Whole Man

#3: 6 Steps to a More Fulfilling Life

• Brennan Hilleary • Season 1 • Episode 3

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In this episode, I break fulfillment down into something practical. No blowing up your life. No chasing a new version of yourself.

We start by reframing burnout. It is not a productivity problem. It is an energy problem. Using seven areas of life, you will quickly spot where your energy is leaking and run a simple one day audit to confirm it.

From there, we get clear on how you actually want to feel, not just what you want to achieve. Because success without fulfillment is not sustainable.

You will learn how to identify draining habits, uncover the story behind them, and ask one honest question that reveals what is really holding you back.

This is not about becoming someone new. It is about removing what is in the way and making daily choices that give you energy back.

If you are successful on the outside but feel like something is missing, this episode gives you a clear place to start.


Enjoy!

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SPEAKER_00:

I'm hearing the word fulfillment be thrown around a lot in different spaces. And I want to demystify fulfillment. Uh, I'm gonna be talking about burnout again, but also I'm gonna be talking about fulfillment. And really, my goal with this episode is to help you guys understand what is fulfillment practically, and then how do you create it more in your life practically? Because I feel like there's so many, there's so much woo-hoo stuff around alignment and fulfillment, and uh, you know, you just gotta go with the flow and you just gotta surrender to God, surrender to the universe, just uh be present all the time. And while inherently none of those things are wrong, I want to really try to paint a picture for everybody that's listening to this. Around if you're the person who you feel like you're a workaholic, a high achiever, your whole life you've learned how to chase success. And at first, that gave you a ton of fulfillment, a ton of energy. It was really, really addicting in a way. And then slowly over time, you felt yourself losing your spark. You don't feel as motivated, you don't feel as inspired, you don't feel as passionate about your life, you're feeling dead inside, and you feel trapped and you don't know what to do. That problem is essentially we don't have enough fulfillment in our life. So let's talk about how you can practically address that. So I want to start this by saying everybody's situation is different. So, what I'm gonna talk about today is what worked for me, and it's also what's worked for a lot of the people that I've helped. Um, on top of helping service-based business owners go from daily firefighting to confident leadership, which is helping them get out of the day-to-day, making sure they can work on the business instead of constantly in the business. Additional to that work, I also help high achievers who are externally successful, internally miserable. They feel like work is consuming their life and yeah, they they feel trapped. They don't know how to take the space to figure out what they really want and pursue a life that feels more energizing and fulfilling. So I'm gonna really get into this and talk about how you can, the high achiever who may be feeling dead inside right now, how can you create more fulfillment in your life? So, step number one, I want to go over something that's very fundamental because I think a lot of times we think about things in terms of just the physical world, so just from like an external perspective. And I want to talk about things more so in the frame of energy. So it's been proven by quantum physics that everything is energy. And and why I'm saying that is because energy is the currency of life. Uh, energy is a limited resource. So just like money, it gets spent every single day. You spend your energy on your work, relationships, your responsibilities, your thoughts, and your focus. And then some investments pay you back, meaning that sometimes you deposit your energy into something and you get a return of investment of your energy, meaning I do the thing, I feel energized as I do it. And then other ones just strain your bank account, meaning that I invest my energy in the thing and I feel emptier than I did before. And burnout specifically comes from not doing too much, but we burnout from investing our energy in the wrong things for too long. So the first fundamental thing to understand about if you're listening to this and you just feel exhausted and you don't feel fulfilled and you feel like your life is falling apart, understand that there's multiple things going on from a simple perspective. What's happening is the ratio of stuff in your life that is energizing you is a lot less than the ratio of stuff in your life that's training you. And that's not because there's something wrong with you. It's because a lot of the things that you're maybe doing don't reflect what you really want to be doing. Uh, you maybe feel like you should be doing a lot of things that you're doing. However, it's not fundamentally what your soul is calling you to do. And I'm gonna be using language like soul, by the way. I believe we all have a true self underneath all the conditioning and behaviors and stuff that we've learned to survive in a society that we're in. So just know if soul doesn't resonate with you, take it or leave it. Uh, true self, soul, higher self, whatever you want to call it. Um, when there's a disconnect between who you truly are and the things that you're doing and the life that you're living, you start to feel really drained, and then you start to feel a lot of lack of energy. So the first