Strategies for a Better Work Experience: Find Fulfillment and Meaning

This is Part 5 in the Aim & Conquer series "Strategies for a Better Work Experience." See Part 1 here.

One meaning of the word “fulfillment” can be arrived at by breaking it down into its constituent parts. “Full” can indicate the starting point ... there is nothing else necessary to reach completion, as all is already present. “Fill” can indicate the action that is taking place in the transition from one moment to the next ... from a state of fullness, there is a filling, resulting in completion in the next step and in the process that exists before it. The suffix “-ment” can turn whatever came before it into a means or a result ... in this case, it can be both at the same time. Taken as a whole, "fulfillment" can be defined as a representation of unity that exists independent of time.

Achieving inside of yourself to such a degree that this experience can be realized may seem difficult, but every small progression in that direction brings with it tangible benefit. In other words, it is a worthwhile target to aim for in that it pays off in the process and the result.

What does it mean for you to be fulfilled? When have you felt most at home with all that is inside of you and around you? In what moments have you felt time slow down and your mind empty to such a degree that there is a connection to the fundamental "hum" permeating all of life?

Even those who have experienced moments like these may be skeptical that such a state of being is possible at work. To see a colleague glowing in nirvana while following along to a PowerPoint presentation in a conference room may seem farfetched, and perhaps it is for many people. The point is that refuting such a state, without any way of knowing for certain whether or not it’s possible, only serves as a blocker to finding out if it actually is.

So where, then, does one start on a journey towards fulfillment? It becomes clear quickly that the highest levels of success, comfort, and power in the external world will alone never be sufficient, because there will still be that space inside of "the body" that must also be considered. In fact, it makes much more sense to start with that dimension, because it is the one area of existence over which it is possible for people to establish their own rule.

Leading well in that dimension requires a degree of mental-emotional grace, balancing discipline with leniency such that all aspects respect the voice within you that speaks on behalf of life's greater good. When that state is present, there is a sense of flow, and things happen without any degree of friction.

Many people have had experiences where they are “lost” in what they are doing ... consider a painter who is engrossed in the brushstrokes, or an athlete who enters “the zone.” In both examples, the subject can be said to be “working,” carrying out his or her professional duties. You may not be a painter or an athlete, but, if you are willing to keep an open mind, achieving such a state of fulfillment while you engage your own career may be available to you.

In this final section, Aim & Conquer offers you three strategies to broaden your perspective and deepen your curiosity about fulfillment:

• Embrace Being You
• Destroy Your Ideas
• Contribute as a Team

Enjoy!

Embrace Being You

Even when work, as it is usually defined, ends, there is still a broader sense of work that continues ... the work of being you. Seen through that lens, your work never reaches a conclusion, at least not while you are alive. There is always a “you” that continues to “be,” in the most general sense.  

Most people’s consciousness resides in close proximity to the words that they use to describe the interactions of their waking lives. There is a he, a she, or a they who has a certain history ... possesses certain qualities or traits ... takes action in certain ways ... and imagines certain outcomes in the future. However, when prompted, most people would acknowledge that there is a deeper sense of who they are, something that exists before, and independent of, all the concepts that they use to communicate with each other.

This experience can be described as “being.” Whatever you are “doing,” there is a you that exists underneath it. There is a reason for the term “human beings.” If you are alive, you can’t help but "be."

It can be helpful, then, to investigate this sense of being more closely. Who are you being? How are you being? What does it mean to be your highest version of self? Is there a way to “work” on your being that can result in an improvement of your everyday experience without sacrificing your ability to “do” all the things you need to do?

In one way or another, you are always being yourself, so it makes sense to embrace that reality and to work on it purposefully. It can be seen as the primary responsibility given to you by life, one in which your duty is to continue rediscovering yourself, over and over again, in each moment. In this way, you are a small segment of life, acting as an emissary of the entirety of it, deploying all that it has provided for you in ways that promote it, both inside of yourself and on an increasingly large scale externally.

As a being, how well do you balance tension and looseness? Activity and stillness? Expression and receptivity? How do your everyday work experiences impact you in each of these dimensions? When are you able to effectively regulate what’s happening within your being, and when is it more challenging?

Often, fulfillment arises when there is a high degree of alignment between who one is actually being and who one is “meant to be.” The latter cannot be discovered by anyone else, and it cannot be arrived at through rationality, because neither is “fresh” enough to allow for an in-the-moment union with the totality of life. But, it can be realized through pure, open-hearted, harmonious connection.

A great way to get started is to more regularly check in with yourself and sincerely reflect on the depth of who you are and what is happening to you in the moment. The more you can develop your awareness of this aspect within you, the more access you’ll get to the guidance that life is communicating to you. You won’t need to “figure things out” in your head, or “wrestle” with the emotions in your heart ... you’ll simply know, without any need for reasons.

