We all want to live meaningful lives — lives in which we feel passionate and fulfilled. But how do we move toward greater fulfillment?
Here are 6 Practices to help you move toward greater fulfillment:
Follow where love and joy lead:
Life is short and you are unique. Don’t sell yourself short by believing that life can’t be an absolute blast. Pay attention to what has heart and meaning — for YOU. Don’t worry about what other people are doing or what other people think. Follow your heart: follow where love and joy lead YOU.
Approve of yourself:
We all spend so much energy trying to be loved, accepted, or approved of by others. And the truth is that we can’t ever control whether other people like, love, accept, or approve of us. It’s hard to accept that we are powerless over other people, particularly the people we love the most. Whatever it is that you hope the people who are most important to you and the people you love the most will provide for you, begin providing that to yourself. Strengthen the muscles of your own Inner Adult by showing up and consistently choosing to accept, delight in, and approve of yourself. Anything else is some form of self-abuse.
Make your vision even bigger:
If you find yourself losing interest in something that you were once passionate about, maybe it’s because your vision isn’t big enough to keep your interest. Maybe it’s not enough of a stretch to be compelling to you. Try making it even bigger — big enough that it feels daunting, that it makes you gasp when you think of it. Big enough that if you accomplish it, you will feel incredibly proud of what you have pulled off!
Focus on the difference you want to make for others:
The other thing that makes a vision compelling is the thought of who will benefit from it. Who are you committed to serving? What is the difference that you want to make in their lives? How can you make your commitment to making that difference even more important to you than your desire to play it safe? What would it take to make the cost of not pursuing your passion greater than the cost of pursuing it?
Be willing to make mistakes:
Remember you can always course correct. Don’t wait until things — or you — are perfect to take action, engage your passions, or put yourself out there. You can always correct and continue. Take action now. When you’re on your deathbed, you’ll be more likely to regret the shots you didn’t take (whether it is opening your heart to someone, or starting a company of your own, or justly bravely showing up exactly as you are) than sorry about having tried something and failed. Failure is only feedback. If you view it and use it as an opportunity to learn, you’ll inevitably be better off in the end — even if things don’t go as you had hoped.
Embrace pronoia:
Indulging fear-based thinking leads us to try to protect ourselves and control others. It increases our stress and anxiety, and keeps us stuck. Rather than buying into the fear-based thinking that is so pervasive in our culture, what if you instead believed that everyone and everything is conspiring to help you in some way? What if you could see that things happen for you, not to you? Start looking for all the ways in which the Universe is helping you; start noticing how things line up to support you.
