What is personal fulfillment? What do we mean when we talk about personal fulfillment, and what can it look like? Why is personal fulfillment important — and what’s the best methods for how to find personal fulfillment?
We’re addressing all of that in today’s article! As a personal fulfillment coach, this is a topic near and dear to my heart 🙂
What is personal fulfillment?
Personal fulfillment is about deep, internal satisfaction. It is a matter of living an authentic life, aligning yourself (your mindset, your behaviour, how you act and interact with the world) to your values, and actively choosing what fills your cup, each and every day.
Personal fulfillment is a part of the self improvement and personal development journey.
It is highly personal: What fulfills one person won’t necessarily fulfill another person — and that’s okay! There's so much joy to be found in celebrating and honouring our differences. In fact, conforming to expectations or social norms can often detract from personal fulfillment, because in that case, you aren’t living your life for yourself.
When we’re exploring what personal fulfillment is, then, we’re also acknowledging that it’s about making the right-for-you choices for who you are in this moment.
It is a very PRESENT way of viewing life — rather than being stuck in the past or only ever looking to the future, you are able to appreciate and have gratitude for the present moment. You are, in essence, *living in* the moment.
Personal fulfillment is often connected to achieving goals and delighting in the accomplishment of success, but it’s much more than that: Personal fulfillment is about the journey you take on the road to accomplishing your goals. It’s about enjoying that journey, that adventure, just as much as the goals themselves. It’s about lighting that spark and taking great pride, great delight, IN the process of working toward your goals.
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Why is personal fulfillment important?
Personal fulfillment is important because it enables you to live life according to YOU, rather than “going through the motions” or making choices to please other people. When you are personally fulfilled, it ensures that you are actively living your own life on your own terms.
(And just like having time freedom is radical, so too is personal fulfillment!)
It’s important to note that striving for personal fulfillment is NOT selfish. It may appear individualistic, but that’s simply because every person is different (so therefore, every life and journey — every definition of personal fulfillment — will be unique to that individual).
Personal fulfillment is NOURISHING, it is energizing, and because it is so good for *you*, it also spreads out to the people around you:
The more personally fulfilled you are, the more you increase your capacity for increased energy and compassion and motivation.
And from there, you can make use of that energy, compassion, and motivation to do more good in the world.
Personal fulfillment can pave the way for you becoming the catalyst for change in the world. That is powerful!
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As a personal fulfillment coach, I can help you with exactly that ♥
What are examples of personal fulfillment? What can it look like?
Personal fulfillment looks different for everyone! Think of it in terms of just about anything: the career you choose, the hobbies you do, the books you read or the shows you watch, the people you interact with, the lifestyle you live, and so on.
Building on what I mentioned earlier about personal fulfillment being about the journey you take, a great example of personal fulfillment is writing a book.
If you are writing a book for the sole purpose of being able to say, “I’m a published author,” then you are doing it for the clout, or for the bragging rights; you are doing it for the end result, rather than for the ACT of doing it.
In that case, you might hire a ghostwriter to write the book for you — which pulls you away from the act of writing and being an author.
Or, you might choose unethical methods of becoming an author, such as using AI to write your book — which defeats the entire purpose of sharing your unique perspective and ideas with the world or engaging with the creative process.
On the other hand: If you are writing a book with the primary purpose in mind that “I get something powerful from the experience of writing,” or “I can’t imagine NOT writing this book,” or “This story lights me up,” etc, then that is far more indicative that you are getting personal fulfillment from the act of writing a book.
In that case, you can absolutely still want to be able to say, “I’m a published author.” You can still want to sell millions of copies or make a full-time living from your books or get a movie deal from the stories you write.
You can want all of those things!
The difference is that none of those things are the “end goal” in and of itself: The act of writing IS “the thing.”
This goes back to something else I view very strongly when it comes to being a solopreneur: You need to care about your craft just as much as the *idea* of being your own boss. In order to have TRUE success with it — which, to me, involves personal fulfillment — you’ll need to care deeply about the work itself that you are doing for clients on a daily basis.
→ Becoming a business owner for the sole purpose of being able to create your own schedule is not a good enough reason to do it. It’s not going to fuel you when things get tough. It’s not going to bring you personal fulfillment on a daily basis.
