Fulfilled: What If Bliss Belongs in the Plan?

For the past 12 to 18 months, I've had a mantra: Blog. Book. Broaden.  Blog consistently. Finish the book. Broaden my reach. When I wrote Personal Mantra: A Compass, Not a Checklist, I added another B:

Bliss.

At the time, bliss almost felt like the reward. Do the work. Build the thing. Chase the dream. Then make room for joy.

Lately, I've been wondering if I have it backward. Maybe bliss belongs closer to the beginning.

Does This Matter?

I've been exploring four things I believe we all need to thrive.

To feel safe: Can I exhale here?

To feel seen: Do I matter here?

To feel fulfilled: Does this matter?

And to feel empowered: What am I capable of? (We'll get to that one next week.)

Fulfillment is an interesting one because no one else can give it to us. But people can certainly help us discover it. They can encourage our growth. Give us opportunities to learn. Challenge us. Invite our contribution. Nurture our curiosity. Help us connect what we're doing with something that matters to us. And sometimes, someone sees something in us before we've fully seen it ourselves.

I experienced that this past year. One of my mentors started our earliest conversations with questions that sounded almost too simple:

What brings you joy?

What would a perfect day look like?

Those questions gave me room to blend things I had spent years treating as separate: writing, creating, connecting, listening, encouraging, building. 

For perhaps the first time in a long time, I wasn't simply doing work I was good at. I was doing work that felt meaningful. I felt fulfilled. And even in her absence, I still feel empowered by what those conversations revealed.

Maybe that's one of the greatest things we can do for another person. Not give them a path to follow, but help them notice their own.

The Girl Who Taught People to Play

There's another version of me I've been thinking about lately. The girl whose first really cool job out of college was working for a navigation company as a canal boat instructor and dinner cruise hand. The girl who earned a degree in recreation. The girl who eventually worked at a resort where her actual job involved helping people play, recreate, connect, and focus on wellness. The resort became my playground, too.

Over the years, I traveled pretty far from her. I became a writer. A web developer. A marketer. A communicator. A culture-builder. A leader. I built a career. And I'm proud of that career. But that girl is still here. She remembers something I've always known:

People forget to play.

We get busy adulting. Paying mortgages. Building careers. Meeting deadlines. Sitting in meetings. Caring for people. Taking care of homes and bodies and responsibilities. We become very good at doing what needs to be done. And sometimes we forget to ask what makes us feel alive.

The Other Four B's

Which brings me back to bliss. Because if I strip away practicality for a moment—salary, benefits, bills, expectations, what makes sense, what other people might think—and ask myself what I actually want, another mantra appears:

Barefoot. Beach. Board (SUP). Bike.

It makes me laugh even as I write it. Because it doesn't sound particularly strategic. There's no five-year plan attached. No measurable outcome. No respectable career ladder. Just water. A bike. A paddleboard. Bare feet. Writing. Creating. Speaking. Playing. Living.

And an awful lot of joy.

The practical part of me immediately starts making her case. I have a good job. Good benefits. A salary that helps pay the bills, even if some days it still feels like a J.O.B.—just over broke. There are responsibilities. There is reality. But the dreamer in me doesn't actually need to win that argument today.

She just needs to be heard (another version of Seen: Do I Matter Here?)

A Compass, Not a Checklist

Maybe this is what I was trying to tell myself when I wrote about needing a compass instead of a checklist.

Fulfillment isn't necessarily found by checking every box we've been told should make us happy. Career. Achievement. Salary. Title. Productivity. Nor do I think fulfillment requires throwing all of that away and running barefoot toward the nearest body of water.

Tempting, though.

Maybe it's about paying attention to what keeps pulling us toward ourselves. Writing does that for me. So does creating. So does helping someone see something differently. So does speaking and connecting and encouraging.  And so does riding my bike. Being near water. Standing on a paddleboard. Playing. Feeling the sun and wind on my skin. Feeling fully, ridiculously alive.

Perhaps I don't have to choose between Blog. Book. Broaden. and Barefoot. Beach. Board. Bike. Maybe the sweet spot is somewhere in the merging. Maybe that's where Bliss has been waiting all along.

I'm still going to blog. I'm still finishing Cycling Shorts. I'm still going to broaden into more speaking, teaching, and sharing. But I'm beginning to let myself imagine a different version of what that future could look like.

Maybe someday I'll hit publish from somewhere near the water. Maybe after Cycling Shorts is finished, I'll begin the next book barefoot, with my paddleboard nearby and that crazy, ridiculous, ridiculously fun water bike waiting for me (more to come on that soon). Maybe I'll work. And play. And create. And contribute. And help. 

Maybe fulfillment isn't about choosing purpose over pleasure.

Maybe it's about building a life with enough room for both.

Because the joy of creating has outweighed the occasional angst. The more I've leaned into writing, building, dreaming, and sharing, the more like myself I've felt.

And perhaps that's still the compass.

Not simply asking:

What should I do next?

But:

What makes me feel most like me?