Go Beyond Your Ideas

People usually have many ideas about what it means to be “good” or “bad,” “better” or “worse.” One’s relationship to these words, and the way one relates other words to them, can serve as a sort of “organizing principle” for one’s life.

Good and better things are generally sought ... bad and worse things are generally shunned. Sometimes, bad things are desired, and good things are denied, and there is an internal discordance. Sometimes, people might believe that they need to be better than they think they are, in one or many of the infinite dimensions in which such sentiments are possible. There are a lot of intricate beliefs, expectations, justifications, and projections that can arise from this type of perspective on life, and, to some degree, they are all completely made-up.

Ideas always come into play “after the fact.” They are “late” in relation to life, arriving as a shorthand way of describing something that can never be fully understood. By the time they appear, they are already stale.  And yet great value is assigned to them as waypoints, or as building blocks, for a fulfilling life. “Find the ‘best’ or ‘most right’ ideas,” the thinking goes. “Then, act in greatest accordance with them.”

Such an approach can, potentially, be helpful in setting guardrails, in supporting people to develop the strength to not regularly engage life in ways that take them farther away from fulfillment. However, a life lived in relation to guardrails is not really one that embodies the fullness that is possible ... some degree of spontaneity, or aliveness, goes missing.

It is with this context that one could start to see the value in smashing all of one’s ideas about what is “good,” “bad,” “better,” “worse,” and everything else. Whenever one's ideas are defended with an intense rigidity, and whenever one's ideas evolve according to a set of meta-ideas about what constitutes improvement, the outcome is a somewhat-inflexible structure of inter-related beliefs within which one tends to operate.

The point is that such structures are limiting. Foundationally, life does not have to be influenced by them. It continues to show up in ways that defy all language and all understanding. Understanding it, then, requires a way of connecting to it that goes beyond words, beyond frameworks, beyond anything that could ever be communicated in sentences. Said another way, there are no words that can produce fulfillment.

For that reason, it is worth considering how one's experience of life could be different ... less constrained, more celebratory, less susceptible, more sprightly ... if the nuts and bolts holding together the interpretive architecture used to perceive it were loosened. What would happen if you scaled it back to a "minimalist" lens? What would happen if you just demolished it?

Contribute as a Team

Much attention has been given to the value of teamwork on the outside. Sports teams, community organizations, and businesses alike universally acknowledge that performance and overall impact can improve significantly when all members of the group are willing to come together ... sacrifice any individual desires that may be in opposition to the success of the whole ... and continually iterate to maximize contribution.

The same is true on the inside, except that it’s not different people who can benefit by aligning in harmony ... it’s the different aspects of you. Inside of you, there are countless personalities, desires, unprocessed emotions, fears, hopes, dreams, doubts, beliefs, and more that collectively operate in complex, and sometimes unpredictable, ways. These aspects are not always on the same team, pursuing the same goal, and, as a result, there can be substantial internal conflict.

Consider situations where you know that doing a certain thing is truly in your best interest, but some parts of you want to do something else entirely. Consider situations where your mind gets in the way of what your heart wants, or where your heart is in pain and prone to acting based on its own preferences. In these instances, it is fair to describe the activity inside of you as exhibiting some degree of self-sabotage.

If the parts of you are in competition with each other, rather than competing alongside each other towards something more broad and meaningful, then it will be difficult to achieve fulfillment. No matter what is achieved, some parts will feel that it could have been in greater alignment with what they were seeking.

As you pursue fulfillment at work and outside of it, it is important to have a “coach” factor inside of you, one that can take leadership of all your disparate aspects and, by sheer force of will and a grounding in that which is truly of the highest order, command all constituent parts to support each other and the overall mission.

There seems to be a prevailing societal sentiment that the pathway to achieve fulfillment is an “easy” one once certain realities are understood and acknowledged. What is less desirable, but perhaps more accurate, is that the pathway to fulfillment requires constant vigilance, constant courage, constant willingness to engage in battle for what one knows to be in one’s best interest. There is no shortage of distractions, and avoiding setbacks becomes increasingly challenging as one’s awareness becomes more and more refined, for the battle must be taken to every internal nook and cranny, every hidden emotion, every subconscious urge, every miniscule imbalance that, if left unaddressed, can tilt one’s entire being off course.

Still, the benefits of staying focused are evident everyday. Your internal army becomes more well-trained and more powerful, which allows you to handle difficulties that life brings your way with greater efficiency and effectiveness. You sustain fewer injuries, be they physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual. You operate as a more coordinated unit, one that can adapt and refocus at a moment’s notice. Overall, you become unstoppable.

Conclusion

As you consider your work-related goals, consider the following strategies:

• Embrace Being You
• Go Beyond Your Ideas
• Contribute as a Team

Best of luck!