The reality is, there is no ‘one secret’ to a life that feels satisfying.
So there you go, if you want to stop reading here, you have your out 😉
That being said, I want to explore something briefly today that I feel can really add a lot of fulfillment to life even within the reality that life is complex and there’s no ‘one’ element that will create that everlasting feeling of satisfaction a lot of us are craving.
I want to take some time to slow down and connect with a concept that may seem simple at first glance, but in true reality is actually quite a bit more involved than many of us give it credit for.
This is something you can’t buy, there’s likely not going to be a course you can take on it, there probably isn’t a coaching group or retreat that’s going to teach you this - and I think that is for a few reasons which we will get into below.
This one concept when understood and embraced can be used as a foundational anchor to help steer and guide your life when you are feeling lost, it can help you figure out what to do in conflict, it can help you navigate the uncomfortable times when you are facing judgment and rejection from others and it can help you figure out what your priorities are and where you want to place your focus in your life - which can all go a long way to helping you find a sense of security, comfort and satisfaction in your day to day lived experience.
What we are going to be exploring today is the concept of living a life based on your actual, felt values, and how this can radically transform the way you carry yourself throughout your days.
Do You Ever Feel Like This?
In this life, every time we say ‘yes’ to something, we are inherently going to have to be saying ‘no’ to something else.
Usually a LOT of other things, if we are being honest.
Part of what I believe creates that perpetual feeling of discontent and satisfaction in our world today is not that we have a lack of opportunity - most of us are actually walking around with so MUCH choice, freedom and possibility that we are in a state of perpetual overwhelm trying to figure out what to do OR even worse, trying to do it all at once.
We live in a world now where many of us feel the pressure to be making big moved in our careers, to be making sure we are staying on top of our physical fitness, to be creating and maintaining intimate family relationships, having many friends, a vibrant social life, a side-hustle, hobbies, our own sour-dough starter and making sure we stay up on all the latest…everything.
We’re feeling pulled in a million different directions, and with that we are feeling like nothing we ever do is good enough - if we put too much energy into our careers, we get the ‘when are you having a family’ question. If we are nurturing our families we are being asked what we are doing during ‘nap time’ to make sure we don’t lose ourselves or for extra income. Our hobbies are often the things others expect us to turn into a business. It’s not enough to be trying to balance your health and fitness - you must be building muscle and getting lean and wearing the latest athleisure-wear.
With all of this, it’s easy to end up feeling like our lives aren’t really ours, and like no matter what we achieve, it’s never enough.
Or, with all of the choice, all of the pressure, all of the demands we end up feeling overwhelmed and like we can’t even START on most things. Many of us feel like we are just getting by doing what we perceive to be the ‘bare minimum’ (which for a lot of us could easily be argued that we are doing much MORE than the ‘bare minimum’ but that’s for another day), constantly feeling guilty, not good enough and like we lack motivation or that we are constantly behind in life.
Not to mention doing all of this in a culture that expects us to be highly individualized, doing all of this on our own, never asking for help, not having any true connection or community and making sure that we are constantly putting our best faces forward for social media and the world around us - lest we be judged as being weak, lazy, incompetent or incapable.
It’s a lot to contend with.
It lends itself to us constantly feeling like we’re missing something, like when we go to bed at night and feel that familiar sense of discontent creeping in that this is a sign that we should be doing/achieving/being/accomplishing MORE and like enough is never, ever enough.
It lends itself to us feeling that we are living a life that isn’t really ours. That isn’t really for us. That we are living in some sort of limbo-land where we know we need to be doing what’s acceptable, what’s going to get us approved of, what’s ‘right’ - and at the same time we’re not really even sure who it is we’re trying to impress. Our boss? Our partners? Our parents? The world at large? God? EVERYONE?
It lends itself to getting into a state where we don’t know how to say no to things, where when we do say no we feel like we must be missing out on something important, where our ‘yes’ is always a partial yes because we have so many other things going on we can’t really ever fully invest in what we’re doing, or like we are constantly dropping the ball on everything we try because we are in a constant state of overwhelm and confusion.
It’s not a very nice place to be.
