It's time to define Fulfilment

There’s a strange silence after the applause. A stillness once the mountain is climbed. You got there. You delivered. You checked the box. And yet, what greets you isn’t joy or pride, but something flatter. Like a low hum of nothing. A quiet ache behind the eyes. The question you can’t quite shake: 'Is this it?'”

Welcome to the modern achievement trap, where success is celebrated louder than fulfilment is felt.

We hear it everywhere: Live a fulfilled life.
But ask most people what that actually means, and you’ll get vague stares, superficial word vomit, or a list of things they want to do before they die.

The truth? We’ve been taught to desire fulfilment, but not to define it.

Instead, we consume fulfilment like it’s a lifestyle aesthetic: travel more, hustle less, chase your passion, meditate, journal, green juice. But if these actions aren’t rooted in your actual values, if they’re not connected to who you are, they become just another performance.

The Cultural Fluency of Discontent

Here’s what I’ve noticed: We’re brilliant at identifying what we don’t want. It’s practically a language of its own now, spoken fluently by midlife adults everywhere.

Burnout. Disconnection. Shame. Pressure. Midlife panic.

We can list what’s not working for us with alarming speed, but when it comes to naming what nourishes us, we stall.

Because knowing what truly fulfils you requires emotional risk.

And most high-achieving adults are risk-averse when it comes to the inner world, having been well trained to fix, function, perform, but not feel.

Clarifying what truly fulfils us? That’s intimate work. It requires effort. Stillness. Brutal honesty. And let’s face it: most of us avoid that level of introspection because we’re tired, stretched, and afraid of what we might discover.

I’ll say it plainly: we’re often lazy thinkers when it comes to our own lives. Not because we lack intelligence, but because we lack space. And when we do stop long enough to ask, What actually fulfils me?, we quickly detour into external metrics: success, money, recognition, productivity, legacy.

But fulfilment isn’t found in achievement. At least, not the way we’ve been taught to define it.

Improvement and Fulfilment: The Quiet Link

Here’s what I know, from both lived experience and years of deep coaching work, (and let me be clear, I know this for me and for the people I coach, it may not apply to everyone):

Fulfilment is inseparable from improvement.
Not the kind of improvement that reeks of hustle culture.
But the kind that feels like breath returning to the body.
The kind that says: " I'm not trying to prove, I’m trying to become".

For me, improvement is a thread that runs through everything meaningful. I play tennis, not just to hit a ball, but to improve. I read voraciously, mostly nonfiction, and every book is chosen for how it might stretch my thinking, challenge my biases, or add a layer to my understanding of self and others.

I don’t do these things because I think I need to be better.
I do them because when I’m learning, evolving, refining, I feel most alive. Most me.

A Subtle Shift That Changes Everything

For a long time, I thought fulfilment came from achievement. Pushing my performance to 'realise potential', not really thinking about what that means. High standards of delivery. Always putting pressure on myself to be “on top form.” And I won’t lie, some of that is still true. I still feel good when I deliver to my own standards of excellence.

But what I learned is that was ego-based and ego-driven. External. Tied to outcomes, approval, recognition, validation. It was about being “enough” or being "good" in the eyes of others.

Fulfilment feels quieter. More internal. It’s not about accolades, it’s about resonance. Integrity. Knowing that the way I’m living reflects my deeper values.

And I see this all the time, intelligent, emotionally complex adults who have spent decades building careers, families, identities around being capable. They tell me things like: ‘I should be grateful, but I just feel off,’ or ‘I feel like I am making a fuss because in essence it all looks good but I can't feel the joy of it'.

Somewhere in midlife, the illusion starts to crack and achievement can no longer masquerade as fulfilment, because no matter how hard and how much you do, you will not feel fulfilled.

Fulfilment isn’t a finish line, it’s a rhythm.

Fulfilment is not the high. It’s the hum.

Not the spotlight. The steady glow.
Not "I did it!" but "This matters, and I feel it deep in my belly."

It’s what lets you exhale. A relationship with life where how I show up matches who I’m trying to become.

The 1–5 Fulfilment Check-In

One of the simplest and most powerful tools I use (and share with clients) is the daily fulfilment check-in. Two questions:

1. On a scale of 1 to 5, how fulfilling was today?

2. What specifically created that sense of fulfilment, or drained it?

That’s it. No big journaling prompt. Just two questions. It’s so deceptively simple that most people roll their eyes. Until they try it.

Because over time, you start to see patterns.

You start to notice what activities nourish you. What relationships energise you. What kinds of effort actually feel worth it; and what’s just noise. You start designing your life around what works for you rather than what looks good.

And slowly, without fanfare, you stop outsourcing fulfilment to big life events or future milestones. You stop relying on breakthroughs or big wins. You find joy in steady improvement. In the act of showing up fully, even when it’s hard, quiet, or unseen.

That’s when life gets interesting. Because the power comes back into your hands.

You begin to design your life around what actually works for you. Not what looks good on a highlight reel.

What the Research Confirms (But Your Nervous System Already Knows)

The psychology of growth is clear: improvement meets three core human needs: the freedom to shape our lives, the desire to feel effective, the longing for meaningful connection.

Improvement feeds all three.
Achievement often starves at least one.

And while dopamine-driven success might offer a thrilling spike; it’s serotonin, the neurotransmitter of contentment, that kicks in when we align with who we are and live with steady intention.

So yes, listen to what your inner wisdom is telling you, there’s actual science behind your quiet craving for something deeper.

This Isn’t yet Another Unprecedented Crisis. It’s an Invitation.

Midlife is a breakthrough, a shape shift, and evolution (sometimes wearing a disguise).
It’s the moment of reckoning where the life you built collides with the life you actually want.

This is where real change begins.
By shifting the criteria for success and clearly defining fulfilment within your own world.

Asking:

• Not “What am I achieving?” but “Am I proud of how I’m living?”

• Not “How do I do more?” but “What would more alignment look like?”

• Not “When will it be enough?” but “Can I choose enough now?”

What My Clients Teach Me (and Remind Themselves)

They don't find fulfilment in getting a new job or a new single life, they find it in reclaiming their sense of agency after a life transition has left them feeling displaced.

They don't find fulfilment in getting themselves ‘back on track’, they feel it when they redefine their identities from role to real and live in aligned presence.

They feel it when they stop chasing a version of success that no longer fits, and start improving in ways that no one could see, but that they could feel.

Final Thought: Fulfilment is Built, Not Found

We are conditioned to chase fulfilment as if it’s something out there, waiting for us at the end of a promotion, a holiday, a relationship, a reinvention. But that’s the lie.

We’ve been sold a lie that fulfilment lives at the peak of the next big win.

The truth is simpler, and more liberating:
Fulfilment lives in the climb.
In the 1% improvements. In the pauses. In the mess.
In the ordinary moments made sacred by attention and intention.

Fulfilment isn’t something you find. It’s something you build, one decision, one reflection, one upgrade at a time.

And it starts when you stop asking: "What do I need to achieve to be fulfilled?"

And start asking: "How can I improve the way I’m living, little by little, today?"

So if you’re tired of chasing, try choosing.
If you’re tired of performing, try becoming.
And if you’re wondering whether you’re allowed to want more meaning, the answer is yes.

Because that’s what gives life meaning.
Not the applause. Not the outcomes.
But the quiet knowing that you’re becoming someone you actually respect.
Not more stuff.
More self.

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A Quick Note:

Thank you for taking the time to read this blog - I know your time is precious and I am grateful you chose to invest some of it here with me.