thing we got to figure out if you're somebody who wants more fulfillment in your life, is we got to figure out what areas of your life are draining your energy the most. So when I work with people, we talk about seven different areas of life. And let's see if I can remember these off the top of my head. The seven areas of life are social life. So that is your community, your connections with friends, connections outside your significant other and your family. So that's social life. We got mental health, that's an obvious one. We got physical health, your nutrition, your fitness, your exercising. Um, we have career, so your job or what you do for work. We have spirituality, whatever that means to you, your connection with yourself, connection to God, your religion, whatever that that means to you. We got financial, which is obviously money. And then there's one where we got family. We got family life. So that's your people you consider family, your significant other, the people closest to you. So those are seven different areas of life. So it's really important to understand that we're multidimensional by nature. And one of the characteristics of being really drained and living in survival mode is we think of our life very much so as black or white. Um, the way that we think is not super, it's almost like it's hard for us to carry two things in our mind at once. It's very much so this or that mentality. When in reality, that's not the way reality actually works. A lot of truth lives in the gray area. So reality is multidimensional. So it's time to first start thinking about your life in a multidimensional way. So there's seven different areas of your life. So I'm gonna say these again because it's important. You got family life, you got social life, you got mental health, you got physical health, you got spirituality, you got career, and you got financial. Okay. I want you to ask yourself the question out of these seven areas of my life, which area do I feel the most drained in? Which area do I feel the most dissatisfied in? So that's question number one is all of us have what I call um energy leaks in our life. And typically there's multiple areas of our life at once that we are leaking energy in, meaning that the energy that we're putting into those areas of life, we're not getting a good return of investment in those areas. So we got to figure out which one is the most draining for us right now. Because the way that our areas of life work is everything's kind of interconnected, meaning that if you start to improve one area of life as far as creating more fulfillment, then the other areas of life will start to kind of go up with it. So if you have an anchor, um, you have if you have a ship in the ocean and you have an anchor and it's too heavy, the ship will sink, right? So burnout happens when there's too many anchors that's pulling our boat down. So let's get rid of one. So ask yourself the question: which area of my life is the most draining right now? And if that's hard for you to answer, because it feels like every area of your life is draining, ask yourself the question, maybe which area of your life do you feel like you are the most stuck in, or you feel like you procrastinate the most in? That's also a good sign. So step one is I want you to identify that. Um, one other thing that you could also do, if you're really not clear on this, some people, if if you're like me, I'd I would have had no idea. Um, and sometimes what I think the area of my life is training me the most is is not it. So another thing you can do is what I like to call the energy audit. So take um pick a day that you feel the most busy throughout the week, and then I want you to write down everything that you do, like all the all the basic activities. I'm talking um stuff you do for your job, I'm talking going to the gym. If you do that, I'm taking care of your kids. Just list as many activities as you can. And then I want you at the end of the day to put a minus sign next to the activities that you felt drained your energy, and a plus sign next to the activity that you felt gave you energy, and maybe like a little, I don't know if you guys know what I'm talking, a little squiggly line if you're not really sure. And at the end of the day, do an inventory so you can look at how many plus signs are there compared to how many minus signs there are. If there's more minus signs than plus signs, chances are uh you're feeling burnt out. Chances are you're feeling really drained and exhausted. And then I want you to look at those activities that you're engaging in and think about, okay, which area of life do these activities fall into? So doing this exercise, you'll start to see patterns. You'll start to see, oh wow, like there's a lot of stuff I'm doing in my career that's draining the crap out of me. Or there's a lot of stuff I'm doing in my family life that's draining the crap out of me. So that's also a really helpful exercise if you feel like you don't know. So step one, identify the area of life that is draining you the most. Step two, I'm gonna preface this by saying, this is hard to do sometimes. I want you to get honest with yourself around what you truly want out of that area of life. And when I say get clear on what you want, I don't just mean what you want that area of life to look like. I also mean how you want that area of life to feel. Because, for example, if I want to have financial freedom in the area of life that is financial and career, it's kind of a two-fer. However, I don't specify that I want to feel at peace with that freedom, then you can have all the money in the world and be miserable. And maybe the person listening to this right now is very financially well off