Why you should find a deeper purpose in your work!
Wanting to be someone else is a waste of the person you are
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A long time ago we used to live in caves, and it was essential to have plenty of wood for the fire and food to eat and we would where possible stockpile for a rainy day.
Fast forward to today, and these things are still just as important we need to have a roof over heads and be able to financially support our family’s health and education and happiness!
What’s also not changed is our need to be wanted!
We want to be useful for the group we certainly don’t want to be thrown out of our tribe.
Nowadays this wouldn’t be as bad, if one group of friends decide not to like you, you can easily find a new tribe online, often a far better group of friends that share your values, but it still feels horrible!
Humans are driven by emotions, fear to be one of the most powerful, and we fear being seen
as unsuccessful in the eyes of others.
We let others define what success means, and in doing so, our sense of self-worth becomes wrapped up in other peoples perceived definitions of success.
Many entrepreneurs are driven by a feeling of unworthiness often related to wanting to be liked by others.
This could be feelings of unworthiness due to parents having little money to buy cool clothes at school and getting bullied or lacking social confidence with the opposite sex whatever their pain point is, success often seems to be a great answer, right!
But as soon as they get out of poverty or start getting attention from others and reach their goal they have no other purpose, which can feel very empty because their sense of who they are and what they stand for was built on a story!
I know super successful entrepreneurs who if you told them at 15 where they would financially and relationship wise be in 10 years time they would have imagined that they would be the happiest person in the world but unfortunately, the mindset has stayed the same as they are still searching for validation from others in the form of success.
They still live a mindset of scarcity, they have reached the top of their mountain only to see that other people have climbed higher mountains.
They are getting their identity and self-worth from comparing themselves to other people.
One of the most essential books I read a few years ago is called Solve for happy.
Its written by Mo Gawdat a hugely successful engineer for Google who had it all, the houses, the cars, the holidays, a loving family, until one day his Child went in for a routine op and never came out, he was devastated and went into depression.
Through some really tough soulsearching, he realised that this is the last thing his son would have wanted. He understood that the cause of his unhappiness was focusing on what he doesn’t have any more, on what life should be like, instead of focusing on what he does have
– 21 years of amazing memories and life experiences with his son! You see his son wasn’t suffering and Mo came to realise he didn’t have to hurt either!
It’s a book, and I highly recommend
But this is the way we often live our lives with far more trivial events, we forget to look at what we do have, and often focus on what we don’t have.
This isn’t to say sit at the bottom of the mountain you want to climb and ignore the mountain if it’s your dream to go to the top to see the view that will be amazing, no doubt!
But it will only last for a split second until you see the other mountains.
Instead keep looking at the fantastic view as you climb higher, feel free to rest or stop whenever you want.
Enjoy the journey, but also look down with wonder and a sense of great pride and gratitude for every step that you were able to take, you’ve come so far!
I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and to incur my own abhorrence
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