Welcome to the Peak Revival Podcast.
Speaker:My name is Vesna Today I'm gonna talk about satisfaction versus fulfillment.
Speaker:For those who have it all, but still feel unsatisfied.
Speaker:So for years myself, I found myself working hard to launch things, and
Speaker:I've always thought as soon as I launch it, things will go back to normal,
Speaker:go back to a normal speed, you know?
Speaker:And but the problem was as soon as I finished launching that I would stack
Speaker:something else and another thing.
Speaker:And so I never slowed down.
Speaker:And I had this philosophy, which doesn't work by the way, but I would think that
Speaker:I would stack all these deadlines, I would everything onto my schedule, and
Speaker:they all had deadlines, so I was like, well, I have to get them done I'll just
Speaker:have to work really hard to get them done.
Speaker:There's not a lot of fun in doing that.
Speaker:You can get more done, but it creates a lot more stress and probably
Speaker:not doing your best work either.
Speaker:That's what I found.
Speaker:So if you are finding yourself in a similar situation
Speaker:that you are always saying.
Speaker:"Just another couple of months,
Speaker:I'll get over this part,
Speaker:and then things will slow down for me"
Speaker:right?
Speaker:But you find that you are always putting more onto your schedule.
Speaker:You're always trying to achieve more.
Speaker:You're always changing the goalposts, right?
Speaker:And so in business, there are things that you must do, and there are times when
Speaker:it's very busy and that's legitimate.
Speaker:But I want you to ask yourself, are you feeling fulfilled in
Speaker:your business and in your work?
Speaker:And the things that you do day to day?
Speaker:Or are you chasing satisfaction?
Speaker:Now I wanna talk about the distinction between satisfaction and fulfillment.
Speaker:So satisfaction is when you're feeling satisfied.
Speaker:So when you tick off something from your to-do list, when you achieve a
Speaker:goal, when you hit a certain personal best in your business or in your
Speaker:fitness regime, whatever it is, You feel a sense of satisfaction?
Speaker:The problem with satisfaction is that it needs constant topping up, right?
Speaker:So if you've noticed that something that used to satisfy you before something
Speaker:that you did in your business, no longer has that satisfaction, right?
Speaker:And so it's like this dopamine addiction, it's a dopamine hit.
Speaker:We need to keep hitting the dopamine button, but then our
Speaker:brain becomes desensitized to it.
Speaker:And so we need.
Speaker:Bigger achievements, bigger goals in order to get that same hit.
Speaker:But it's always escaping us.
Speaker:We never get to that place where we feel truly fulfilled.
Speaker:so satisfaction, there's no end to it.
Speaker:It needs constant topping up.
Speaker:so what you'll find is that you'll have one goal.
Speaker:As soon as you achieve it, achieve it, you'll move straight
Speaker:onto the next goal, okay?
Speaker:Without really celebrating it.
Speaker:So I've certainly seen this for myself.
Speaker:I hit a really big milestone in my business, uh, last year, and I remember
Speaker:having this conversation with my brother and he was like, wow, that's amazing.
Speaker:I said, yeah, so, and then I talked about all these other issues that I had
Speaker:to resolve and what I was working on next, and he's like, hold on a second.
Speaker:Can you just take a moment to be grateful for where you are at and to really
Speaker:celebrate and appreciate where you're at?
Speaker:And I was like, Hmm.
Speaker:Busted because I wasn't right.
Speaker:I really, I, my mind had already moved on to the next thing.
Speaker:And so when we caught up in that satisfaction craving
Speaker:or chasing satisfaction, we are never feeling satisfied.
Speaker:And it's really exhausting.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Because we don't realize that fulfillment, which I'll, which I'll talk about.
Speaker:Is much more nourishing.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:But satisfaction is gonna be much more draining.
Speaker:Okay?
Speaker:Because it's, we're always chasing, we're never slowing down the nervous system.
Speaker:It's, we're always on.
Speaker:Our brains always ticking over.
Speaker:We're always looking for the next thing.
Speaker:And so there's never a gap.
Speaker:There's never a moment to slow down.
Speaker:Fulfillment on the other hand, is very different.
Speaker:It's nourishing, it's energizing.
Speaker:It has life force in it.
Speaker:It feeds the soul, and it feels so much better than satisfaction.
Speaker:And actually, that's what we're chasing
Speaker:When we're chasing satisfaction,
Speaker:we're really chasing fulfillment
Speaker:that when we get that goal, we are going to feel a sense of
Speaker:inner peace, like contentment.
Speaker:a feeling of contentment.
Speaker:It's a really higher state, mentally and emotionally, and we're feeling really
Speaker:good about ourselves and about our life.
Speaker:And so I want you to think back to moments when you have felt fulfilled, right?
Speaker:There'll be moments in your life when you have felt this sense
Speaker:of really feeling fulfilled.
Speaker:What did that feel like?
Speaker:where did it come from?
Speaker:How did you get it?
Speaker:So these are really important questions to ask ourselves.
Speaker:'cause most people think by chasing and achieving more and hitting a new
Speaker:personal best in whatever area, or having a new car or a new house, a
Speaker:new holiday or new partner, whatever it is, is going to be fulfilling.
Speaker:But that's really chasing satisfaction.
Speaker:And so we are never gonna get to that place that we're
Speaker:really yearning to get to.
Speaker:So Fulfillment is a feeling.
Speaker:It's a higher state of mind, a higher state of consciousness or
Speaker:a higher state of wellbeing, and
Speaker:We don't need to get anything from the outside in order to feel fulfilled.
Speaker:And that's kind of where we go wrong, right?
Speaker:So we feel like if we get all these achievements, if we get in a better
Speaker:place financially, we'll feel really good and we'll feel really fulfilled.
