What Do YOU want?
What do YOU want…
Success?
Money?
Status?
Power?
Influence?
Material comforts?
Independence?
Many of us want the comforts that success brings…but eventually those things do not bring sustainable personal fulfillment and the thrill of a new gadget or new car dwindles. At this point, the more material possessions one has, the less power those things have to fulfill us in a meaningful way. For some, it can become a relentless quest for more and more and more..never offering true satisfaction. In fact, research indicates that when reasonable success is achieved, intelligent and creative people WANT something entirely different if they are to achieve what one might call personal fulfillment or happiness….
…but they are often not sure what that “more” they seek is about. They are left feeling that something is missing. But what IS it?
For the most creative seekers, that “more” is about meaning and purpose. People who advance in their development and consciousness, eventually seek to be a part of some kind of work or service that is meaningful as part of the solution to the needs of the world around them. That may be a discovery, a scientific exploration, taking a key role and caring for friends or family who need us, or being part of a mission to make a difference somewhere in the world. Indeed, there are as many creative ways of giving back to the world as there are people in the world. I am continually fascinated with the variety of ways people find unique purpose for their life!
In the early phase of our development (our twenties) we are busy “Taking IN” and building our domain of experience. We study, experiment, explore, and take in as much knowledge and experience as we can. In the next phase, we are busy “Building UP” (thirties and forties) and are full of drive for achievement and contribution to our chosen field. In this period, we are productive, contributing vital effort and beginning to expand the domain of our choosing in some fundamental way. And finally, we become less enamored with our possessions, having built up enough of them to satisfy our desire for ego satisfactions and we begin to transition into a phase where what matters is how we can contribute our unique ideas to our chosen domain in some meaningful way. We start to ask how we can “Give BACK” and now the purpose for our existence morphs into something different. We somehow understand that we have a responsibility for being here, that we were uniquely made for some specific purpose and that we are the ONLY ONE who cares about the precise thing we care about because of our own specific sufferings, our own specific experiences and our own unique ideas take shape into something that begs to be shared.
Throughout life, the one thing that pervades every phase of our development is the idea that we have a purpose for getting up each day to contribute. Hopefully, that never goes away…it just changes.
What is your purpose and in what way is your life meaningful today? What is the specific experience of your life that may be meaningful to others in some BIG WAY? I am thinking about that a lot these days, as I launch Tilt further and further out into the world. I want to help leaders become more conscious, more balanced, more creative…
…and I want them to know their purpose. And then GO BOLD with it.
This is the reason I am here and the reason I am a coach. I get to help people GO BOLD with their leadership purpose.