How happy are you right now, in this very moment? Give yourself an intuitive score from 1 to 10, where 1 means you're not happy at all and 10 means you're exceptionally happy. And how fulfilled do you feel? Again, rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 10. In this blog post, you'll discover the difference between happiness and fulfilment, along with a short guide to living a more fulfilling life.
Who doesn't want to be happy? We look for happiness in a job that helps us grow, in love and our relationships, in our children, in a beautifully designed home that meets our needs, in feeling healthy, in sporting achievements and in so many other things.
And yet, even when many of these areas of our lives are «fulfilled», I don't feel that we necessarily become happier. So I find myself wondering: Are we striving for the wrong thing? What if happiness isn't actually what we're looking for, but something else entirely?
Recently, I watched Emily Esfahani Smith's TED Talk, «There's more to life than being happy». It resonated deeply with me and helped answer the two questions above. I now have a better understanding of the difference between happiness and fulfilment, as well as some concrete ideas for bringing more meaning and fulfilment into my life.
What's the difference between happiness and fulfilment? Happiness is tied to the moment; fulfilment runs deeper and lasts longer.
So, what does it mean to be happy? When we're happy, we experience comfort and ease. We feel good in the moment. Fulfilment goes deeper. Martin Seligman describes it, in essence, as belonging to something greater and working towards something that extends beyond ourselves.
While happiness can be fleeting, fulfilment appears to be more enduring. Research suggests that fulfilled people perform better at work, are more resilient and live longer.
What makes a fulfilling life? Meaningful relationships, a sense of purpose, experiences of flow and a positive story about yourself.
Emily identifies four pillars of a fulfilling life:
Belonging: Who makes you feel that you belong? Your partner, your family, your child, your tennis team? When you're in relationships where you're valued for who you are, you experience a sense of belonging.
Purpose: What do you live for? What makes it worth giving your all? Your child? Your start-up? Purpose is much less about what you seek to gain and much more about what you give.
Transcendence: Which activities make you lose all sense of time and place? When you're wholeheartedly in love, creating something new, expressing yourself creatively or playing sport?
Storytelling: What story do you tell yourself about who you are and how you became the person you are today? Are you the hero or the victim? Do you feel fulfilled, or are you guided by resentment? The story you tell yourself shapes how fulfilled you feel.
I like these four pillars because they're tangible. They give me practical starting points for creating a more fulfilling life. So, what now?
So how can you live a more fulfilling life? Take a closer look at your relationships, create your vision, find your flow and perhaps even rewrite your story!
I've identified a few areas I want to focus on and invest more time in. Below, I'm sharing the tasks and questions I'm currently exploring in my own quest for a more fulfilling life.
1. Belonging
Which relationships fulfil you? In which relationships do you feel truly seen, and in which don't you? Which social encounters feel more like an obligation than a choice? In which relationships do you find yourself «performing» to fit in, unable to be your authentic self?
Over the years, I've repeatedly reduced the size of my social circle. I realised that seeing 50 people just twice a year already takes up 100 days. And I was maintaining contact with so many more people that I felt exhausted and had too little time for the people who genuinely fulfil me. Reflecting on this recently, I realised that my current relationship landscape is actually very fulfilling. What about yours?
2. Purpose
What do you live for? What makes it worth giving your all? What do you look forward to when you get out of bed in the morning? Do you have a vision and meaningful goals that bring you closer to it? I carry my vision with me every day in the form of an image (you can see it here). At the end of each year, I often realise that I've achieved many of the goals that seemed challenging just ten or eleven months earlier. I see the same thing happening with people around me.
My mid-year review has shown me that I want to invest more time in my sense of purpose. That means dedicating more time to Upskilled and collaborating with creative people. What about you?
3. Transcendence
Which activities make you lose all sense of time and place? Is it when you're wholeheartedly in love, when you're creating something new, expressing yourself creatively or playing sport?
My own assessment here is a little more sobering. I often experience flow when I'm being creative and bringing something new into the world. But to get there, I need clear breaks from the daily treadmill and my everyday responsibilities.
Recently, I took two days off. By the second morning, I woke up with a clear image of a new logo in my mind, an idea I'd started thinking about two days earlier. So I began sketching and writing, contacted an artist and couldn't think about anything else. In those moments, I completely lost track of time and place. I felt deeply fulfilled. What flow experiences have you had this year? How could you create more opportunities for them?
4. Storytelling
What story do you tell yourself about who you are and how you became the person you are today?
I find this one challenging, too. It's been a while since I last reflected on how I introduce myself, what stories I tell about myself and, more importantly, which stories are deeply ingrained in me.
What about you? I've decided to take on this challenge and write down how I became the person I am today. Which moments in my life have mattered most? Which ones changed me? What have I lost, and what have I gained? What identity do I assign to myself today? Am I an entrepreneur, a mother? Those labels feel too simplistic, too vague. So who am I, really? And who are you? Which life events, perhaps especially the painful ones, have shaped you? What have you made of them?
I would love to talk about these things right now: to hear about the moments when you lose yourself in flow and the stories about yourself that have become part of who you are.
And one little plug of my own: my 12-week training programme directly supports the areas above, particularly points 2 and 3. We start the programme by developing a vision and, hopefully, create a few flow moments along the way.
Will you join us? You can find more information about the programme here. See you soon!