Happy vs. Fulfilled: Why Alignment Matters More Than Applause

If you ever found yourself in life feeling this way, you can be busy, but you still kind of feel empty. You can be successful. You can be extremely successful and still feel unfulfilled. You can be doing everything right and feels like something is missing, something is wrong. It's not right. And if you are, that's perfectly normal because here's what happens. Happiness comes from moments, fulfillment comes from meaning. And when what you do no longer matches who you are, pressure starts to replace peace. And there's where the lack of fulfillment is. And proving replaces purpose. What if the only thing standing between you and the life you want is the belief you have about yourself? Too many people are living beneath their potential, not because they lack ability, but because they've never been taught how to build real confidence, discipline, and buying sets. This is the Embrace Your Awesome Podcast where motivation meets buying set in ordinary people learn to unlock extraordinary confidence, purpose, and discipline. If you're ready to grow, rise and step into who you were created to be, you're in the right place. Strap in, show up, and get ready to embrace the greatness within you. And now here's my buddy and your new coach, our host, John Gaston. So listen, welcome back. We stay busy. We stay productive. We stay chasing the next big thing or the next thing. The next title, the next win, the next sales, the next relationship, the next upgrade in life, the new car, the new house. Heck, maybe it's the new significant other, the new spouse, the new dating partner, constantly seeking. And yet, if we're honest, something still kind of feels empty. In a lot of times, those things are assigned at something is empty because we're trying to feel that void that we have in our life with this next thing. And so today, we're talking about how the difference between being happy and being fulfilled because these two things are not the same. Happiness is a moment and fulfillment is a state. Why don't you think about that? And the reason so many people feel tired, frustrated, or disconnected isn't because they're failing. It's because they're living out of alignment with what their purpose and where their fulfillment is. Sometimes chasing that next big paycheck isn't necessarily realigning this. And a lot of times promotions and big things that we chase actually will take us off alignment, take us off that journey. I know that can be true in my life. And I'm confident that there's a few of you listening to this today that can probably align with that as well and say yes, I've had that experience. So let's talk about this. Happiness versus being fulfilled. Happiness is usually external. It comes from a win, it comes from a compliment, it comes from somebody else's validation, it comes from promotion on work, it comes from the next sales, it comes from a raise, a milestone. And there's nothing wrong with happiness. But I think when we talk about happiness, what we're missing is fulfillment. So again, there's nothing wrong with happiness at all. It just, it just doesn't last. It's kind of temporary. Fulfillment on the other hand, that's eternal. That's an internal, internal thought, right? It comes from meaning, it comes from feeling honest, connected integrity from knowing what you are doing, actually reflects who you are. 100% alignment to who you are. Fulfilled. Fulfilled. And I think it sounds so simple yet. I think it's one of the things that we all miss. We're all missing this. And here, here's the difference. Happiness, ask, what did I get? Fulfillment asks, does this align with who I am? I'm going to just share with you info transparency here, you know, and when I reflect on my career, I am 100% fortunate that, you know, I always say it was a divine intervention. I don't think there was any brilliance on my part to end up where I ended up. It was just I was in a position. And it became a hobby, became a part-time thing, and then it became where I was being fulfilled by that. And I walked away from a six-figure income back in 1996 to pursue what I had been doing part-time for 14 years. And it was the first time in my life I felt fulfilled. But there was a definitely a financial struggle on that, but to fulfill that, I realized who I was. I realized who I was intended to be. And I knew that the struggle that I was having was temporary. So you can be successful, you can be respected, you can even be admired, and you can still feel empty. That doesn't mean you're you're ungrateful. It means you're human, right? These are all the things that were in a lot of this times, this is where we get off track. And that's why I think that today's episode is so important. I know it is for me when I reflect back. So here's a question I want you to sit on for just a moment. What are you chasing right now that looks good, but doesn't feel good anymore? What are you chasing right now that looks good and doesn't feel good anymore? And obviously, we can't share that information because I'm talking here and we're not in some dialogue together. But I want you to ask yourself and reflect on that. Take some time. And you know, think on that. Think on that. Reflect on that. Write that answer down. And it may be revisited five, seven days from now. So let's talk about fulfillment comes from alignment. Fulfillment doesn't come from this status. It doesn't come from that next sale, that next thing that sometimes happiness comes from. It comes from being completely in alignment with a purpose and a direction and a meaning. And when I say a purpose and a connection, I'm talking about who you are as a person, not this theory, not this position, not this title. So alignment is when your values, your actions and your priorities all move in the same direction. And when you're aligned, life still requires effort, but it stops feeling heavy. The burden isn't there. Pressure gets replaced by peace. Proving gets replaced by purpose. I'm going to repeat those two things because to me, these are two things that I have in my notes that I reflect on in my journal, journaling on a regular basis. Pressure gets replaced by peace and proving gets replaced by purpose. Because once we start living in alignment with who we are in feeling fulfilled and feeling having this inner peace and feeling that we have a meaning to what we're doing every day, it's much easier to get up and go to work, right? And what do I have to prove now? I don't have to prove anything to anybody because proving is replaced by the purpose that I'm doing. And when you live for applause, you're always performing. Does that resonate with you when you're living for when you're waiting for that validation of that third party, that boss, that supervisor, co-worker, competitor? When you are when you live for applause, you're always performing. When you live in alignment, you're grounded, even when no one is watching. And you ever hear that your character is who you are when no one is watching? Well, I think your happiness is how you feel when no one's watching. When no one is watching. So here's a powerful shift for you. Stop asking, how does this make me look? Start asking yourself, does this make me feel complete? Am I made whole by this? Do I feel at peace? Because fulfillment doesn't shout. It's