When we pursue our highest calling and focus our energy on what we love, fulfillment comes naturally as our path and our reward. Photo / Getty Images
When we pursue our highest calling and focus our energy on what we love, fulfillment comes naturally as our path and our reward. Photo / Getty Images
At first glance, both fulfillment and success seem to be similar, interchangeable words and pathways towards reaching our goals. Reaching specific goals or attaining success in any endeavour is an awesome feeling and accomplishment. It's personal satisfaction and the "reward" for all previous effort put in.
However, success as theend goal alone can be very empty because it doesn't address our deeper purposes and desires – the things empowered to fulfill us.
While both the positive attributes of success and fulfillment share many of the same traits such as "taking action," success focuses more on personal striving, wanting and getting while fulfillment is an expression of our inner creative self that radiates out from within to serve a greater whole.
Success, mostly viewed and measured by outer gains, is often driven by money and power. Our homes, our cars, our jobs and social circles all reflect how much wealth we've accumulated, how popular we are and how much influence we have.
Because success is generally about seeking validation outside of oneself, it leaves us wanting more, and can often be the cause of getting addicted to "success" itself.
Fulfillment, on the other hand, is more of an internal focus and validation of our inner needs, while success is more external in nature.
Focusing on success alone without addressing our deep internal fulfillment leaves us feeling empty in the end. In fact, popular self-help guru, Tony Robbins believes that "success without fulfillment is the ultimate failure."
We need to list the things we love to do, that bring out our creative side and get us energized. Photo / Getty Images
However, when fulfillment is the primary focus, it is completely possible to have both success and fulfillment because fulfillment always includes success, but success does not always include fulfillment.
When we pursue our highest calling and focus our energy on what we love, fulfillment comes naturally as our path and our reward. Dr Theresa Bullard, PhD in physics and metaphysics sums it up like this, "fulfillment is an art that focuses on life and our being as a whole rather than compartmentalising specific achievements to measure success."
To be truly fulfilled we need to make decisions based on how they fill us up with lasting treasures, not how they fill our bank account with temporary affluence.
Fulfillment opens the door to success because people naturally follow leaders that exude self-worth from the inside and focus on accomplishing things for reasons that include others rather than focusing on their own egoic needs.
High-self-worth is a product of feeling fulfilled and both success and happiness follow naturally once we find fulfillment because people with strong self-esteem and high levels of self-worth, connection, service and purpose are happier and inspiring and much more likely to experience success and reach their goals.
Knowing who we are and exploring what makes us unique is extremely important and the key to focusing on fulfillment rather than just success. This path widens our point of view to include our entire self: our mind, body and spirit and opens the door to other interests and passions. Once our passions are identified, the planning stages and goal-setting become much easier.
It's time to set aside the expectations of others and get clear on what passions would fill our hearts because only then can we truly experience fulfillment.
If we are currently in a work situation that is not meaningful, we are likely feeling very unfulfilled. The idea is not to up and quit our jobs right away (this would only complicate things) but to begin setting the background of our lives to accompany a new vision for ourselves.
We can begin identifying our passions by reflecting on our childhood dreams and or interests, the things that brought us excitement and pure joy and write them down on a sheet of paper so we can visually view them.
Next, we need to list the things we currently love to do, that bring out our creative side and get us energised and wanting more and write those down. Having a list makes it much easier to cross reference what made us happy then and what we currently enjoy. We need to study them because our passions and fulfillment and ultimately our success are cradled within.
Most importantly, we need to learn to step out of our comfort zone on occasion. When we are comfortable, we are safe, but we don't grow.
Virgin founder Richard Branson, worth $4.1 billion, shared this quote about success on LinkedIn:
"Too many people measure how successful they are by how much money they make or the people they associate with. In my opinion, true success should be measured by how happy you are."
Lasting happiness can only result from inner fulfillment. Arianna Huffington, co-founder of Huffington Post says that money and power are not enough. "to live the lives, we truly want and deserve, and not just the lives we settle for, we need a third metric."
"This third measure of success goes beyond the two metrics of money and power and consists of four pillars: well-being, wisdom, wonder, and giving."
In the end, it is the mind/logic that pushes us towards outer success while the heart focuses on inner fulfillment and to achieve complete balance in life, we need both in the equation. The only way to do that is to discover our passions and focus energy into fulfilling them. When our passions are included what emerges is the most beautiful, successful, content, fulfilled and happy countenance.
The reality is, one whose successes in life align with their higher purpose and lofty goals will by virtue of their alignment achieve personal inner fulfillment as well.
