Stop Chasing Happiness, Find Fulfillment Instead

From an early age, we’re led to believe that nothing is more satisfying than finding happiness. But happiness is so elusive and intangible.

 

Plus, happiness is different for everyone, so how do you know when you find it? And is there something out there that can make you feel even better than happiness?

 

Yes! It’s called having a sense of fulfillment. Yet, what is that exactly, and how do you get it? That’s what we’re here today to find out.

 

So, keep reading to learn how you can stop chasing happiness to find fulfillment instead.

 

Happiness vs. Fulfillment

 

Take a look at this quick overview of happiness vs. fulfillment.

 

Happiness

 

Happiness includes feelings like contentment, excitement, and joy. But they’re all temporary.

 

Sure, it feels nice while it lasts, but other emotions take over, like anger, fear, and anxiety.

 

The trap many of us fall into is that we believe we’ll reach our point of happiness when we achieve certain things in our lives.

 

We say things like, “If I buy that shiny, red car, I’ll be happy.” or “Once I have my own house, I’ll finally be happy.”

 

Of course, you’ll be happy! But that happiness can only last so much. After that, reality sets in, especially when the bills start coming in.

 

Another problem with happiness is that we often view it in terms of other people. So we compare our lives to theirs, which is never a good idea.

 

No one knows what’s going on in other people's lives. So it’s not fair to compare only the good parts. It sends you on a loop of perpetual disappointment. The only person you should compare yourself to is you.

 

Fulfillment

 

When you pursue the things that really matter to you, you bring fulfillment into your life. Fulfillment is when you take actionable steps towards the things you value. Part of it is also achieving goals that were set up based on these core values.

 

Living your life with a consistent set of values allows you to have integrity towards who you truly are. It also allows you more control over your emotions and thoughts.

 

This makes it possible to bring the locus of control inward. Thus, you feel stronger and more empowered.

 

The bottom line is that happiness is dependent on external factors. Many of these factors are material and likely to change at any moment.

 

Fulfillment, on the other hand, is internally driven. You’re the one who determines what means more to you, and then by going after it, you elevate the levels of fulfillment in your life.

 

How To Find Fulfillment

 

You can find fulfillment in many ways. But you have to choose to see it in every experience and situation in your life, especially those that don’t go your way.

 

It sounds more challenging than it really is, but it’s actually relatively easy once you know what you’re doing. And it’s way more rewarding and empowering than chasing the ever-fleeting feeling of happiness.

 

Here are some ways to find fulfillment and bring meaning to your life.

 

Know Thyself

 

The great philosopher, Socrates, said, “Know Thyself” to encourage his students to look inward when searching for the meaning of life. So then, when you know your true nature, you can find fulfillment because you know your true self-worth.

 

You can do that by thinking of a moment when you felt most fulfilled. What about that specific event made you feel this way?

 

The more you know about yourself, the more fulfillment you’ll find in life. Remember, fulfillment isn’t about having a nice house or the latest fashion. It’s much deeper than that and much more nuanced.

 

It just takes a bit of soul searching.

 

Help Others

 

Helping others is one of the best ways to fill your life with fulfillment. You feel good by volunteering your time or money to help someone in need.

 

The science behind it is that helping others boosts the release of ‘feel-good’ chemicals in our brains. Some of these include hormones, such as dopamine and serotonin.

 

So, whether you’re helping a friend move or helping out at a local soup kitchen, you’re bringing joy and ease into other people’s lives. Not only that, but you’re also making yourself feel more fulfilled.

 

Create Connections

 

Surrounding yourself with a healthy, supportive social circle allows you to feel connected to something. In addition, being part of something fosters a sense of fulfillment in your life.

 

You have people you can talk to anytime you feel sad or stressed out. Consequently, you don’t suffer from any feelings of isolation, disconnection, or separation.

 

Be Grateful

 

Having a sense of gratitude can help you see the purpose in life and feel like you’re connected to a greater good. Gratitude also boosts your overall health and encourages positive emotions, which can come in handy when you’re going through a tough time.

 

It also motivates you to strive for more. Yet, when there’s a setback, you focus more on what you have and what you’ve accomplished rather than wallowing in your losses.

