To what do you aspire? Who do you want to be and what kind of life do you want to lead? To be happy, successful, impactful, rich, famous, loved? We all want to find and experience that elusive “Holy Grail” that we believe will fulfill our aspirations. However, as is commonly expressed in both ancient philosophical thought and modern-day self-help dogma, “once you get there, there is no there.” Instead, it is the journey that provides us with our so-sought-after sense what I call “I’m good.” Though this brief phrase sounds simple, it carries with it profound meaning that includes feeling good about yourself, being in a good place in your life, feeling safe and secure, experiencing contentment, and having deep and nurturing relationships, just to name a few.
You now may be asking, “If having aspirations like those I described above are not the way to go, what steps should I take to find meaning, satisfaction, and joy in my life?” I have identified 5 that, if you strive for and achieve them, you will, as the saying goes, “live a life worth leading.”
#1: Let Go of Your Past
An unfortunate, though inevitable, aspect of the human condition is that we all carry baggage with us from childhood into adulthood. What I mean by baggage are ways of thinking, experiencing emotions, behaving, interacting with others, and generally acting and reacting to our world in a way that was once functional (i.e., it protected us from some perceived threat), but is now non-functional (it no longer serves our best interests and interferes with our pursuing our most closely held aspirations).
Without letting go of this baggage from our past, finding meaning, satisfaction, joy, and connection in our present lives is nearly impossible. Of course, freeing yourself from your baggage is no small feat because these burdens that we may have been carrying around with us for years not only produce deeply ingrained habits, but also are wired into our brains. The result is that our baggage is highly resistant to change.
Yet, there is considerable empirical evidence and first-hand experience that we all see that unpacking our baggage is possible. As the saying goes, though, there is no one road to Rome; rather, there are many ways to identify and let go of your baggage including seeing a trained mental health counselor (my recommendation), reading, encounter groups, online courses, meditation, and support groups.
#2: Know Your Values
You can’t live a life worth lived if you don’t know what that life entails. The simplest way to live such a life is to know your values. Values are a fundamental part of aspiring to be your best and do your best in your life.
You may be wondering, “What do you mean by values?” Values are what we deem most important and how we establish priorities in our lives. They are the road signs on our journey because we go in a certain direction based on what we value in our lives.
Perhaps the most common way people try to figure out what they value is to sit down and make a list of everything they believe in and then pick the ones that they believe are most important to them. At the same time, I’ve found this approach tends us to choose values that we think we should have rather than what values we actually do have. I have found the best way to know your values is to see what you devote your time, energy, and money to. Once you know your values, you can then make choices to live the life you want to lead based on those values.
#3: Live Without Fear
Most people are unable to be who they want to be or live the life they want to lead because of one elemental emotion: fear. What is everyone afraid of? Quite simple, they’re afraid of failure in many guises including rejection, school and career setbacks, unachieved goals, being judged negatively by others, judging themselves negatively, and, at its core, fear of confirming who they really are, that is, total losers unworthy of respect and love.
Because of this fear, most people are unwilling to take their shot—whether in careers, relationships, or anything of consequence—for fear of missing. The problem is that without being willing to take the shot, we can never score. As the hockey G.O.A.T., Wayne Gretzky, once stated so profoundly, “I missed 100% of the shots I didn’t take.”
At a deeper level, people live with the fear that the emotions they would experience if they fail would be indescribably excruciating (e.g., pain, sadness, guilt, embarrassment, shame, loneliness, devastation). No doubt, if you fail, you will certainly feel bad, and it might last a while. At the same time, we humans are resilient creatures, and, in time, the pain would subside, and you would be okay.
Imagine what life would be like without a fear of failure and pain. Every opportunity that arose, you would embrace. Every shot you would take. Every reasonable risk you go for. Everything you ever wanted, you would pour your heart into achieving it. You would be liberated to pursue your dreams with confidence, courage, commitment, and gusto, and without doubt, worry, or anxiety.
#4: Make Deliberate Choices
Many years ago, a long-time friend of mine visited me. Over dinner, as we talked about our lives, he said, “Jim, you designed your destiny.” His statement always struck me as important and as reflective of the life I was (and am still) trying to lead. I always had a clear vision of the life I wanted to live including being guided by my values and passions, having freedom in my career, living in a place that aligned with my interests, and having people in my life that brought out the best in me.
Some years later, I realized that designing one’s destiny came down to simply making deliberate choices. Particularly these days in the age of the internet, it is easy to be influenced by the dominant messages of our popular culture (e.g., wealth, celebrity, status, and power are all that matters). With this influence, we often abdicate the choices we make to others. Even worse, many of these “choices” that are imposed on us are not only unhealthy, but they are downright toxic.
Additionally, though we like to think of ourselves as evolved beings with a cerebral cortex and, more specifically, a pre-frontal cortex that separate us from animals, the reality is that we still frequently react to the world the same way our ancient ancestors did eons ago. In other words, we are guided far more often than we like to admit by primitive instincts, emotions, and reactions (e.g., fight or flight) that worked well for our forbearers but aren’t the least bit effective in life in 2024.
Our pre-frontal cortex endows us with what is commonly referred to as “executive functioning,” which gives us the capacity to weigh immediate and future risks and rewards, delay gratification, organize and plan, control our impulses, and make deliberate choices. It also gives us the ability to resist our primitive urges, decide what is in our best interests, and then choose to take the latter road.
You can think of your life as a series of forks in the road—bad road, good road. Your ability to engage your pre-frontal cortex and allow yourself to decide what the best road is for you and then take it is essential to fulfilling your life’s aspirations.
#5: Embrace Your Humanity
One of the biggest sources of unhappiness and dissatisfaction in people’s lives these days seems to stem from unhealthy messages they receive from our media-driven culture, most notably, the need to be perfect. Research has shown, for example, that users of social media curate their online persona to appear “perfectly” happy, when, in fact, they aren’t.
For anyone who suffers from perfectionism knows (and I’m a perfectionist in recovery), there can be no happiness or satisfaction in striving to be perfect because, as human beings, we are incapable of achieving perfection. As such, its pursuit is fraught with failure, insecurity, doubt, worry, stress, anxiety, exhaustion, the list goes on, all entirely antithetical to any semblance of contentment or peace. Moreover, what most people don’t realize is that perfection is, at best, uninteresting and, at worst, downright boring, like that bright, shiny thing that loses its luster quickly.
The antidote to this malady is to embrace your humanity. What this means is to not only to accept your idiosyncrasies and flaws, but to revel in them. Why would you want to celebrate your imperfections? Because it is those very “defects” that make us interesting, relatable, and, well, human.
