Did You Think It Was Going To Mean More?

This is a tough reality for a lot of people to admit. After dedicating so much of their life to attaining a professional goal, putting in so many hours and spending so many long nights to sacrifice for what they want, oftentimes people don’t feel the sense of satisfaction that they expected once they achieved it.

Something so life-consuming that it dominates their lifestyle and becomes their identity, only for success to feel underwhelming and disappointing...

Have you ever put your heart into something and you thought that once you got there it would mean more?

At the end of all of it,  what we ultimately want is fulfillment. We want to feel a deep sense of pride and  accomplishment, and a genuine contentment that what we did mattered.

But instead of feeling fulfilled, we feel the opposite of full. We feel empty.

There are a few reasons why this might be the case, and whether you identify with what I’ve shared already or not, there are some really useful insights in this.

First is maybe you were doing it for the wrong reasons - For fame or fortune. To prove that person wrong. To meet your needs of the ego rather than the calling of your soul. When you build around something that’s more superficial it leaves you feeling unsatisfied.

Another reason might be unworthiness. If you don’t feel like you’re enough then everything you do will never be enough. It’s like having all of life pass through a filter that dilutes it. Instead of feeling the high joy of an achievement, it gets watered down to something that feels insignificant strictly because your unworthiness discredits it.

And last, maybe whatever it was didn’t help others. Climbing the mountain alone is lonely at the top. And if your effort did nothing to make anyone else’s life better, the accomplishment lacks the depth and dimension needed to meet core needs. This is the same reason why when we feel helpless, the best thing for us to do is get helpful. There’s nothing that will transform your sense of purpose like being of service.

If you’re only a few steps in on your journey, and you want to avoid pouring yourself into something that ultimately feels less significant than you thought it would, keep these things in mind. 

And if you want your life to mean more, it’s not just about doing bigger things. It’s just as much (if not more) about who you’re showing up as while you do those things, and the virtues you choose to express along the way no matter the size of the opportunity.