 

Being thankful each day can help you overcome difficult times and give you the support you need to get back up and keep trying to reach your potential.

 

Keep in mind that if you’re not okay with what you don’t have, you’ll never appreciate what you do have.

5 Advantages Of Living Intentionally

Living intentionally is the best way of attaining the things you desire and succeeding in your various fields of endeavor. It enables you to appreciate your journey to success and keeps you observant of opportunities. It improves your self-confidence by keeping you focused on your abilities, not your shortcomings.

 

Living intentionally means knowing the right steps to take. It means thinking about your moves before making them, and making time for things that are in line with your end goal. Living with intention enables you to live your life the way you see fit as opposed to how others see it.

 

Advantages Of Living Intentionally

 

1. Making smart decisions.

 

Living intentionally helps you to make smart decisions by making you more conscious of who you are and not on how other people see you. You are more capable of standing by what you believe in and you aren’t easily swayed by the opinions of others. Living intentionally helps you implement the kind of methods you strongly believe in. Methods that have the power to get you to your destination whether or not the next person believes in them. 

 

Intentional people keep their main goal in sight and never make room for distractions. That means when something comes along that isn’t in line with your values or beliefs you don’t compromise. You always think about the step you are about to take and find out how it impacts your vision before going ahead with it.

 

2. Seeing your vision clearer. 

 

Taking intentional actions and living an intentional life helps you see your vision clearer and keeps you believing in yourself. You understand that valuable things take time and appreciate the process that gets you to your destiny. Instead of complaining about the sacrifices you have to make along the way, you express your gratitude for the chance to do what’s necessary to get to where you intend to go.

 

3. Setting smart goals.

 

Everyone has goals but the reason why some people succeed in reaching them while others don’t is that those who succeed understand the importance of setting smart goals. An intentional life enables you to set smart goals because your plan of action is determined by what you want to achieve in the end. You learn to break down larger goals into smaller ones that you can work at daily. 

 

You think “What small step can I take right now that will get me a step closer to my goal today than I was yesterday?” Living intentionally helps you realize the significance of small steps that make a huge difference in the long run and keeps you moving forward.

 

4. Staying motivated.

 

We all need a bit of motivation now and then because motivation has the power to cause you to act when the odds are against you. It draws your attention to important things that have a noteworthy impact on your development, growth, and wellbeing. Motivation keeps you thinking “What can I do next?” “How best can I handle this” instead of “This has the potential to fail so, why act?” 

 

An intentional life is a life that fixes your attention on your abilities, the change you desire to bring about, as well as what you are expecting to achieve not what you are failing at. So, one of the main advantages of living intentionally is that you remain motivated to keep moving, keep trying, and keep believing. 

 

5. Taking risks.

 

“This may not turn out the way I’m expecting” “This may be too big a risk for me” are words and thoughts that stop you from taking big risks that have the potential of changing your life. Not being comfortable with taking risks is by far one of the main reasons why people never live the lives they desire. You think about all the reasons why that risk you are about to take will lead to your downfall and never go through with it. 

 

Nonetheless, the only way of advancing in life and living the life you want is by learning to take risks. Big or small. Be strong enough to take huge risks but be smart about it. Instead of allowing a promising bid, idea, or investment pass you by start thinking about all the right reasons why saying YES is going to work in your favor and go ahead with it.

 

Living with intention and being guided by intentional actions can help you recognize worthwhile risks that will impact your life positively. It eliminates your fear of taking chances on things that aren’t promising to other people and strengthens the faith you have in yourself when things work out.

 

Countless people who have managed to reach their highest aims and who continue to do so are risk-takers. So, become a risk-taker by living intentionally and discovering the link between certain risks and your goal. 

10 Habits For An Intentional Life

Habits are repeated action or an unconscious pattern of behavior. They affect all areas of our lives and determine how we make use of each day. We all know of good and bad habits and are probably struggling to let go of some bad practices. Unfortunately, there is nothing as hard as fighting against self. It is who you have been for a while and it takes time to let go of something that has become a part of you. However, if we are to live an intentional life and be successful in what we do, we will need to cultivate habits that are in sync with the life we want.