…But when you become a business owner because yes, you want to be able to create your own schedule, and also you are passionate about your craft (AKA the services or products you offer for clients/customers), THEN you will experience true personal fulfillment.
Another example of personal fulfillment: Are you running because “it’s good for you,” even though you HATE it… Or are you running because yes, it’s hard, but also something about it is exhilarating. It challenges you in a GOOD way. It stretches your abilities.
If you are training for a marathon, that’s awesome! It’s a worthy goal. And also… If you are dragging your feet to do the training, if you are counting down the days until you are done with the marathon so you never need to run another day in your life, if running doesn’t make you feel good… Then is it REALLY worth it?
You can both a) train for a marathon (with the goal in mind of wanting to finish that marathon strong or do it within a particular timespan), AND b) feel fulfilled with the ACT of training for that marathon.
(You can see here that personal fulfillment is a very powerful aspect of self improvement and personal development.)
How to find personal fulfillment
You find personal fulfillment by searching for what you truly enjoy the ACT of doing and being. It’s not (just) about the end goal or that final result of what you’re working toward… It’s also about having joy and deep satisfaction (even though it might also be challenging!) in that moment itself.
Here are a few questions you can explore for how to find personal fulfillment in your own life…
Think about your career, hobbies, lifestyle choices, etc — pick a few and then ask:
- What are the primary reasons for why you are doing that thing? Write them down — try to limit it to 1 - 3 reasons “why.”
- Are those reasons SOLELY about the end goal, or do they also include the process itself to achieve that end goal? You might want to highlight the “end goal” reasons in yellow, for example, and the “process reasons” in green, so you can get a visual of how often you focus more on the process vs end goal.
- What happened if you did NOT achieve that end goal — would you still want to do that thing in the way you’ve been doing it? Write down YES or NO next to each of them.
From there, you can start to recognize whether you have been doing things from a personal fulfillment lens.
In each instance, you can begin to explore alternative routes to achieve that end goal (the types of strategies or tactics etc which will actually be fun for you), and you can also begin to explore whether you are truly living life for yourself… or if you are living your life for other people.
A good example of personal fulfillment in my own life connects back to exercise… Many years ago, I used to have a love/hate relationship with running. It got to the point where it wasn’t fun, and I was only doing it because I felt like I “should,” or because I “wanted to want” to do it.
So I stopped running.
Does that mean that I don’t exercise? On the contrary! Instead, I simply found what types of exercises are more personally fulfilling for me.
For example, I LOVE walking — it fills my cup and makes my heart so happy! — so walking is something I do pretty much daily. It fulfills me.
I also dance multiple times a week (burlesque, ballet, and heels dancing) because that, too, makes my heart happy: I take dance classes *for the purpose* of performing on stage, but even if there was no stage performance, I would 100% still dance. It’s the dancing itself that personally fulfills me; the stage performance is also personally fulfilling, but it’s almost like its own entity.
With that in mind, here are a few more questions you can explore for how to find personal fulfillment…
- What fuels you, lights a spark under you, lifts you up, fills your cup, or brings a smile to your face?
- What brings meaning and purpose to your life?
- In what ways can you actively pursue doing MORE of those meaningful things that light you up?
- What are the things that you would do, even if they didn’t “get you” to another end result?
- All other things being equal, would you want to do this thing if you had all the time and money and health (or other end goal!) in the world? …Or is it something you’d never want to do again?
Personal fulfillment is sustainable and long-lasting. It is not a fleeting, passing thing. It also has depth and meaning; it is not shallow or surface-level. It is very likely that multiple things will personally fulfill you (and this also might change over the course of your life, as you grow and change and also as you do personal development work) — which is why I’d also encourage you to explore personal fulfillment and satisfaction in all different areas of your life.
It doesn’t need to exist in a silo in just one area — you can be personally fulfilled at all levels and in all areas of your life!
Want help with searching for the best path to take (so you enjoy the journey alongside the destination), figuring out your own definition of personal fulfillment (and identifying/doing more of what brings you joy), and living your best life (so you can elevate your self improvement quest and be the best version of YOU)?
You don't need to do it on your own... I can help you find personal fulfillment!
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