, things that we believe to be true. It might be that all children are precious or that the environment needs to be protected or that money is the route of all evil. You may agree with some of these beliefs but maybe not all of them. Our beliefs are part of what makes us who we are, and also what links us to other people; we gravitate towards others who believe in what we believe. This is human nature.

Our Actions

Our actions in life are often directly related to our beliefs. If you believe that being kind is important then you will often be kind to others, for example. However, often our actions are triggered by our emotions and are reactions to the immediate situation we are in. Our character plays a part too, but our actions are not always aligned with our beliefs. We might believe that we should take care of the environment but find it hard to give up on our big fancy car that guzzles fuel.

The Missing Piece

There is often a missing piece between beliefs and actions, and that is ethics. Ethics are moral principles we hold as important, which extend our beliefs into a code to live by. If we have a strong ethical code then our actions will more robustly align with our beliefs. It takes effort to put together an ethical code for ourselves. First we must clearly define our beliefs through self-exploration, by asking ourselves deep questions about what we believe and then putting our beliefs down on paper.

Then once our beliefs are clearly defined we need to reflect on what the ethical extensions are for each belief. For example, if you were to believe that it is important to be kind then the ethic of that would be something like to treat others as they wish to be treated, sometimes called the platinum rule. Your actions would then reflect this ethic and the route belief more consistently.

In order to live well, we need to live intentionally, with purpose. This is the importance of figuring out your Why, your overriding purpose for your life, but this is built on top of your beliefs and your ethics, which is all built on deep self-knowledge. It is to know yourself intimately and have the courage to live by your beliefs, your ethics and your Why. A life well lived is a courageous one aligned with who you are and how you can help those around you to live their best life. Fulfilment in life comes from living well, so join in the fulfilment revolution and figure out your beliefs and your ethics and have the courage to live by them.

Something To Think About

What are your beliefs and their corresponding ethics, and how will you bring these into your life?

Book Recommendation: Stillness Is The Key by Ryan Holiday

Book Recommendation

Why Read This Book

If life is feeling chaotic and challenging, with the feeling that there is little stillness in your life, this book will help bring you wisdom and bring stillness to your everyday existence. It is a remedy for the challenges of modern life.

Contents

  • PREFACE
  • INTRODUCTION

PART 1: MIND

  • The Domain Of The Mind
  • Become Present
  • Limit Your Inputs
  • Empty The Mind
  • Slow Down, Think Deeply
  • Start Journaling
  • Cultivate Silence
  • Seek Wisdom
  • Find Confidence, Avoid Ego
  • Let Go
  • On To What’s Next…

PART 2: SPIRIT

  • The Domain Of The Soul
  • Choose Virtue
  • Heal The Inner Child
  • Beware Desire
  • Enough
  • Bathe In Beauty
  • Accept A Higher Power
  • Enter Relationships
  • Conquer Your Anger
  • All Is One
  • On To What’s Next…

PART 3: BODY

  • The Domain Of The Body
  • Say No
  • Take A Walk
  • Build A Routine
  • Get Rid Of Your Stuff
  • Seek Solitude
  • Be A Human Being
  • Go To Sleep
  • Find A Hobby
  • Beware Escapism
  • Act Bravely
  • On To The Final Act
  • AFTERWORD
  • WHAT’S NEXT?
  • ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
  • SOURCES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY

Summary

This little book is a soulful look at the human condition through the lens of the mind, the soul and the body. There are lots of examples of well known people’s lives and how they struggled and succeeded in different ways of being to bring about stillness. There is a lot of advice about how to live in a way that brings about stillness and a clear exploration of the pitfalls that push it away, based on these examples of real situations, including Tiger Woods’s personal demons and the US President John F. Kennedy’s handling of the Cuban missile crisis. Ryan Holiday has the steady voice of a wise elder in this book, someone who deeply understands what it means to live a life with stillness.

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?