 

An intentional life is one where we carefully choose what to do and how we do it in order to achieve certain goals. It is a purposeful life. Needless to say, one needs to be principled to be able to live such a life. Below are ten habits that can help us stay principled as we seek to live an intentional life.

 

1.  Self-introspection – make it a habit to do a self-check. Sometimes we are our own stumbling blocks and we do not realize it. We behave in a self-sabotaging way. Therefore, we must learn to first look deep inside ourselves before we find anyone or anything else to blame for anything that is not going right in our lives. Look for your own weaknesses and areas that need to be improved and work on yourself. This will improve your relationships and your approaches as you work on your personal goals.

 

2.  Recite your life goals – this reminds you where each plan for the day is meant to take you. Remind yourself what you want to achieve every now and then. In other words, keep your eyes on the goal to avoid wasting time on things that do not bring value to your life.

 

3.  Say no – learn to say no to anything that is not in alignment with your goals. This includes saying no to your desires, your friends, and everyone else. Teach them to respect your routine and working time, and that your interests and goals matter too. Also, do not embrace excuses, they help you feel comfortable in your weaknesses. 

 

4.  Draw a lesson from each challenge you face – challenges happen for a reason. They could be from our own miscalculations of or from external forces. Regardless of the cause, there is always something to learn from them. These range from misunderstandings to failed businesses. Identify opportunities too where possible.

 

5.  Listen more and talk less – when you learn to listen more you learn more from others. You do not only get valuable information related to your dreams, but you also understand them better and improve relationships. Listening also gives you enough time to think before you talk or react. It also helps you understand the contents of a discussion and lessens the chances of a misunderstanding or conflict.

 

6.  Show appreciation – be grateful for your achievements and growth and learn to express genuine gratitude to others. An intentional life is nearly impossible to follow if one is ungrateful. The person tends to be driven by their desire to achieve more and they are never content. Such an attitude can drive a person to do anything including things that are out of character. Following a straight path feels like a burden. Appreciating what we have helps us stay calm and takes away focus from a single goal.

 

7.  Reward yourself for good work – we need to be easy going and not make everything about the future while forgetting to live in the present. Reward yourself when you achieve a goal or finish a task. It makes you feel good and motivates you to do more as you realize the results of committing to your goals. This further encourages you to cultivate more good habits. “When we give ourselves treats, we feel energized, cared for, and contented, which boosts our self-command — and self-command helps us maintain our healthy habits.” Gretchen Rubin.

 

8.  Do not spend more than enough time on the phone or television – social media, television, and games can be addictive. We should learn to limit the time we spend on them to avoid losing work and study time. 

 

9.  Rest when you need to – your body and mind require you to rest. Sometimes we stay up late trying to finish a task. Taking time to rest helps us refresh our minds such that when its time to return to the task our brains will function more efficiently and makes you more productive. Resting helps our muscles recover, reduces stress, gives us more energy, and improves our mood.

 

10. Control your spending habits – know how much you need to spend and on what. It is necessary to have a budget and controlling your spending habits can help you stick to it. Budgeting helps you keep in mind what is worth spending on. As we master how to control our spending habits, it becomes easier to reach our financial goals. 

Be An Intentional Person

“When I grow up I want to be a doctor. I like this job because it serves humanity in the most phenomenal way. Every day will be an opportunity for me to learn more about diseases and their cures. I see myself become so excellent at my job that people will refer each other to me for the best medical attention. Seeing my uncle parade the hospital in his white coat, stethoscope around his neck, and with a determined look on his face inspired me towards this dream. Seeing my dad recover and be discharged from the intensive care unit in a few days sealed it. I am going to study hard therefore to achieve this goal and then buy a big house in the suburbs and raise my beautiful, big, and happy family there.”

 

This is an extract from an essay I wrote at age eleven and I must say this was the style for most of my peers at that time. Some wanted to be accountants, teachers, soldiers, nurses, and so forth but the common ground for all of us was that we were made to imagine ourselves years into the future. That insight of oneself in the future was in no doubt a good thing, there is only one problem that I got to realize when I was older and that was the fact that this exercise which we repeated almost every year always only focused distant future. What if we had been asked to write about our future in the next five, two or one year? What would have been different had I been made to create an image of myself in a year or a school term? If the topic had been, “This coming month” instead of “When I grow up”?

