Pursue Success or Fulfillment in Life

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In this success driven world, for many, it is difficult to even fathom the difference between success and fulfillment. Do you understand the difference between them? It’s okay if you don’t because it’s not that straightforward. Now let’s try to understand what we usually mean by success. Often what we mean by success is money, fame and power. Now, if you don’t have either of them, would you consider yourself successful? But if you said even if I don’t have a lot of money, fame or power, I still feel fulfilled in life. Would that be an understatement? Then that begs the question: should we pursue success or fulfillment in life?

“In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.”

~ Abraham Lincoln

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Difference Between Success and Fulfillment in Life

Success is the achievement of something that you have been trying to do. Whereas Fulfillment is a feeling of happiness and satisfaction. History and culture have defined what success should mean to us.

But for ages, we have related success to money, fame and power. Not that we shouldn’t yearn for these, but are they enough? Because many studies have shown to happy and be able to feel that inner sense of satisfaction, money, fame and power are just not enough. We need something more. That is what we can call fulfillment in life. Even though we may have all the success in life, we might feel an inner void that may arise from a lack of purpose in life. Now then, what is the purpose? It’s the engine for finding and pursuing fulfillment in life. We may also call it the rudder to our ship that treads all the tempests of life.

Interestingly, in today’s materialistic world where we just need to make a few clicks to buy the much touted happiness, we rarely realize what really makes us happy. Because we rarely introspect enough, what is it we really want from our lives? Moreso, is life all about making Instagram of Facebook posts to showcase others how happy we are? Is there an inner void that drives us to broadcast what we have opposed to what others may not? Is that the intent of social media that governs our lives today?

Pursue Success or Fulfillment in Life

The drive for success is so ingrained in our psyche from our upbringings and education system that we feel we are in a pressure cooker to achieve it. Often parents insinuate that expectation subtly or directly among their children. Comparing them with other successful kids many times in order to motivate them. But that only creates stress and kills the ability to discover one’s passion and calling. Often we suppress the ingenuity of a person with the mandate of them becoming like some else. As if we try to clone our children like someone else and not let them become who they really would love to become.

Then the question is, should we pursue success or fulfillment in life? That is difficult in today’s competitive world. Should we pursue success or fulfillment in life? This is a hard question in today’s competitive world, where we expect everyone to surpass one another to gain money, fame, and power. Do we really need to amass a lot of wealth as property, investment, or need to be in the limelight every time? For sure, we need the money for our financial security and independence, but do we need to become slaves to making money? For example, do we really need a big house, a second home, or a 30 foot boat? Or an expensive sports car? Since we may say if we have that, we will be happy. But is that happiness transitory or long lasting?

What is More Important Success or Fulfillment?

So, in a nutshell, there is a thin line between success and fulfillment. Because since success helps us achieve that we have been aiming for, fulfillment is a state of mind that we can derive from the success. But when success has connotations of money, power and fame, then it becomes interesting. Then what is more important than success or fulfillment? Whether we should pursue success or fulfillment in life would depend on our life situation and the nature of the goals. For example, early in our lives, we need to earn our livelihoods and save money for life’s goals. That may seem we are running after money. But as long as it is for what we need, that makes sense. When it turns towards excessive consumerism to meet the insatiable wants, that is when it becomes tricky.

How to Pursue Fulfillment in Life

So let’s explore how to live a fulfilling life that balances achieving our goals with long-term happiness.

Find Your Calling

The first step towards living a fulfilling life is finding your calling. Now why calling? For example, we may have a well-paying job that meets our needs and also a lot of our wants. But still sometimes we feel the void in our lives and ask, is life all about making money and consuming? Suppose we get to our deathbeds and ask ourselves did we live a fulfilling life? Were we able to find our calling and pursue it that provided a sense of immense satisfaction? A sense of self-actualization? That we realized our full potential given our capabilities and skills. Well, if we believe those are the questions we’d ask ourselves in our deathbeds, it might be worthwhile now to try finding our calling.

Take Your First to Pursue Your Calling

Often the most arduous task after we can find our calling it to take the first step towards pursuing it. For example, for me, after a lot of introspection over many years, I discovered my calling is to help the people across the globe on how to find fulfillment in life. So that’s the genesis for this blog. To me, its enjoy giving back to the world that has given me so much. Just a small way of showing my gratitude. Especially help people who are less fortunate and help them with learning. Education is always doesn’t have to be formal but we learn so much from experiences and ideas from others.

Reassess the Veracity of Your Calling

Once we pursue our calling, it’s imperative to reassess continually whether it is really our calling. Is it what gives me genuine joy and a sense of contentment? That this is exactly what we wanted to do with our lives? Is this our true purpose? Because often our minds are fickle. What we may think is our calling today may or may not be what we think one year later. So we need to ask ourselves the question, is this what I am going really, what I wanted to do and are we able to make a difference? Because finding our true purpose or calling often involves our ability to make a difference in other people’s lives. Being able to add value to others, if not again, is it just another form of chasing money, power or fame and mindless consumption?

Expand Working on Your Calling

The next step is expanding on your calling to increase your sphere of influence. For example, if you have a blog you could consider publishing your book, then start a podcast and YouTube. Finally, you should be able to scale up your influence and add value to not only millions but eventually billions of people across the globe. Eventually, if that creates value for people and you get a sense of accomplishment and fulfillment, then there you go. You have not only achieved the success that you aimed for but also pursued fulfillment in life.

Repeat this Process Over and Over

Last, you need to repeat this process over again and again like a do loop. Why? Because with time, we change. Many times, our calling may change. Something that gave us a sense of accomplishment and contentment may change with time. So we may need to repeat finding our calling and expanding on it over again.

Conclusion on Pursue Success or Fulfillment in Life

Finally getting back to our initial question on pursuing success or fulfillment in life. Probably we might do better trying to pursue fulfillment in life. Because we may or may not achieve fulfillment if we pursue only success. Again, if we define success to be only money, power and fame, then it might not be worth it after some point of time. Since living a happy life in the US, a family needs a household income close to $75,000 and income satiation occurs at $95,000 for life satisfaction. This is because beyond $95,000 household income, the marginal increase is happiness is insignificant. So, it makes little sense chasing money, power or fame because at some point, it doesn’t provide us with any incremental satisfaction or happiness. Instead, pursuing fulfillment allows us to self-actualize and live our life to the fullest.

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