Actions to Adopt to Live a More Fulfilling Life
Most of us struggle with finding the best ways to live the most fulfilling life possible, and often we feel as though we aren’t living up to our fullest potential. Though it takes time and effort to bring about our greatest potential, both in our personal and professional lives, below are a few ideas and actions to keep in mind throughout your everyday life that just might bring you a little closer to feeling a sense of fulfillment:
Make sure you’re curious about and interested in the things you’re doing.
Having a sense that life is a journey helps make us more passionate and enthusiastic to learn about ourselves and others. Curious and interested minds create new interests, which create even newer interests, allowing us to learn with passion, occasionally feel more of a sense of “flow,” and use our minds to understand the world around us. Such explorations help us make necessary changes.
Use self-discipline to help you overcome your fears. Throughout our lives, we face an unfathomable number of situations in which fear can overwhelm us. Taking advantage of the fear and feeling the confidence that arises from overcoming these situations is what allows us to face more fears in the future. It is fear that can hold us back from being the people we want to be and from doing the things that we want to do. Facing our fears, even just a little at a time, can help us move forward in exciting ways.
Use your time in an effective manner that fits you:
~Cultivate an inner calm (allowing you to function while being surrounded by commotion);
~Concentrate on the task at hand (focusing on being present with where you are and what you’re doing); and
~Arrange your daily schedule so that there are times for you to focus individually on each task that must be done. It’s also helpful to feel as though whatever you’re doing is something you feel is worth your time. Having too much on your plate can make you unhappy, but so can having no idea why you’re doing the things you’re doing.
Understand that you are your own self and that everybody is simply trying to find their own way in life. Modeling your life on those of others, especially when gaining material things is a driving motivation, is a good way to wind up living someone else’s life—a life you don’t enjoy or value. Or when a primary motivation in life is to achieve the acceptance of others, not only will you never be happy with yourself, but it’s likely you'll lose yourself in the process. It’s better to be motivated to achieve the things that will truly satisfy you, which are almost never material possessions and are often not the things those around you find satisfying.
Everyone understands that finding fulfillment in life is not a simple task; in fact, it may be the most daunting task we face. However, if we are living our lives by doing the things that interest and excite us the most, it is inevitable that opportunities to find and explore the things that lead to fulfillment will surely present themselves to us. There is no “gold standard” for how we should live, because life is idiosyncratic for each of us. But doing the things that YOU want to do and YOU feel are worth your time are more likely to lead to a fulfilling life.