 

The major goals of self in the next ten years are exciting, they show you that indeed you can create anything you want in this life. They revive hope for a future far ahead of the present but if they are not accompanied by smaller ones aiming at the nearer future, they are of no use. Most of those kids who said they wanted to become doctors including myself never became so. It all stayed put in our composition books. 

A few days ago, I listened with sadness as a grown woman who was soon to be evicted from a rented apartment said that she was waiting in hope for a solution concerning where she would go next. The more I tried to question her plan the greater the stress I seemed to put her under so I gave up. It was right then that it struck me how important it is to be an intentional person. I quickly realized the importance of a plan, not just a fantasy about the future in the next five or ten years but a plan that affects one’s choices and actions today.

 

Intentional people don’t collide with their destiny, they create it; block by block. They are strong-willed and determined to get the best out of life. These are the people who wait for nobody to help them, they strategically gather the help they need and use it. This is the breed of winners that train their emotions to follow their actions and not the other way round. Rarely are these people surprised by the turnout of events because every day they take calculated moves towards their clear goals. 

 

Be that person who is intentional. Become that person today who has plans for today, tomorrow, the week, and the month in an effort to reach your epitome in the next three, five, or ten years. Refuse to let life constantly take you by surprise, fight to sit on the driver seat of yours every day, and head towards your most excellent self. Have answers for the whys around your behavior and circumstances. If you are on a job you dislike, let it be because it pays your bills now as you strategize on how to get the one that resonates with your soul.

 

Permission and validation from someone else may never come, give it to yourself today. What if you started by commanding joy into your day and your life as a whole? Let me assure you that you would lose your temper less often if you did. You would be less confused, less discouraged, and less frustrated. Intentionally smile at that person who gets on your nerves and watch as your relationship evolves into something pleasant. Deliberately give to the poor even while you feel that you are also going through a rough patch in your financial life. The law of giving and receiving will not let you down.

 

In all this, set out to be fruitful and progressive. Make false starts, run out of breath, and then pause to take a break, head in the wrong direction sometimes and then bring yourself back to your lane. The adventure involved in doing all this is worth it. Just because you have structure doesn’t mean you will get it right all the time. Be willing to make the moves, all the same, if you have a clear intention of where you are going you will definitely reach there. 

 

Contributed Article

Be Intentional In The Goals You Set

Here is one thing most people love the sound and idea of but struggle to make a reality. Goals! We all know that goals do get us somewhere. Well, if followed through. Goal setting has become a popular theme for the first two months of each year. However, the energy eventually dies down as the year progresses. Then the question is, is what we normally do at the beginning of each year goal setting or just excitement and, simply writing down wishes? And yes, there is a difference between wishes and goals. A wish is a desire or hope for something to happen whereas a goal is defined as the ‘object of a person's ambition or effort; an aim or desired result’. Or, maybe it is goal setting and the only problem is that we are not being intentional about it.

 

We need to be intentional in our goal setting. Being intentional in goal setting means going beyond setting targets. Instead of starting from what we admired from other people, it starts with self-searching and establishing who we are now, and who we want to be in the future. What is its significance? We may ask. Well, here is why we need to be intentional when we set our goals.

Goals as we know them – goals are aims that are meant to connect two points of our lives; where we are in the present and where we want to be in the future. Therefore, to make sure that our path to who we want to be is clearly pronounced, our goals must be set with the intention to direct our steps towards the route that will help us reach our destination. In other words, our goals must be drawn from our purpose and not the other way round. Without being intentional in our goal setting, we would go back and forth and sideways.

Pressure from family – we have families that are doing well in life and it is a blessing to have them support us in everything we do. However, sometimes family including spouses can be so controlling to a point that we lose our individuality and as a result, we give up some of our dreams or temporarily put them aside. We need to learn to be in control of our lives. No one knows better the desires hidden deep inside our hearts than we do. Also, family may not always be there to take care of things and fix our lives for us which may force us to only learn to figure out the reality of life at later stages of our lives or when we are left with no other choice but to get up and act. To maintain our individuality, we need to be honest about who we really are and set goals that best suit our personalities. It allows us to live life to the fullest and reduces the chances of having regrets about the time lost while living in the shadow of other people. 

