How to live a fulfilling life.
THE 5 PILLARS
THERE ARE JUST 5 KEYS TO LIVING A FULFILLING LIFE.
LIVING A FULFILLING LIFE IS SIMPLE
But it’s not easy.
Once you understand these 5 pillars for an amazing life, it will seem like it is for you.
It’s almost impossible to find people who have all 5, and don’t have fulfilling lives.
If you don’t believe it, ask them.
But it’s uncommonly easy to find people who are missing two or more, who have terribly unfulfilling lives by their own account.
If you already have all 5, congratulations. Now you can teach them to others.
If not, getting them is not as difficult as you might think.
PEOPLE AREN’T DOING ANYTHING FULFILLING, SO THEY’LL SETTLE FOR FILLING.
-Lion El Aton
THE 5 PILLARS
SENSE OF ACCOMPLISHMENT
Studies have overwhelmingly shown that making progress on something you care about makes people happier and more satisfied with life.
That’s it.
That sense of accomplishment - that their making their lives worthwhile, dramatically changes people’s measurable life satisfaction.
If you consistently accomplish things that help you make progress (which is not the same as simply being done with your main goal), this correlates dramatically to your overall fulfillment.
You won’t find many concepts more powerful than this, but it does require 3 things:
SOMETHING TO PROGRESS ON
You have to have a passion. It’s as simple as that.
If you have a passion, do more of that.
A lot more.
It could be the difference between you having a unsatisfying life, and your dream life.
If you don’t have a passion, there’s a simple solution:
Do more things without quitting.
You don’t try enough stuff, and when you do, you quit too often.
You quit far too early, before you get good enough at the thing to where it starts being really fun.
Try more things, and find more things you appreciate about the things you try. Mindset is everything.
A GOAL
You always want to have two types of goals.
The first, and most important, is an infinite goal. A goal that is almost impossible to accomplish in your lifetime.
A game you can progress at forever.
Maybe you want to make everyone in the world rich.
Or maybe you want to cure all human diseases, including death.
Simply progressing on these types of goals is massively beneficial.
Whatever it is, find an infinite goal you’re insanely passionate about, and make that your north star.
The second type of goals to have are finite goals. They can be small (do 100 pushups today), or they can be big (make $5,000 a month autonomously by the end of the year).
But the key here is that they’re accomplishable, they have a clear time limit, and they’re measurable.
A WAY TO MEASURE THEM
Martial arts uses a belt system for two primary reasons:
To show you the level of those around you.
To measure your progress.
Many people simply don’t measure their progress, but by simply tracking it, it helps in two ways:
It helps you know you’re actually progressing, so you can more easily appreciate that progress, and how far you’ve come.
And it helps you actually know and see what’s working, so you can do more of the stuff that works, and less of the stuff that doesn’t.
This means that simply tracking things literally makes you better.
SPEED IS OFTEN CONFUSED WITH INSIGHT. WHEN I START RUNNING EARLIER THAN THE OTHERS, I APPEAR FASTER.
-Johan Cruyff
SENSE OF DIRECTION
If you’re lost in the woods, anxiety is normal, because you don’t know where to go.
If you knew where to go, you wouldn’t be lost, you’d be traveling.
Most people in life are lost.
They don’t have any direction. This naturally creates anxiety, and why wouldn’t it?
ALICE AND THE CHESHIRE CAT
In the animated classic, Alice in Wonderland, there’s a part where Alice finds herself lost in the woods.
Alice asks the Cheshire Cat which way she ought to go.
“Well that depends on where, you want to get to,” answers the Cheshire Cat.
“Oh, it really doesn’t matter…” Alice replies.
“Then it really doesn’t matter, which way, you go.”
It’s unlikely you’ll get to where you want to go, if you don’t know where that is.
PICK YOUR DESTINATION
By picking an infinite goal (see ‘Goal’ above), you automatically solve this problem as well.
If you know where you’re headed, you have a sense of direction.
From here, you need only to orient yourself.
You can do this by simply evaluating where you’re currently at, and making a plan for where you want to go.
CREATIVE OUTLET
If you have a creative outlet, you can progress in something that matters to you, which strongly correlates with happiness.
This also simultaneously gives you some sense of direction and accomplishment.
If you want to be the greatest artist to ever live, you have a sense of direction.
Each work of art you complete, will give you a sense of accomplishment.
They work hand-in-hand, which is good news for you.
HOW TO GET ONE
If you don’t have a creative outlet, you have the same problem explained above; you don’t have enough passions (see ‘Something to Progress On’)
You don’t have enough passions because you don’t try enough things without quitting, and you never make it to the part where they become fun.
It’s really that simple.
