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The Fulfillment Formula
Happiness doesn't just happen. Lasting fulfillment is the result of intentional, consistent action. My research, experience, and prayerful reflection led me to the conclusion that there are three primary elements to creating a fulfilling life:​
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Focus on WELLNESS
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Commit to EXCELLENCE
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Live in BLESSEDNESS
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The Fulfillment Formula is a continual process of wellness practices that improve the whole person. It's not just the body; it's our relationships, finances, learning, and so on. It is especially emotional and psychological wellness--feeling whole and having a sense of dignity. Wholeness and wellness are the foundation of fulfillment.
The next level is a commitment to excellence and mastery of your chosen domain. This is a matter of what we do for a career, how we treat others, and the gritty science of becoming extraordinary. It looks different for everyone--but mediocrity clashes with genuine fulfillment. Commit to and strive for excellence!
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The crown jewel in the Fulfillment Formula is the choice to live in blessedness. Divinity is accessible to every human being. It is a matter of faith, living in integrity by spiritual principles, and spending time soaking in the mystical realm of the Implicate Order. When you get there, you know, and you realize this is the ultimate purpose of life in this mortal realm and the one beyond--to know, experience, love, and serve God.
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Read further to learn more about the Fulfillment Formula!
Wellness -
The Beginning of Your Best Life
Wellness is the starting point of a healthy, stable, fulfilling life. There is more to wellness than diet and exercise (although both are essential to total wellbeing!) Wellness encompasses many dimensions. A popular model is Swarbrick's 8 Dimensions of Wellness, which includes things like emotional, social, and financial health. Viewing wellness in this sense of the whole-person allows us to focus on all the things that matter, rather than just some of them.
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One thing that very much matters is our mental health and relationship with alcohol and other drugs (AOD). Mental Illness and Substance Abuse (MISA) Recovery is possible and attainable. Implementing strategies to improve the many aspects of well-being discussed above helps leads us to greater mental health outcomes. This approach also helps us to reduce our intake of, or abstain, from AOD. Recovery is worth it--and so are you!
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Investing in our wellness is an investment in our happiness, health, and wholeness. It improves fulfillment and life satisfaction. It helps us live longer and better. It promotes stability in our lives and puts us in a position to help others. Wellness of the whole person is the starting point of living our best lives and empowers our healing, happiness, and growth.
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Exellence -
Raising Our Standards and
Reaching New Heights
Excellence is typically associated with excelling beyond others, of being superior. I challenge you to think of excellence as a competition with yourself. Can you be a better spouse, parent, employee/entrepreneur, athlete, or student today than yesterday? This year than last year?
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Living with a commitment to excellence transforms us and the lives we lead. Each day becomes an opportunity to improve, to grow, to serve. Over time, nearly every aspect of who we are is elevated.
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This is a mindset by which we can drive improvement in the areas of life we would like to improve. Happiness in humans is deeply tied to the progress we are making in life. A commitment to excellence is a surefire way to make consistent strides forward toward our goals. Whatever our goals are (I hope you have yours written down!) living with excellence will increase our chances of realizing them.
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What does a commitment to and lifestyle of excellence look like? Tony Robbins, a leading voice in personal development, passionatley suggests that we RAISE OUR STANDARDS. To excel means to rise. The concept of raising our standards really captures the essence of what it means to live in an increasing state of excellence.
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Let's raise our standards on:
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What sort of food we let into our body
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How we choose to treat others
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Things we buy -or- don't buy
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Intention and goal setting efforts
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Quality of work we give on the job
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Consistently following through with our plans
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Gratitude, forgiveness, and empathy
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True contribution and leaving a legacy
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Making a dedicated commitment to excellence is a promise to ourselves to progress toward our goals day by day. This incremental progress sustained over time leads to monumental results. The progress we enjoy leads to an abiding contentment, and is essential to lasting fulfillment.
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Blessedness -
A Deep Connection with The Source of Existence
To be blessed is to be a recipient of God's favor. This favor isn't centered on material blessings. Blessedness is a state of mind, a posture of the heart, and an attitude of the soul. It is choosing to believe there is more to life than the work-a-day, humdrum things of survival and society. It is choosing to embrace the mystery of the Great Beyond, and have faith in something much greater than ourselves.
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Blessedness is a way of life that bestows great dignity, a sense of purpose, camaraderie with our fellow humans, and faith that there is more to life than plain human existence; whatever that may be. This faith in That which is beyond human comprehension instills many other values in us. It even aligns us with what Einstein called, "spooky action at a distance," the idea that the True Laws of Nature defy physics and human logic, which accounts for many unexplained miracles.
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My faith is in Jesus Christ of Nazareth, who came to Earth as God Incarnate to save us from our sins. Still, I respect that everyone has the right to believe whatever they choose. And so, in this context, blessedness is framed as a deep connection with and favor from the Source of Existence Itself.
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This connection with and favor from that Infinite Intelligence who orders and upholds existence is helped by the following practices:
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Turning away from the activities you know in your heart to be wrong
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Living by spiritual principles like honesty, forgiveness, kindness, responsibility, etc.
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Spending time each day to connect with this Divine Presence that is within us and all around us
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Offering gratitude for the many blessings we've been given--ourselves and our loved ones​
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Casting our cares into the Universe with confidence that God/Spirit/Source is willing and able to meet our needs according to His divine plan
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Asking this Power to infuse us with those virtues we wish to increase
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Basking in the Divine Presence that is within us and all around us
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Having spiritual conversations with like-minded people
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Committing acts of service like volunteering and donating a percentage of your income
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Studying spiritual text and memorizing scriptures to "write them on your heart"
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To be blessed is no small task. It is actually no task at all. Faith in and favor from God are a gift. The task is to make use of this gift to better ourselves and to be better to others (and to Nature). Even more though, we must use the gift of faith to develop a personal relationship with and trust in the Cosmic Mind, the Creator, the Sustainer Spirit that is all around and within you even now.
It is the intelligence governing the breath-taking systems of your body happening now. It is the Force that holds the Earth, sun, and moon in orbit. It is the Divine Matrix that keeps, "the most minute solar-system of the atom in orbit." This "X" has many names, but no name can ever truly name "It". The most important thing is to seek It, follow It, and live by Its principles which are more true even than the laws of physics.
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Blessedness is not a task, it is a lifestyle--one that I hope you choose to embrace for a life of greater hope, contentment, dignity, togetherness, and fulfillment.