Pressure from social spaces – the world has become more like a global village. Everything happening all over the world and in our communities is easily accessible. We can’t lie about this, our social media has the most beautiful things we can see and the most inspiring stories in the world. The content is captivating. But we shouldn't ignore the fact that some if not all the posts we see are just captured moments and not the entire truth about life. Being intentional in the goals we set reminds us of who we are and protects us from social pressures. Setting goals based on other people’s ‘achievements’ or ideas may confuse and depress us. We may not have a connection with the goals besides that it might get us money fast or help us fit in. When you are intentional in the goals you set, you are content with your part and you are not easily enticed by other people's lifestyles, which may not even be real.

Finding the meaning of life and appreciating the journey – as mentioned previously intentional goal setting gives life a direction. Knowing what we are living for and what we are aiming at gives us determination and persistence. These help us connect to our life journey and find fulfillment in each and every achievement. Intentional goal setting allows us to experience life for what it is and face challenges head-on. There is no better teacher than that. In the end, the journey is traveled with a clear conscience. An intentional life is a sure ticket to learning to appreciate life and experience genuine happiness. 

Motivation and strength to do your daily activities – when your goals are intentional, you have a good reason to wake up and do something with your life. You know what you are working for, if it’s a relationship, you know why you are in it and don't struggle to prioritize your goals. You cannot afford to waste time or give less. When your goal setting is not intentional, it gets easy to put them on hold and focus on other things.

Commitment – when your job or relationship has a strong link with who you want to be in the future, you feel compelled to commit and give it your all. It is your future after all.

Gain Freedom By Living Intentionally

If I was to compare intentional living to a sport, I would say it is like playing a game of chess. This game is full of choices to make. You choose what you want to play, how and when you want to play it. Every move is well thought of and strategic. Whether it’s a one-step or a five-step move, it’s purposeful, and every action you make has it’s counteracted consequences. When one is living intentionally, the gain to it is the freedom of choice. One obtains the power to choose how they want to live their life. You gain the opportunity to set your own identity. To define yourself by pre-selecting what resonates with your lifestyle the most. Freedom of choosing right from wrong, good from the bad. 

 

When you decide to live purposefully you gain the liberty to decide which path you want to take in your life. You decide which crowd you want to associate with. Which people you want to gain influence from and those you wish to block from your personal space. That power of choice is what separates you from all the norms of this world. It sets you apart from the cultures that monitor your life. You’re separated from the cultures created within our societies because you choose what you want to believe in and what aligns with your soulful purpose to your life.

 

Gain financial freedom by living intentionally.

 

Last night whilst browsing through some literature I came across a very insightful motivational writing by Robert Kiyosaki. He was explaining another gain to living intentionally which is financial freedom. He said something very profound that had me thinking about all the financial choices I’ve made in my life. He explained himself saying, ‘The philosophy of the rich and the poor is this; the rich invest their money and spend what is left. The poor spend their money and invest what is left. This also reminded me of something I was discussing with my sister last week. How people don’t have the patience to build a business for 3 years, but they have the patience to go to work for 40, 50, or 60 years. If we follow the societal laws wherever we are around the world, you’ll see a trend of people getting comfortable with taking a traditional 9 to 5 job. Where their soul goal is earning enough to cover the bills and maybe purchasing a few prestigious assets. They get comfortable with earning enough to get by till the next paycheck. There is no financial freedom or independence. 

 

Financial freedom means that you get to make life decisions without being overly stressed about the financial impact because you are prepared for it. If your ultimate goal is gaining financial freedom, it means every choice you make with your finances should be purposeful and strategic. Your choices become intentional. You don’t spend more than you earn. You create a savings account. You plan, you budget, and you invest to make more profit. Money is an important part of financial freedom but it’s simply a vehicle to pursue living your best-intended life.

 

Time is of great essence to life. It is the greatest gift to mankind which is life itself. You can always make more money but you can’t make more time. Rich or poor we all have 24 hours each. With no direction or purpose to your life, time will quickly slip through your hands like quicksand. Before you even know it, your body is no longer able to do what you wished you had started 25 years ago. You don’t have enough money to invest, to travel around the world, or even take a weekend vacation. This happens to people who live with no purpose. They don’t have the liberty to do what they want to do because they have to do what they need to do to survive. A life with no plan will have you working for 40years with zero savings like what Richard Branson once said. But when you’re living intentionally your actions are meaningful.

