Picture a high-performing executive who has accomplished an impressive amount. Externally, they appear incredibly successful in leadership and life. But, now imagine that internally, they don’t know who they are outside of their accomplishments and don’t feel fulfilled.
I have seen executives and CEOs lose connection to themselves, their purpose and their core values when they’ve defined themselves solely by their accomplishments. They’ve been rewarded for their achievements their entire lives and work extremely hard to get to the top of the organization, but once they get there, it can feel meaningless.
What could be behind this disconnect is that they haven’t necessarily taken the time to learn about themselves on a deeper level. When you solely define yourself by your accomplishments, you don’t have peace with who you are, which can become very empty.
Having struggled with not knowing myself outside of my accomplishments before I founded Connected EC, I know this topic intimately. I lost myself, my health and my well-being in the process of achieving my goal to become a corporate executive. In reality, I was driven to accomplish for my self-worth and validation versus for the impact I could have in the world.
Chasing accomplishments doesn’t lead to long term flourishing. However, what does is knowing your core and cultivating a deeper sense of fulfillment.
Being fulfilled doesn’t mean disregarding accomplishment. What it does mean is not defining your self-worth by your accomplishments. You can be both incredibly accomplished and deeply fulfilled.
What is fulfillment? Fulfillment means having a deep sense of inner peace, alignment and a groundedness from doing what you intend to do in life. Fulfillment comes from feeling sense of purpose and acting in alignment with your own personal values. People who are truly fulfilled do experience the full range of human emotions and experiences, including sadness and setbacks.
Integrating Accomplishments with Fulfillment
You are not your accomplishments. You are not your success or failure. You are something much deeper. Understanding the distinction between “doing” and “being” can help you access and lead from your core.
When we get caught up in a doing cycle, we can keep doing and doing for the quick hit or the immediate sense of accomplishment. However, we can be left feeling incomplete because we aren’t connected to ourselves or the impact we want to have.
Your being is who you are at the core, your essence. Your being helps you become grounded in what matters and to your purpose. Everything we accomplish from a place of being is stronger. We are accomplishing in service of a greater purpose and what matters, with true connection to ourselves and others.
What motivates you to accomplish?
Indications accomplishments are for validation:
- You define yourself and your self-worth by your accomplishments
- Accomplishments become a quick hit to feel okay or comfort yourself in the moment, but you’re left feeling incomplete
- You’ve sacrificed yourself and your well-being to accomplish at all costs
Indications accomplishments are for impact:
- You are grounded in what matters, your essence, your purpose
- You are accomplishing in service of a greater purpose or having a positive impact
- You lead with a foundation in physical, psychological, emotional and spiritual well-being
If you notice you have been coming from a place of accomplishment for validation, it’s important you don’t get into a shame cycle. Instead, start by recognizing it’s okay to be driven to achieve. Accomplishment for validation might be where you are today, but if it’s not serving your leadership and life, you can shift to focusing on accomplishments for impact.
How to Seek Fulfillment:
Spiritual vitality, which is the connection to our best-self and/or something greater than ourselves, is essential to cultivating a deeper sense of fulfillment in work and life.
1. Assess what motivates you to accomplish
Review the indications about being motivated to accomplish for validation versus impact. What do you notice about how you approach achieving?
Consider what you want to achieve at work. Assess what is motivating you to accomplish: What is accomplishing this being driven by? Is it truly in line with the impact you want to make? Or is it driven by the need for a sense of validation from others?
To focus on accomplishment for impact, connect with what matters to you and on serving a greater purpose, with less emphasis on the achievement itself.
2. Connect to yourself deeper
Everyone has different access points to connect more deeply to the essence aspect of themselves. What connects you with your best self and/or something greater than yourself?
How you connect to your being crosses over every facet of your life. It’s not one thing. A start of ideas include: nature, meditation, acting as a positive leader, community, or connecting deeply with others. For a full list of examples, reference our previous blog on Spiritual Vitality.
Get to know what connects you to your being, the essence aspect of yourself. Explore activities that get you closer to connecting to this aspect of yourself and incorporate them in your work and life regularly.
3. Encourage appreciation
We often don’t spend enough time appreciating others for their qualities as leaders and human beings. Workplaces tend to overemphasize recognition for what we do well and accomplishments. Recognition, while important, has limitations, including:
- It’s conditional based on successes
- It’s based on the past, what people have already achieved
- It can be scarce if it comes in the form of monetary recognition
Solely focusing on recognition can promote an environment of accomplishment for validation. To express the importance of both being and doing, intentionally appreciate peoples’ inherent value as much as you recognize them for the results achieved.
Reflect or journal about: What qualities do you genuinely appreciate about others as a leader and a person? What qualities do you genuinely appreciate about yourself? Tell others what you appreciate about them.
4. Act in alignment with your core values
Your core values are your internal compass, a key aspect of who you are at the core. They are the principles that guide your life and help strengthen what brings you meaning. Through having clarity on your core values, you’ll know who you are, what you stand for, and what your principles are. Connecting with what matters to you helps you understand the direction to focus your efforts to achieve.
Reflection: What’s one step you could take to cultivate fulfillment this week?
The more you understand and reconnect who you are at the core, the more you appreciate and express that aspect of yourself to lead for the greatest impact.
