Meaningful Life
How To Lead a Meaningful Life
Many books and thought leadership content focus on achieving success in business. These are topics I have also covered in this blog: Success Blueprint, Elite Entrepreneur, Entrepreneur to CEO.
Yet, I feel that business success without leading a meaningful life is the ultimate failure. If you are not able to lead your life meaningfully, then adding a few zeros to your bank account won’t make it any better.
‘Success without fulfilment is the ultimate failure.’
Tony Robbins
Fortunately, it is absolutely possible to align your business success with leading a meaningful life. Very often, one of the most meaningful things you can do in your life is to create an impact in a given field through the work that you do.
In this article, I will cover the core elements that I have found, through research and experimenting, contribute to a meaningful life.
Social Fitness
The correlation between meaningful living and connection is very strong. Several studies indicate that sharing passions and values with close connections supports you in generating a sense of meaningfulness.
Not all relationships are equal. A big part of what give us a sense of meaning comes from a feeling of belonging. In other words, if you are part of a group of friends/ peers/ colleagues, where you don’t feel like you share the same values and you don’t feel belonging, this will not support your sense of meaning or joy.
This correlates directly with the study done on longevity. The number one factor of longevity, above healthy eating & exercise, is the quality of your relationships.
This 85 year old Harvard study indicates that ‘social fitness’ is the primary factor for happiness, longevity, and I would add meaning. All of these are intercorrelated: if you have strong social bonds, you will feel more meaning, you will be happier, and you are more likely to live a long time.
Part of today’s current challenges, since the pandemic years, is that there is a growing tendency towards: remote working, and working from home.
In some circumstances, this can strengthen family bonds, but in other situations (for instance for somebody who is single), this drastically reduces the daily in person interactions and strengths of relationships.
Many people will still choose this option, given the convenience, but might then wonder why they feel less meaning, and strong relationships in their day-day.
Online connections don’t replace in person connections. We are social beings, and need strong in person bonds with people we feel safe with, share similar values, and who enhance our feeling of belonging.
The solution? Strengthening current relationships and being part of communities. Whether it is a coworking space, a running club, a knitting group, an entrepreneurial hub, a group of friends… meaning comes from being in groups & communities where we feel we belong, and strengthening our friendships & family relationships.
Groundhog Day & Growing
Relationships is the number one factor for meaning. The stronger our social bonds, the more meaning we feel.
The next greatest factor is learning, growing, and improving.
In the film ‘Groundhog day’, the main character Phil, played by Bill Murray is trapped in an inferno of the same day repeating itself over and over again.
He tries to find meaning to this and goes down many paths, including hedonism and over-indulging, gluttony, sloth, criminality... Desperate to find meaning, he starts to pay more interest in others and in art, and signs up to piano lessons.
With each piano class, he improves and feels a sense of purpose and meaning. The moral of the film is that meaning can be found in improving and growing.
The more static we are, the more senseless life appears. The more we learn, grow, improve, stretch ourselves, the more joy and spark comes to our life. In the words of Voltaire, last sentence of ‘Candid’: ‘Il faut cultiver son jardin.’ (grow your garden, i.e. grow!)
This growth can come from anything. You can get this through your work and that’s fantastic. But it can also be through a hobby, interest or passion.
It could be through sports, or arts, or reading, or learning a new language, or cooking, or a new activity…
As we get older, we often become more & more adverse to the idea of failing, we fear the rejection, and humiliation that could come with being a total beginner. This prevents us from starting new activities. Yet it’s precisely through starting a new activity that we can have this feeling of progress!
Either by starting a new activity or continuing an activity that you enjoy! This is one of the best things about being an entrepreneur is that the learning curve is high, and that you are constantly learning & growing.
When we fall into this lack of meaning ‘groundhog day’ feeling of each day repeating itself, we can look back to this film and see: What would our life look like if we started to A. pay more attention to the people in our life?, and B. invested our energy in growing, expanding, learning, and progressing?
Impact & Contribution
Strong relationships & learning are the fundamental pillars that add meaning to our life. Yet, if we only do both of these (which can be the case when you are retired for example), there can be a lack in terms of impact & contribution.
I remember when I just started my business, my core interests were in learning as much as possible about self-improvement and business, and then connecting with many people. Yet, the greater meaning came from coaching, and giving workshops & keynotes. That’s when the learning & connection merge to create impact.
It can be through your work, or in an organisation, or a charity, or in your own family, contributing adds a lot of meaning to our life.
When somebody is depressed, the fastest way to get them out of depression is to get them to do something for someone else, or for a group. They can be a tutor for a child with special needs, or get involved in a charity, the sense of joy & meaning that comes from getting out of your own head and helping others is tremendous.
Ironically, the people who benefit most from these types of activities often don’t think about it, because they believer they first need to solve their own problems before they can help anybody else. Yet, by being exposed and helping people in other challenging circumstances elevates meaning in your life, and decreases your own inner stress.
Contribution, just like growing, can take on any shape - the only thing that matters is that the focus is outside of yourself, and that it is creating an impact & making a difference to someone else’s life.
On Meaning
Viktor Frankl, author of Man’s Search for Meaning explains it best. You create your own meaning - you choose how you respond to external circumstances - you choose ‘happiness’ or at the very least ‘contentment’ in how you show up and deal with daily challenges.
Viktor Frankl’s study of meaning was summarised in these three key points:
Creativing & achieving: setting goals, creative work, and accomplishments (similar to the section above on growth)
Experience & encounter: realtionships & love, appreciating beauty
Attitude towards suffering: developing resilience in challenging circumstances through changing our perception.
When we are chasing success, what we are truly longing for is happiness & meaning. The sooner, we recognise this, the sooner we can shift our inner compass and ensure that the business susccess is aligned with the inner happiness & meaning.
Let’s make sure we are not sacrificing happiness & meaning to get to success - because that never works. The key is to align success, connection, growth, contribution all together for greater meaning & purpose! :)
Thank you for reading,
Enjoy the journey,
Katie