Remedies To A Crisis

Happiness, The Fullfilment Framework

“Self-control is strength. Right thought is mastery. Calmness is power.” James Allen

Not Being In Control

We are going through a lot of anxiety across the world at the moment with the outbreak of the Coronavirus, there is much uncertainty around our health, whether we have the virus or if we will get it, whether we will lose our jobs, and when we have lost our jobs how we will pay the bills, whether our loved ones are safe, and how long this will all last. Some countries appear to be managing this crisis better than others, and these countries have been predominantly governed by women, whose natural instinct is often taken care of their people. Male leaders tend to be more head strong and want to appear to be strong.

These are generalisations, and not all male or female leaders fit these archetypes, but the global leadership styles that have kept some citizens safe and others not is quite telling. I think the degree to which people feel their leader(s) are taking care of them in a crisis is the degree to which we feel less or more anxious.

For example, some companies have said that they will guarantee that their staff will get paid, or at least 80% oft their salary, and that no one will be fired. Some smaller companies cannot afford to do this unfortunately, but those who are told that they will be taken care of will do all they can to keep their company going through this crisis, they will collectively protect their company because their leaders protected them.

On an individual level, it can be difficult to cope with the uncertainty, and the anxiety that arises from it, especially if we feel that we are not taken care of. Some express their anxiety through anger, we have seen an increase in domestic violence during this crisis. Some express this through trying to control unusual situations.

I heard a story from a friend of mine, who works on a shop, that an elderly man tried to attack her with a shovel, because she would not give him a refund for it, due to him not being able to provide a receipt. The shovel only cost £3, but I suspect he was trying to control the situation because he did not feel that he had control over other things due to this crisis.

In my experience, and through my research into how to live well, I think there are some crucial remedies to anxiety, especially when the anxiety is related to not feeling in control.

Self-Awareness

If we spend time being with our unpleasant emotions, as difficult as this is, if we can have the bravery to just be with them and not run away into distractions and intoxication then we can begin to see what things trigger our anxiety or our anger, or why we criticise and belittle others, then we can begin to develop deep self-awareness. The longer we spend being with ourselves in this way the more we are able to figure out our triggers for negative thoughts and behaviour and to find ways to handle these things better.

If we can figure out our triggers we can develop techniques to reduce our reactions to them, or if this is not possible, to find ways to avoid the triggers, for the sake of our own wellbeing. This is the life long process of self-improvement that will increase our quality of life and our wellbeing, because it will raise our happiness levels and improve our relationships.

Self-Control

If we can become more self-aware we can take responsibility for our own emotions and respond to situations rather than react to them. If we can begin to manage our emotions better we will have more control over what happens in our lives, because even though we cannot control being in the situations we find ourselves in necessarily, because we are already in them, we have a choice of how we act in the following moments.

If we have self-awareness and have developed self-control, then we have clearer thinking and can act out of compassion and altruism, and we can see further into the future of possibilities and determine our best course of action for a positive outcome. This type of mastery is mastery of the self, and it takes years to develop, but if we do not start then we will spend a lot of our lives reacting, often negatively, to each and every situation we find ourselves in and our happiness levels will plummet and our levels of anxiety will go up, because we will have less certainty.

When we let the uncertain nature of the world shake our sense of being we will always struggle. Self-awareness and self-control build a stoicism that will allow us to weather the storms of life and enjoy the fruits of it too.

Gratitude and Kindness

These are two of the most powerful antidotes to anxiety, in the moment. When we are grateful for the little things in life, then our bodies conspire to make us feel good with the hormones it produces. The same is true of being kind to others. To be grateful and to be kind makes us feel good and it reduces the hormones our bodies produce when we feel anxious.

Simply listing ten things we are grateful for every morning, making sure we smile at people and give them compliments, these are things we can all do, and if they become our daily habits then the crisis we are all in does not seem as bad. We develop the feeling that we are in this together and that we will get through this.

So, spend time with yourself, getting to know how you react and respond to difficult situations. Develop better strategies to manage yourself in these situations. Be more grateful for what you have and kinder to others around you. Do these things and this crisis will be easier to manage and you will be on your way to self mastery and a wonderful life.