and they are miserable, which is um typically the people I help. So, and I've been there. Um, so get clear on what you want. And if this is hard for you, because it's normal, by the way, if it is, then I want you to get clear on what you don't want first. Our brain is programmed to look at things that keep us safe, so it's easier for our brain to identify the negatives, uh, more so than the positives. So whatever you don't want is where you start, and then whatever the opposite of that is is what you want. So you can kind of reverse engineer it. So get clear on what you don't want. That'll give you your vision of what you want. So, step one, get clear on the area of life that's draining you the most out of those seven areas we talked about. Step two, figure out what you want in that area of life and start with if you're having trouble with that, what you don't want. Then step three is I want you to ask yourself the question when it comes to what you want, what are the patterns of behavior that I'm engaging in right now that are preventing me from getting what I want? So, really practical example here. Let's say, like what I want is to work out consistently five days a week and feel energized. And that's within the realm of physical health. You could argue it's mental health too. Sometimes these will kind of intermix together, which is fine. Let's say the pattern of behavior that's holding me back from doing that is I keep sleeping through my alarm in the morning. So that's the pattern of behavior that's holding me back. I keep hitting the snooze button. Um, so okay, well, let's take it deeper. What's the story I'm telling myself? What's the story that comes up in my mind when I start to try and get really specific about how to do the thing? So, what I mean by that is you know that you're waking up late, and we know that we're not able to get up and go to the gym. So, when we start thinking about solutions for that, what's in the way? Because typically the stories that we tell ourselves unconsciously are the reason why we're not getting super clear and specific about how to set ourselves up for success. Um, so um, we need to get really clear around, okay, well, what can I specifically do to make it more likely that I'm able to go to the gym in the morning? And if you feel like there's some resistance when you start thinking about that, maybe there's some fear, some tightness in your chest, uh, that's a sign that there's something within you that does not align with the thing that you want. And we talked about this a little bit, I think, uh a couple episodes ago. So you want to really observe that without judgment. Observe the parts of you that are resisting going and working out. Because up to this point, that hasn't been a part of your identity. That may be what your true self wants you to do, but your current self, the current version of you, has maybe a belief and patterns of behavior that contradict what your true self wants. So to bridge the gap between your current self and the person that you want to be, it's not so much about becoming somebody new. I hate when I hear that in the self-improvement space. It's not about becoming a better version of you. It's not about becoming somebody new. It's about understanding what is in the way of me being the person I've always been. What is in the way? One, what's in the way typically is one, your behavior's in the way. Two, there's a story that you're telling yourself internally that's in the way. And then beneath that is a belief that's in the way. And I'm on I'm about to get to give you something that um clients they do pay for. So I really hope this is valuable for you. To figure out what your limiting belief is underneath the story that you're telling yourself, I want you to ask yourself the question what am I scared of that's gonna happen if I get this thing? So if you start working out consistently, what are you scared is gonna happen? What scares me about getting what I want? Because if you're a high achiever and you've learned how to grind and chase success, especially if you're in a service-oriented business or job where you've learned that your success is measured by how much you can do for others, I guarantee you, in order for you to be as good as you are at serving others, you've had to unconsciously suppress what you want and your desires. Which means that you've learned that in order for me to give other people what I want, or in order to give other people what they want, I have to sacrifice what I want. If that's resonating with you right now, then I want you to like, comment, subscribe. I want to hear your guys' thoughts on this. A lot of times we're not getting what we want, especially if we're higher achievers that are in a service-oriented business or work or job, because we have a belief that says in order for me to give other people what they need, I have to sacrifice what I want. In order for me to help others, I have to sacrifice myself. That's the deep-rooted story. Okay, so let's get Granler again. So, step one, we got to figure out what area of life is draining us the most. Step two, we got to figure out what we want in that area of life. Step three, we got to identify what are the behaviors that are holding me back from getting what I want. Step four, we gotta figure out the story that we're telling ourselves as to why that's that's uh helping me engage in those behaviors. And then next step, I don't know what step it is, six, I think. The next step is figure out what the limiting belief is behind it or the belief that is limiting us, that's that's in the way of us um really doing what we want to do. And the way that we figure out that limiting belief is asking ourselves the question um, what