It’s the hungry ghost feeling, the dull, aching, gnawing pit in the gut sensation that tells us that we aren’t good enough, that we will never be good enough, that we have to add this or accomplish that or get here or there before we can take our foot off the gas or that tells us that our lack of capacity to get moving on anything is coming from a deep, dark weakness that we can never seem to outrun.
Trapped In A Cycle
This, my friend, is where we want to take a step back and start to reconsider or consider for the first time what we value so that we can start to prioritize.
You see, no matter where we fall on the spectrum of life right now - either landing in that over-achiever, a million plates spinning, doing it all and still feeling like a failure slot or finding ourselves feeling slumped in the ‘can’t make a move, stuck in time, constantly overwhelmed into a state of inertia’ state - or anywhere in between - we are likely all experiencing the same thing:
Too many options that are leading to a dilution of our life energy and attention.
Which leads to a perpetual state of feeling that we are not good enough.
Now you see, us being in this state of constant overwhelm, no matter how that’s manifesting, is really good for our economy.
Those who tend to be over-doers are great because we are in a state of constant production. We are in a state of constant output, activity, participation and ‘work’ mode - which means that corporations and the consumer market at large is going to be continually profiting not only from our contributions, but also from the NEED this generates in us. Being in this state of overdoing it means that we are going to be in a state of constantly needing to be refueled, stimulated and ‘topped up’ in order to keep going - be that with caffeine, entertainment, shopping, the latest and greatest this or that - there can never be rest and therefore there must be constant input to keep the machine going.
On the flip side, those in that state of perpetual ‘freeze’ are likely ALSO stuck in a state of constant consumption - both to try to numb the pain in the form of things that keep us distracted like food, entertainment, shopping and so on (seeking that dopamine hit as a relief from the relentless self judgment) and to try to ‘fix’ ourselves in terms of all the self help, healing, wellness and personal growth materials we’re likely to be mass consumers of.
The system really profits from our perpetual overwhelm and sense of not being good enough - and that’s why it’s baked into our culture.
The last piece here is again, it breeds a culture of highly individualized people who are all trying to do it all on our own, who fear ever looking vulnerable, who hide away when we aren’t achieving what society is saying we should be achieving or who never ask for help with managing all of the millions of balls we are juggling at any one time.
This perpetual need to be consuming and producing and the fact that we are conditioned to be doing it all on our own means that many of us just get stuck in the cycle of over doing and burning out or inertia and feeling like a failure.
It absolutely doesn’t have to be this way.
Enter - Values
The way out of this mess?
Figuring out what we value, and learning to prioritize that.
I know this sounds simple. I know it sounds too good to be true - how can figuring out what’s important to you possibly be the solution we are seeking as we feel like constant failures who have to keep running?
Hear me out.
First things first - taking the time to actually FIGURE OUT what we value, is already a massive step AWAY from our perpetual ‘not enough’ culture that generates these cycles of constant manufactured discontent.
When we allow ourselves to take a step back, to broaden our view, to take an audit of our lives and to deeply reflect on the kind of people we are at our core and what this means about what we want to be doing with our precious, fleeting time, we are taking ourselves one step away from the world that has us in a state of constant tunnel vision, constant reaction, constant stimulation and distraction.
This move alone separates us from all the ‘noise’ that usually fills our heads, our feeds and our lives in general and gives us a little breathing room.
Many of us have never actually even considered what it is we value - and again this isn’t something to be ashamed of. We’re not taught how to look at life through this lens - most of us are taught to look at life through the lens of how OTHERS see and perceive us, what others think is or isn’t good enough, what others believe to be right and wrong - we are constantly being pulled away from our center, our experience and our felt sensations into ‘what it looks like’ and this is a BIG part of what’s keeping us in this constant state of overwhelm.
So right here, right now, can you take a step back and ask yourself what actually MATTERS to you?
As cliche as it may sound, practicing putting yourself on your own death-bed, thinking about what you would be feeling, thinking and experiencing if you had no more time life and asking yourself what you wish you had spent your life doing if you had no more time and no more opportunity is a GREAT way to help clarify what it is that WE actually care about.
So I want you to give this a try.