 

Embracing freedom means taking control of your life. Your schedule becomes purposeful accommodating all your needs and wants with more time to spare. You prioritize what actions to take that will add value to your plan. I remember a friend of mine who once told me that, there’s nothing like not having enough time. People make time for what’s important to them. Making intentional choices will get you that free time. Time freedom, meaning having time to move deliberately. It will allow you to wake up in the morning without an alarm clock. You can have lunch at 3 pm, dinner at 11 pm and go to bed at 3 am. Not because you have to but because you want to and you can. You gain extra time to spend with your family, take a walk alone, read a book, or travel. By intentionally planning every day in advance you will create enough time to invest in what’s important to you.

 

How To Choose A Life That You Love

A man is defined by the decisions he makes. Life as we have come to know it, is made up of decisions that we make, either wrong or right. These decisions at the end of the day, combined, give direction to the life that we lead today and have a bearing on what is to come tomorrow. They determine who we become and have an influence on our position in society. So vital is the process of decision making, that man was given the free will to choose. And we can only know what is right and what is wrong if we have knowledge and information to make informed and wise decisions.

 

So important is the process of decision making that sometimes, one bad decision can ruin not only one's life but it can also have a great impact on the lives of those around that individual, the community, the nation and even the world at large. Therefore, it is of paramount importance that as we develop ourselves as individuals, we dwell on decision making and equip ourselves with the skill, tools, and wisdom to make wise, sound decisions. Many scholars, writers, and researchers have put forward a lot of literature and theories about decisions and the decision-making process, all in a bit to educate you and l on how to make wise decisions. In psychology, decision-making is regarded as the cognitive process resulting in the selection of a belief or a course of action among several possible alternative options. 

 

A lot has been said around the subject, however, to date, as individuals we still struggle when it comes to this part of our lives and find ourselves making poor decisions, some that go on to ruin our lives. The bottom line is with little or no knowledge at all, it is very difficult to make an informed decision. When decision making becomes more of a lottery than an informed choice, it becomes suicidal. 

 

A lot of great men and women, including kings and queens, have seen their kingdoms tumble down all because they failed to master the art of decision making. I say it is an art because it is an expression of oneself, one’s knowledge on a particular subject, and one’s boldness to make a choice and stand by it. Allow me to put forward 3 simple steps that can aid you and l in making a wise and informed decision. These simple 3 steps when mastered will help you develop to be a better decision-maker. Before l give you these 3 simple steps, allow me to state that when a decision is made, it can either be right or wrong. The moral standing of a decision made at any particular time depends on who is analyzing it and what impact that decision that has been made has on them immediately or soon. It is all about perception and this fact makes the procession of decision making even more important for the individual. Therefore, try and equip yourself with the following 3 steps or you can also view them as skills.

1. Gather as much information as possible 

 

Before making any decision, learn to equip yourself with as much information as possible about the decision you are about to make. It could be the various choices or options that are at your disposal. It could be the impact, effects, or the consequences that each of these choices has. Before making a decision, gather, research, assess, and be in a better position than you were before to make a decision. One can never get to a point where they have exhausted all the avenues or possibilities surrounding a decision but they can make an informed choice relying on work that they have done prior.

2.    Make the decision

 

Once you have equipped yourself with information, be brave enough to make the decision. Decisions will not make themselves. They need one to stand up and make a choice. This is not an easy thing to do but it must be done. Many successful men and women are where they are today because they were brave enough to stand up and be counted. They were brave enough to make that decision that many were afraid to make. 

3.    Lastly, stand by it 

Learn to always stand by the decision you make whether it turns out to be right or wrong. Learn to have a backbone, to trust your judgment, and stand by it. When a wrong decision is made, and as a result, a glass is broken, learn to apologize where an apology is due, clear the mess and pick up the pieces and move on. We learn from the decisions that we make. We will not be perfect overnight but it is in practicing and applying these 3 steps that we get better and grow to master the art of making decisions.

 

Always remember the 1..2..3 of decision making: gather information, make the decision, and stand by it.