The easiest way to find a passion is to remember what you used to love to do when you were a kid.
Did you love to draw? Start drawing again, as often as you possibly can.
Immerse yourself in it.
Become obsessed.
Befriend other people who love the same thing, and before you know it…
You’ve got a passion.
And if that passion is creative, you also have a creative outlet by exercising that passion.
If it’s not creative, figure out something creative to do that surrounds that passion.
Write about it. Make videos about it. Make a podcast about it.
It doesn’t matter.
Just do something creative, and you will start to see the world in a totally different light.
CREATIVITY IS INTELLIGENCE HAVING FUN.
-Albert Einstein
BEING A PART OF SOMETHING
Many soldiers come back from combat, to lives that are inarguably a higher standard of living, but often they find a vacuum where something used to be.
A feeling that’s hard to describe, and even more difficult to resolve.
Soldiers put together in high-danger, high-stress situations, often form a bond as a result, that can be far closer (and much different) than bonds they may have with anyone else.
Including their wives or children.
You may be familiar with the term ‘a band of brothers’ or ‘brothers in arms’.
This may be hard to understand for some people, but it is a well-documented phenomenon.
That feeling they’re missing comes from the absence of this bond - the feeling of being a part of something.
That’s why sports and martial arts can often be so monumentally transformative for young people.
And many adults feel depressed, simply because this feeling of being a part of something is entirely absent.
WHAT TO BE A PART OF
One option is to join a team or community of some kind.
It can be a sport you love to play, martial arts, or anything with a lot of built-in camaraderie, like clubs with like-minded people.
Another option is to join something like a company or organization that has you collaborating toward a common goal that you all care about.
Even incredibly demanding jobs can offer a very high level of fulfillment when it’s toward a goal the people working there really care about.
Think Pixar, Google, SpaceX, or many inspiring startups as well.
The last is a group that simply makes you feel like you’re not alone. This is why people join AA, or many support groups.
It can literally make whatever you might be going through much easier, especially when you know you’re not the only one.
THERE ARE NO PASSENGERS ON SPACESHIP EARTH. WE ARE ALL CREW.
-Marshall McLuhan
DISCIPLINE
Renowned Navy Seal and New York Times bestseller Jocko Willink has a well-known book titled Discipline Equals Freedom.
It’s such a simple concept, but it’s totally counterintuitive.
Freedom is a thing that everyone wants, and you would think that to get it, you wouldn’t make yourself do things, because that sounds like it’s not freedom.
But ironically, freedom is actually gained through discipline.
Think about it…
Everything you want is likely right behind some missing discipline.
Do you want to travel more?
It’s right behind the discipline of making more money so you can go where you want.
Do you want more money?
It’s right behind the discipline of growing your own business.
Do you want more free time?
It’s right behind the discipline of automating that business.
In fact, the attainment of any goal is right behind the discipline of doing the things you probably already know you need to do to reach it.
HOW TO GAIN DISCIPLINE
Self-respect is simply your reputation, with yourself. It’s strange to think about, but that’s what it actually means.
If you tell yourself you’re going to do something, and you don’t do it, you lower your respect for yourself.
The next time you say you’re going to do something, you’re a little less likely to believe it.
Stack up enough of these, and you start to have no confidence you’ll do anything you say you’re gonna do at all.
Maybe you even stop trying altogether.
That’s a problem.
BIT BY BIT
To start building this back, start telling yourself you’re going to do very small tasks.
It can be anything; making your bed, doing 10 pushups… it doesn’t matter how small. In fact, the smaller the better.
But each time you tell yourself you’re going to do something, write it down in a note. Then do it immediately and check that thing off the list.
This will allow you to start habitualizing the act of doing what you say you’re going to do. Over time, make the tasks gradually more difficult, and keep doing them.
Eventually, get up to where you say you’re going to do 1,000 pushups in a day, and you actually do it.
Then start telling yourself you’re going to do things that take more than a day to complete - maybe a week, then a month, then a year.
Before you know it, every goal you set in front of yourself will get done - not because you wanted it more, but because you developed discipline.
WE ARE WHAT WE REPEATEDLY DO. EXCELLENCE, THEN, IS NOT AN ACT, BUT A HABIT.
-Aristotle
If you have none of these pillars, don’t fret. It just means you have to do way less to feel way better.
Start with the pillar that you don’t have, that’s the easiest to start rectifying.
For instance, starting something like martial arts can give you three of the five, and sometimes all of them.
But if it’s easier for you to just start building a bit of discipline, start with that.
Once you gain one pillar, start on another one.
Build them all up, and you’ll have developed an architecture that will stand the test of time.
One that will hold up greatness.
CONCEPT DEVELOPED BY LION EL ATON
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