2023.06.04

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A fulfilled, life well-lived means something different for each of us.

But for mission-driven achievers, it often feels elusive.

Three scenarios of imbalance often arise:

1. You feel fulfilled when thinking about your work contributing to the greater good, but you feel drained and disconnected in the busyness of your day-to-day work.

2. You feel fulfilled by your work, but it comes at the expense of your well-being or having a social or family life.

3. You don’t feel fulfilled by your work and are struggling to find a connection to purpose. This angst bleeds over into your personal life.

Each of those feels like the dumps. But with a slightly different crappy flavor.

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For me, #1 is the easiest to truck along with far too long. It feels like death by a thousand paper cuts. A slow burn. Then one day I wake up and realize I’ve had enough. I’m not meaningfully contributing to the issue I care about.

And #2 feels like classic workaholism or burnout. In the throes of it, I always knew it was unsustainable but was just kicking the can down the road. This gets harder to do with each passing year.

When I’m in #3, it feels like a full-on existential crisis. Does anything I do matter? What is the point? Is this all there is to life?

Can you relate?

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What we really want is scenario 4: feeling fulfilled by work AND living well.

• What flavor of fulfillment are you tasting right now? 1, 2, 3, or 4?

• What is one tiny step you can take towards more fulfillment?

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