Speaker:Okay?
Speaker:And then that moment arises and it's like a blip, right?
Speaker:We don't even notice, we don't really celebrate it, and we don't really feel
Speaker:fulfilled as we thought that we would.
Speaker:So fulfillment is a natural state, right?
Speaker:It's a natural state of our being we're in when we're in a higher
Speaker:state of consciousness, like I said, a higher state of wellbeing when
Speaker:we're really in the moment, it's
Speaker:The gaps in between all the doing
Speaker:okay.
Speaker:And that's kind of the best way that I can describe it.
Speaker:It's not the doing that feels fulfilling.
Speaker:It's the space in between.
Speaker:Because it's our natural state when we are always doing and being busy and.
Speaker:Even being present on a task, because I have confused this myself, like
Speaker:when I've been super focused and really productive on the day, like
Speaker:I'm really focused and present.
Speaker:I'm not talking about focus, and it's a different kind of presence.
Speaker:It's about really being more connected to yourself and it's the gaps in
Speaker:between all the busyness that we feel, that contentment and that fulfillment.
Speaker:So fulfillment is a feeling.
Speaker:It's not something we get by doing.
Speaker:When our mind slows down and we're in that space, we elevate our level
Speaker:of consciousness and we create these feelings of fulfillment.
Speaker:And in fact, some of the barriers to fulfillment is doing the things that we
Speaker:do because we are chasing satisfaction.
Speaker:But what we really want is fulfillment.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:And so some of the biggest barriers to fulfillment is just looking
Speaker:in the wrong direction, right?
Speaker:Just looking at.
Speaker:Achieving more.
Speaker:Achieving more, and really burning yourself out and wondering
Speaker:why you never feel like you've arrived, like you never feel.
Speaker:You're at that place where you feel like, yes, this is, I'm so happy I'm here.
Speaker:So when you are feeling satisfied after a meal, if the waiter comes around and says,
Speaker:look, this is what we have for dessert.
Speaker:You're like, Hmm, yes, I will have that.
Speaker:Thank you very much.
Speaker:That looks good.
Speaker:But when you are fulfilled, you don't want another thing.
Speaker:Okay?
Speaker:The waiter comes around with a dessert, you're like, Nope,
Speaker:I have no desire to eat that.
Speaker:I feel very content.
Speaker:And that's kind of the difference.
Speaker:So if you are feeling like there's always something more that you want,
Speaker:there's always more, there's more, then you're chasing satisfaction.
Speaker:You're not chasing fulfillment.
Speaker:And
Speaker:That is a road to unhappiness,
Speaker:burnout,
Speaker:exhaustion and never getting to that place where, that place between
Speaker:the moments, the place and the gaps, where we get the best stuff.
Speaker:We get fulfillment, we get peace and contentment.
Speaker:We get our best ideas.
Speaker:We just, Get into a higher state of wellbeing in those places.
Speaker:But if we're always doing and we're stacking, like I used to do stacking
Speaker:tasks and deadlines, we are never gonna create the moments for that.
Speaker:So like I said, the biggest barriers to fulfillment is not looking in
Speaker:that direction, looking in the direction of satisfaction, like
Speaker:constantly striving to achieve more, to be more recognized, to have more
Speaker:accolades, to accumulate more, right?
Speaker:If we don't understand
Speaker:that fulfillment doesn't come
Speaker:from those things,
Speaker:then we are going to keep stuck
Speaker:on that hamster wheel.
Speaker:And really what I've seen is that when you are disconnected from yourself,
Speaker:so if you're being very busy, and I've certainly been like this, that you
Speaker:kind of get lost in all the busyness.
Speaker:You get lost in particularly in business, there are challenges that
Speaker:arise that you really need to be all in, and it takes so much of
Speaker:your head space and your focus that.
Speaker:Doesn't create a lot of space in your mind and in your life.
Speaker:And then we end up really kind of, if we get stuck on this, we
Speaker:feel very disconnected from our true nature, from ourselves.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And in episode 52 of the podcast I talked about how it's so important to have
Speaker:this time to connect with yourself.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:And.
Speaker:The gifts that we get from it.
Speaker:Okay?
Speaker:Because un, if we are not slowing down and spending time doing nothing,
Speaker:and I'm not saying a long time, it could be 10 minutes, but if we're not
Speaker:getting those moments, those gaps, we're losing connection to ourselves.
Speaker:We're losing connection to these deeper feelings that are very
Speaker:nourishing and they're very sustaining.
Speaker:They're rejuvenating.
Speaker:They will sustain your success.
Speaker:They will be like a shot of vitality serum.
Speaker:Okay?
Speaker:And if we're not creating.
Speaker:Moments for that, we're just gonna miss out.
Speaker:So the reason why, chasing fulfillment or looking in the direction of fulfillment,
Speaker:I'm not saying don't reach your goals and your achievements and all of that,
Speaker:of course you're going to do that.
Speaker:Nothing I say will make you stop that.
Speaker:But look in the direction of fulfillment as well.
Speaker:Okay, because it's important for your health.
Speaker:It gets you outta that fight or flight response.
Speaker:It gets you out of the system being in that overactive response and gets
Speaker:you back into homeostasis in the body.
Speaker:So balancing your hormones, balancing your metabolism, it's important
Speaker:for your happiness, and it's important to sustain your success.
Speaker:I don't see anyone who is
Speaker:burning themselves out,
Speaker:who is happy and able
Speaker:to sustain that level.
Speaker:They all come and they're like, I went out of my business.
Speaker:I went out of what I'm doing.
Speaker:Okay?
Speaker:so it's really important to look at all these factors in sustaining your success.