am I scared is gonna happen if I get what I want? And really sit with that. Don't try to force it, don't try to intellectualize it. Ask yourself the question, take a deep breath. What am I scared is gonna happen if I don't get what I want? And just sit there. You'll get your answer. And maybe it's right away, maybe it's a week from then, maybe it's 20 minutes, you'll get your answer. The key is you gotta have this space where you can hear yourself. Because a lot of us have a voice in our head that's really loud. It's almost like a psychotic roommate that's in our head that is constantly talking down to us, that's constantly frantic, that's always worried about things. That voice is not you. That voice is your ego. Meaning that's the voice that has been created in order to keep our identity safe. And the thing about it is sometimes that voice is helpful and sometimes it's not. And when it comes to really getting clear on what you truly desire, your heart's desires, you have to put yourself in a position, you have to regulate yourself so that voice is not super loud, so that you can hear the whispers of your soul, is what I call it. Because your true self is not frantic, it's not urgent, it's not loud, it's calm, confident, and it is steady. And it's just gonna tell you what you need. And this is a skill you have to develop. So I'm gonna leave step six at step six because it it starts to get not, I wouldn't say complex, it's pretty simple. There's a lot of work that happens after step six when you figure out what your limiting belief is. So, you know, not for nothing. If you guys are interested in learning more about how do you create new beliefs for yourself, how do you uh build patterns of behavior that better serve you, then then please connect with me. Um I'll give you the gist though, just to make sure you guys have a way to complete this thing. So I want you to, when you've identified the new b the the belief that's been limiting you, which is I have to sacrifice myself in order to be successful. Maybe the new belief could be um my success is defined by how energized I am. So you wanna you want to create a new belief that actually helps you align with what you want. And then you want to form a habit that reinforces that new belief. So it's it's great to have awareness, but knowledge itself is not power, application is. So you gotta be aware of your new belief and what you want to embody, and then you have to be very, very intentional about be building a pattern of behavior that reinforces that new belief. So instead of waking up in the morning and skipping through my alarm, the person who believes that my success is defined by how energized I am is gonna prep the night before to make sure it's as easy as possible when they wake up to get to the gym. That person is not gonna hit snooze on their alarm. So you wanna start thinking about it in terms of What's the person? What kind of person do I need to be in order to get what I want? How would a person act if they have what I want? And then you want to start embodying that person one step at a time. And what you're going to notice is over time, it's going to be hard at first because anything that contradicts a pattern of behavior that we're currently engaged in is going to be hard. It's going to require an identity shift. So you're going to start doing things that fundamentally your brain and your body is not used to doing. So give yourself grace in the process of making this shift. Keep it small. So keep it tangible. Don't try to change five different areas of life at once. Keep it at one and build from there. Over time, you are going to feel you're going to see that you're going to start building some momentum. You're going to start feeling better. And then that new belief is not something that you have to convince yourself to believe. It's going to be actually a part of your identity. Good practical example of this is I didn't really start working out until I was probably 19 years old. I never considered myself an athlete or somebody who works out or somebody who is healthy. And so when I first started working out, I had to use the fuel of I don't really feel good enough. I hate my body. I want to look strong and jacked, which, by the way, is fine at first. Whatever fuel you got to use to get you out of your rut, I want you to use it. However, eventually I realized I was going way too hard and I had to change my fuel and my motivation behind why I was doing the thing. And for me, it was less so about looking good. And it was more so about I wanted to be the kind of person who commits to something. I started to think about it in terms of I want to be somebody who devotes myself to a practice. I'm somebody who shows up when I don't feel like showing up. I'm somebody who values my own life force and values feeling good. And then I started to operate from that place. And now, because working out's a part of my identity, it's hard for me not to work out. It's actually more difficult for me to not get to the gym than it is to get to the gym. So that's what happens when you actually take the time to do the stuff we're talking about. So again, to create more fulfillment, fundamentally creating more fulfillment in your life comes from doing things in alignment with what you actually want. And uh it also has to do with doing things in alignment with your value system, which we can dive deep into in another episode. But yeah, that's uh that's kind of the gist of it. So I hope this was helpful for you guys. Um I've definitely I'm still a work in progress when it comes to this stuff too. So um excited for you guys to hear more and let me know if there's any other stuff you want me to talk about, and we'll talk soon.