In order to live fully as the person you are and want to be and to live your vision for life, be clear about what you want or discover what you want. At Mental Fitness Counseling, we support people in discovering and clarifying life meaning and purpose. Following someone else’s vision rather than defining your own can lead to internal disconnection from self. Following someone else’s rules or vision may mean you’re not taking your own life seriously.
You have the capacity to get what you want. In the absence of a personal understanding of life meaning and purpose, a void remains within us. It creates an undercurrent of unease and dissatisfaction, perhaps even darkness and depression. We end up seeking out things like alcohol, drugs, sexual partners, endless entertainment, and other activities to fill this hole in us. None of these things have the capacity to fill us with the fullness of who we are as a person in this life, the fullness of a well-lived life. The questions, “Who am I? What happened? Is it too late? Is this even possible for me with all the self-destructive things I’ve done?” begin to play in our thoughts. These questions have answers.
Working for another or in your own business, ask yourself, “does the vision of this company, organization, or business enable me to fulfill my life goals, the vision for my life?” “Can I pursue my vision as the company, organization, or business pursues its vision?” “Does this company, organization, or business add value to my life and my pursuit of my personal vision, or does it simply fail to get in the way, or does it, in fact, get in the way?” Work is not a mandatory task of drudgery, something that we have to do. If the vision of the company, organization, or business does not contribute to one’s energy in pursuing their own personal vision, then there exists only a superficial and likely unbalanced and powerless relationship. The relationship is likely to be less than it could be, painful, or an outright failure. If the visions of people and organizations do not contribute to one another, both the people and the organizations are being limited by one another. A career is not one’s life. A career or business can only support and contribute to one’s life. If you believe that work and life are separate, we can help you escape from this life-limiting point of view.
Having a meaningful relationship with ourselves enables strong relationships with other people and entities. It is not possible to have strong relationships with others until we develop a humble and objective relationship with ourselves. We develop this personal relationship as we grow in self-awareness and become better and more objective observers of ourselves. This is not judgment and self-criticism, it’s objective self-assessment. We learn to see ourselves the way we are and identify personal qualities to expand and use more and others to minimize and use little or not at all. We learn to be who we are.
If you ask people who you are—not roles in life like parent, spouse, or boss but the human qualities of you, like empathetic, passionate, or kind—what would they say? What characteristics would they say you possess? When you know who you are, others will too as you live out of and through the best qualities of you. We learn to make behavioral change that expands our capability and self-confidence and fills us with the meaning and purpose of our unique and special life.
We may face fear that goes with questioning what we know about our lives. We can avoid giving away years of unfulfilling life hoping things will change or living in fear of making changes for which we can’t predict outcomes. The courage to make change in our lives often arrives after we make the change. We make commitments to change, so we don’t waste energy and time committed to things that are less than what we want. We make the commitment to change to find our life of meaning, purpose, and fulfillment. What choice will you make?