If this was it, if this was the end, what are you going to feel GOOD about having invested your time and energy into? What are you going to look back on and wish you had let slide? Who are the people that are going to matter to you? What are you going to feel like you really didn’t need to be investing so much into?
Take your time with this.
Another great question to ask yourself is this - when you engage in the things you are doing in your life, or when you imagine yourself ACTUALLY doing all the things you’re telling yourself you ‘should’ be doing but aren’t - what is your actual FELT experience of these things IN THE MOMENT?
If there were no promise of an outcome, if there was no guarantee that it would get you love, approval, acceptance, or if there was no promise that you were going to ‘achieve’ anything by doing what you’re doing - how does it actually FEEL to do all the things you do/think you should be doing?
What would you say are the things that ACTUALLY feel nourishing and vital in your actual, lived experience, and what are the things you’re doing or telling yourself you should be doing that, in real reality, constantly leave you feeling burnt out, exhausted, tired, uninterested or like you’re just doing them for others?
Now, it’s perfectly ok if your initial answer to the above explorations is ‘I don’t know.’ This is actually pretty common because again, we are simply not trained to view life through this context.
So I want to invite you to take your time with this.
Explore this. Ponder this. Don’t rush it.
From here, the next thing I want to invite you to do, is to consider making more room in your life for the things that matter most to you, and to consider making LESS room in your life for the things that don’t and the things that are feeling less than satisfying for you.
I invite you to start to conceptualize a life that centers around what you value, and to start to consider what it would be like to say yes to more things that truly MATTER to you, that are helping you to build a life that is going in a direction you actually care about, and what it would be like to start saying no to the things that don’t serve that end.
Just consider it. You don’t have to do anything about it right now.
Just see what it would be like to allow yourself to dream about this.
The Practical Side
Now again, this isn’t to say you can just stop doing everything that doesn’t feel good - of course we are all living in a world where we can’t just do whatever the heart wants at any given moment. Of course we are all going to have to do things that don’t feel amazing in the moment, we are all going to have to work from where we are which may be far from a life that matches what we value, we are all going to have to do things that don’t feel great right now for a future outcome - but again - if we are starting to do these things from a place of OVERALL seeing what we value and moving towards that, those day to day choices start to get a lot easier and a lot more purposeful.
What I am proposing here is this - once you start to figure out what your values are, what matters to you, what means something to you, from here you’re going to have a much easier time prioritizing the things in life that serve the end of supporting what you want, and you’re going to have a much easier time discerning the things you can let go of that don’t.
Meaning, you may still have to work a job you’re not passionate about right now, but rather than seeing it as just a stupid job you hate, you can start to see it as a stepping stone to help you get the experience you need before you move onto your next step. You can start to see it as the thing that’s providing you with the income you need right now to put a roof over your head and food on your table - which are things I am going to assume you DO value.
You are going to start to be able to recognize where the challenge of whatever you’re facing right now IS WORTH IT, because it aligns with supporting at least *some* aspect of your overall value system of life.
It’s also going to help you start to weed out the things you really CAN let go of.
It’s going to help you start to consider if you’re doing what you’re doing because it ACTUALLY matters, or if you’re doing what you’re doing for a sense of approval from someone or something ‘out there’ - and in that you’re going to find that learning to say no from a place of VALUE is much easier than trying to say no when there’s nothing behind it.
You’re going to start to be able to clearly assess what’s actually adding to your life, and what is really just taking your time and energy for no reason.
It’s going to help you, eventually, to feel less overwhelmed with all the options, and may give you some TRUE motivation that will empower you to start taking real steps in your life to the degree that you’re able - because you won’t be living for a sense of ‘doing it right’ anymore - which really isn’t enough to get us to move most of the time - but rather from a place of what YOU actually care about.
This isn’t easy work, and like I stated above there’s likely no master class on this - because your values are likely to grow, shift and change as you grow, shift and change. Getting to a place where your life actually reflects your values can be a hard, slow road - so I really want you to be patient and gentle with yourself in this.
Compassion first, always.
Take this article as a first step.
A place to start a consideration.
A place to start to dream and feel from within.
What would living a life of value look like and feel like for YOU?
Start from there, and let the exploration take you where it may.
<3
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