Fulfilling life and happiness
Finding happiness and fulfilment
You can’t always control the circumstances of your life, but you can choose to have an extraordinary life.
There’s no shortage of advice on happiness and how to live a fulfilling life. You either focus on achieving external goals – like more money, vibrant health, and better relationships – or you focus on the internal goals like peace of mind, gratitude, and mindfulness, accepting whatever life throws your way. Gratitude is known to bring happiness to us.
How does gratitude work? Well it help us to find happiness in the small things in life.
The truth is that both are important because everything you achieved in your external world becomes internal. It started as a thought. A feeling. An action you took that helped shape the life you live today. This is why we use cognitive behavioural therapy.
The two master skills for an extraordinary life
If you want an extraordinary life on your own terms, it starts with mastering the two skills that impact your external world and your internal world.
The science of achievement
The first skill to master is the science of achievement. The word “science” means there are very clear and specific rules to get results – in any area of life. No matter your background, age, or gender, certain universal rules of success apply to everyone. When followed, they yield tangible results. But if you violate those rules, you’ll never get the result you’re after.
Take riding a bicycle, for example. Sure, skill levels and terrains may vary. But there are also fundamental rules (or laws) of physics, like gravity and momentum, that govern whether you can ride and balance the bike successfully. If the right rules are followed, you’ll ride smoothly and safely. But if those rules are violated, you risk falling and injuring yourself.
The same is true for your finances, career, relationships, or any other area of life. All achievement involves a cycle of taking action, noticing your result, and using that result to change your approach until you succeed. That’s why massive action is the cure-all. Consistently repeating this cycle will inevitably yield the result you want. Sometimes people achieve a lot but they’re still not happy or fulfilled. Why is that? How can someone be incredibly successful on cultural terms but still miserable inside? Conversely, why do some people with very few resources experience a great deal of joy? Because there’s a second skill that’s even more important for an extraordinary life: the art of fulfillment.
Unlike achievement, fulfilment is an art because it differs from one person to the next. What fulfills one person might be boring to another. For example, Tony Robbins’ friend Steve Wynn found immense fulfilment in a Rothko painting he bought for $87 million, whereas he saw it as simply a red square. 🟥
The art of fulfillment is more important than achievement because success without fulfillment is the ultimate failure. You might achieve everything you ever wanted, but if you can’t enjoy it, what’s the point? For example when I sold my vinyl record to a fan I met him in person it brought joy to me. Doing my life coaching brings me joy and a reason to get up everyday. The ultimate failure is when you achieve a lot and make everyone else happy… except yourself.
Failure to craft a fulfilling life occurs when we forget the true purpose of achieving: to grow and give.
When we grow, we have more to give and when we give something of real value – insight, love, joy, whatever it is – we feel alive. It becomes more than just you and amplifies your true potential.
The problem is when these get out of balance. So, if your life is not where you want it to be, there’s a good chance you’re only focusing on one side of the happiness equation.
That’s why we need a formula for happiness.
The formula for happiness
To live an extraordinary life, happiness comes down to two things: your life conditions (LC) and your personal blueprint (BP). So, the formula for happiness is simply:
LC = BP
For clarity, your blueprint is just your personal worldview, comprised of a specific set of beliefs (or rules) about how you think the world is supposed to be. Your blueprint has a direct impact on your ability to feel happy. You can write in your journal to find your blueprint.
Your life conditions are all the external events, circumstances, relationships or other experiences that happen at any given time in your life. For me I have elderly parents who need me on a daily basis.
When the two align, you experience happiness and life is extraordinary. In other words,happiness emerges when the reality of your life conditions equals your blueprint of how you expect the world to be.
When there’s a misalignment between the two, your beliefs conflict with reality and you feel some form of unhappiness. This might be sadness, frustration, anger, or simply a sense of something missing in your life.
If left unchecked, unhappiness can turn into suffering. Suffering is when your blueprint misaligns with your life conditions, AND you believe you have no control to change anything. You feel stuck, frustrated, or powerless because you know things “should” be different but aren’t. But….. what if you had a choice to create an extraordinary and fulfilling life on your own terms? What if that choice led to a life of fulfillment and lasting happiness regardless of what was going on around you? Whether it’s unhappiness or suffering, the solution is to realize that we always have a choice.
The 3 choices we have when life doesn’t go our way
Now that we have a formula for happiness, the choices become clear. Consciously or not, we always make one of these choices when life doesn’t match our blueprint:
- Blame. This is the easy way out and not a real choice because it never leads to happiness. When it comes to blame, there are three things we tend to blame: another person, the situation, or worst of all – ourselves. But blame isn’t a solution. Blame simply creates more suffering and pain in our lives, leaving us feeling powerless.
- Change your life conditions. How do you change your life conditions? By mastering the science of achievement. You model who already successfully made the changes in life you want to achieve. You’ll still face obstacles. But when they arrive, the key is to manage your state and focus on progress – no matter how small. As Lori says, progress equals happiness because it brings your life in closer alignment with your blueprint.
- Update your blueprint get your journal out! Humans have incredible potential, because some things are beyond our control (e.g., changing the past). In those cases, the choice for happiness is to master the art of fulfillment by updating your personal blueprint. That means changing your rules for what “must” happen in order for you to feel happy. That might be rewriting the story of your life or creating a new set of beliefs to replace old ones that no longer serve you.
It’s worth updating your blueprint even when it’s not easy. The first step is always to get clear on your current blueprint. Where is it serving you? Where is it not? The best blueprints are ones that are centered on growing and giving.
For example, say your current blueprint has a belief that says, “For me to be happy, every person I meet must always agree with me.” This belief sets you up for failure since there’s bound to be at least one person with differing opinions. But if you’re aware of this belief and update your blueprint accordingly, then it’s much easier to be happier. For instance, the new belief might be, “For me to be happy, I only need to learn one new thing about the person I meet – even if just a name.”
Accelerate your change with immersion
Whether it’s changing your blueprint or your life conditions, there’s one final element to upgrading your life that gives the fastest and most reliable impact: immersion. Immersion means surrounding yourself with an environment that ignites change and accelerates your progress. It’s like learning a new language – the fastest way is to move to a country where native speakers talk to you in it daily.
No matter how you immerse yourself, aligning your innermost blueprint with your life conditions is the key to an extraordinary and fulfilling life. What does that look like to you? Maybe it’s modeling the people at the top of their game. Maybe it’s being more open-minded and letting go of an outdated blueprint or belief.
Whatever it is, you deserve a life filled with joy, passion, love, courage, and anything else your heart desires. The truth is, you have the power to craft your own destiny and create a life of fulfilment and happiness that lasts. So, don’t wait – because it all starts with taking action and using what you learned here to create a life that’s truly extraordinary.
- Reframe Critical Self-Talk. We all have habitual ways of talking to ourselves. ...
- Change Unhelpful Behaviours. CBT isn't only about changing our thoughts, it also works at the level of behaviour. ...
- Focus On What Went Well.
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