Category: Feeling Fulfilled

Paint a picture for me of what your ideal day looks like. I’ll start:

• Wake up slowly; no alarm.
• Scorching hot shower.
• Foam rolling/ deep stretching/ mobility/ (p)rehab work.
• Disguised exercise. Be it martial arts, sports, hike, dancing, or lifting.
• Sauna/Steam room/rinse off finish.
• Work that excites me.
• Afternoon nap.
• Scorching hot cup of black coffee.
• Reflective/Creative; Writing/Reading; Inner Work time.
• Meditation.
• Work that excites me.
• Evening spent slowly unwinding, chatting, dining, playing, and connecting with the ones I love.

You know what this now becomes?

…Your definition of success.

Not “getting six or seven figures into my bank account.”

No. Your ideal day becomes the definition that you can begin reverse engineering your way to.

It’s clear. It’s aligned. It’s priority focused.

…It’s what your life is composed of: days fulfilled or not.

And if you can successfully fill your days… how could you not have successfully filled your life?

Osho says that misery is nothing but distance from truth.

Think about the proximity of truth in some of the best/worst relationships you’ve ever known. The relationships riddled with lies were probably the most miserable. And I’m not even just talking about lies with your partner… I’m including lies you’ve told yourself… about who you are, what you want, and how you’re going to show up in the relationship to make it work. And I’m sure the inverse is true as well. Lies move pain (misery) into the future—truth moves pain (misery) into the past.

Think, too, about some of the best/worst job or career paths you’ve ever pursued. The work that was most aligned with the truth of your personality/spirit, was the work you undoubtedly most enjoyed. And the work that felt like a direct contradiction I’m sure caused the most misery. But, again, we can’t be true to our work until we’re true to ourselves. We need to do personality tests, build skills, join clubs, follow our innate curiosities, experiment/side-hustle, and, of course, do inner work to reveal our truth which we can then align with work.

And even just think about some of the best/worse moments in your life… when you were crossing items off your bucket list—doing things that truly fulfill you. Or when you were forced to do something you really didn’t want to do or hated every second of… that was so against your inner truth…

Once you understand this, moving towards truth can become a mantra of sorts that’ll guide you in just about every dimension in life. Once you uncover, of course, what your truth is.

In other words, can we experience something extraordinary without any active involvement or effort on our end?

I’m not sure we can.

In fact, when I list some of the most extraordinary moments I’ve experienced in my life, they’re all moments I was very much involved with facilitating. Things like:

• Skydiving (researched, booked, paid for, attended, trained, got on the plane, stepped out, etc.)
• Travel/Cultural Experiences (researched, booked, paid for, packed for, traveled to, noticed, absorbed, etc.)
• Milestone Moments (graduations, big purchases, martial arts ranks obtained, etc.—all worked incredibly hard for)
• Deep Connection Moments (heart-to-heart conversations, intimate energy exchanges, the depth that comes from sharing the same long-term path, etc.)
• Flow State Moments (when immersed in an aligned game/activity, when dancing/celebrating without self-consciousness, when training/being challenged appropriately, etc).
• Indomitable Spirit Moments (when being pushed to my limits physically, mentally, or emotionally).

I’m not sure we can just passively sit around, wait, and get hit by an extraordinary life moment that’ll make it onto our life’s highlight reel.

Sure there’s luck, serendipity, and happenstance. But not without our active involvement in some way, shape, or form. In fact, my experience has been that the more I do of the latter, the more I tend to get of the former.

Which is worth reflecting on… does this ring true for you? What are some of your life’s most extraordinary moments? What moments are you actively building to be soon experienced in the next week? Month? Year? Decade? What extraordinary life moments are on your bucket list that you can start actively building for today?

We humans are not just biological scripting reacting to nature’s events.

We’re thinkers, planners, dreamers, organizers, collaborators…

…But most of all, we’re builders.

And if we want purpose and meaning in our lives… we have to build it—not wait for nature to give it.

Some examples of what has and/or still fills me with a sense of purpose and meaning are the following:

• Family/Friends/Lovers: I don’t feel a sense of meaning or purpose towards strangers… only towards the people whom I’ve built strong connections with. My purpose is to nurture, provide, care for, support, console, and so on… and the more I invest (and build) into them, the more meaning and reward I feel. Especially as it’s reciprocated and something great gets mutually grown and shared.

• Vocation/Career/Work: It started with an incredibly strong desire to be a great martial artist—that was my purpose. I was completely captivated by it. I was good at it. And I was lucky to have found a school that knew how to facilitate it. The more I invested, the more meaning I felt. And once I got to the point where I was leading, teaching, and coaching—and helping others build themselves—my purpose and meaning grew in proportion to the lives I touched.

• Reading/Writing/Creating: Early stage reading was shallow for me. I cared more about finishing than comprehending. And not much meaning/purpose resulted. But once I decided to build a quote website? And write daily insights? And build accompanying websites, content, guides, and more? Uh, yeah… purpose and meaning city.

Never forget: purpose and meaning isn’t something life gives to you. It’s something you build from the life you’ve been gifted.

When my boss and co-worker bought new cars, I got this inexplicable, almost primal urge to do the same.

The new-car-thought became a part-time obsession and I hunted through digital lots like a hunger crazed Neanderthal navigating prehistoric landscape.

…But I also do a healthy amount of daily inner work.

And so I leaned into this urge with eyes wide.

I understood that the forces at work were, yes, maybe something primal, but also largely a brainwashed modern belief that faster, sleeker, more expensive was what I needed.

I eventually narrowed in on this beautiful, beast of a car that was expensive, but within my means.

It was either that, I decided, or I would reinvest in my current car—one that was still running beautifully, was a beast in her own right, and—most importantly—was completely paid off.

The financial difference between these two decisions was almost $20,000.

And when I told a friend what I was thinking, he leaned in and almost whispered in my ear, “Upgrades for your current car won’t scratch that new car itch.”

And it was in that moment that I knew what I “needed” to do.

And so I whispered back to myself, “Challenge accepted.”

And I not only reinvested into my car (and saved $20,000), but I reinvested back into myself.

…Because taking care of what you already have, growing appreciation, and quieting the endless noise about more is exactly the kind of work my inner was signaling for right from the moment I told myself that story about those two new cars.

If you don’t spend enough time in the quiet of your mind… you won’t hear the whispers of your soul.

…And your soul is the only part of you that knows what’s really going to lead to fulfillment.

Your mind likes to think it knows what’s going to lead it there, but your mind is also heavy into comparisonism, social hierarchies, and other people’s opinions.

Your soul…? Couldn’t care less.

And once you get to that kind of space… how could you be lead astray?