a quiet settling. Just calmness. Now, let's talk a little bit about the other thing that we deal with in our life. When we're dealing with fulfillment, too, is there are our snags that come in. And I have a former mentor who is a business person as well. And he would always reference this as the buzzkill fairies. And I laugh at this because when he said it, I know for me, it was 100% it connected and resonated with me. And that is no matter what we're doing. We have this perfect day plan. We have all this plan we're in the middle of something. And maybe it's a week. Maybe it's a month into a project. And sometimes buzzkillers. And those are negative people. And when I say negative people too, I'm not talking about necessarily that, but it's just negative. But it's mean people that always when the body language chin down in the chest, the shoulders sludge. Hey man, how's life going? Well, you know, it's going pretty good. But and then that, right? And listen, we all struggle. So what I'm not saying is that person is weak. I'm not saying anything. But what I'm saying is it's very hard to keep momentum when this, this energy is pulling in. But then you have the snags where we used to say the buzzkill fairies, they come in and they sprinkle their little, their little snags, their little, uh, screw up the day, the process, right? The obstacles, what they're throwing in our way. So I want you to realize that a snag isn't failure. It's kind of feedback, right? When we get, when we hit a snag, it's a feedback and most snags fall into three categories. I want to talk about those three categories to you. First snag, let's call it process related snacks. And these show up when your systems don't support your values. Your schedule is packed. Everything feels urgent. You're busy, but you're not effective. If everything matters, nothing gets, nothing gets your best. If everything matters, nothing gets your best. And then let me see, I had a client years ago, and he always tells me, and this was a conversation we had over 20 years ago, as a performance coach. And he always tells me he remembers me saying this. And here was a person that had his own business on the side, but he was also working full time, uh, full time career. And then he had three kids. And I told him, I said, you're, your business, you're only given 30% to it. Actually, you're only given 30% to your career and 33%, 33% if we want to get 33.3% or whatever. Right? If we want to get mathematical, but let's just say he's working in thirds. And if you work to go full time with your business and then be a full time parent, now you're 50/50. Or if you want to pursue your career 100%. Now it's 50/50 again, but this third is what's holding you back just a little bit. So he was dealing with a process snag. He wasn't in position for his business that he was passionate about to give 100% to it. At best, he could give it 33% of his effort. And he always brings that up to me. In me, it was just a time management thing, right? But his snag was process related. It wasn't that he didn't understand how to do his business, but he couldn't get all the processes in places to do that because he was so the other, the other two thirds of his life was split between a full time career and being a parent. And most of us are never going to be able to give 100% to one thing. But I think of 50/50, and I think when you're working in thirds, that's going to be your process snags, right? And then let's talk about this. People related snacks. These come from miscommunication and unmet expectations, unspoken expectations turn into silent frustrations. Avoided conversations turn into resentment, right? Clarity doesn't damage relationships. The lack of clarity does. One of the things that in my operation, my two operations that I run, I always tell my staff, it's very important that we eat the elephant the first thing in the morning because in the rest of the day is easy. The hardest conversation is the conversation that's going to move you forward. And when I say that, that could be an every aspect of your professional and personal life. The hardest conversations are the ones that move us forward. However, there are also the things that we want to avoid because we don't want conflict. None of us really want conflict. And even the people that are constantly in conflict and act like they like conflict, really deep down they don't. They are unfulfilled and they're projecting this interest, or this feeling into frustration. And that frustration then usually comes into snags and conflict, right? So people related snags are usually from miscommunication and unmet expectations. You cannot as a leader of a company expect someone to follow exactly what you want when you haven't communicated or led by example what that process is yourself. Clarity doesn't damage relationship a lack of clarity does. So when it comes to people snags, I think the number one thing if you were to say, John, what do I do to get over people's snacks? And I'm going to tell you right now, over communicate, be clear. You cannot inspect or you cannot expect anything that you're not willing to inspect and outline the process to. And listen at the end of the day, if you are a business owner, a manager, a leader, you got to lead. You got to lead. So sometimes the people snags are pretty much a lack of communication. And here's the hard part. When you have someone that is not aligned with you working for you, there's a couple of different options we have here. Do we need to revisit this and make it clearer? Or do we have them possibly in the wrong seat in the business? They're sitting in the wrong seat. Maybe we got them in a position that's not aligned with who they are and what they're doing. Or we're adding too many things on to them, right? Or simply, they just may not be the person. But usually if there is one area that they're good in, we got them, that most likely is they're in the wrong seat. So I want you to think about that. So so far we've talked about processed snacks and people's snacks. Let's get into the common life snacks that happen. This is, this can be emotional, mental, and physical burnout. You know, me, I am a big proponent that you should be in the gym doing something for your body. And I call it the one hour of power. And I honestly believe that is a Tony Robbins thing that I probably picked up 30 years ago. So when my morning starts, my morning process is very first thing is to calm myself in my mind. Me, I'm a faith-based person. So minus prayer, yours, if you're not faith-based, maybe yours is meditation, clarity, and then writing down my task and reviewing what I need. And then I hit the gym next. I'm physically active. Because that keeps me from becoming physically, mentally, and emotionally burnout. I have to do something for myself. I want them in dolphins going. I want to feel good. I want to know that I already achieved something right in the beginning of the day. Now, regardless of where that is for you, that might be a 6am thing for you. That might be an 8am thing for you. That could be a 9, 10am. The problem is it's very difficult to do in the middle of the day, in the middle of the day. So the common life snacks are burnout. And then health challenges. Well, if we're not taking care of ourselves, we're not eating right. We're not getting the sleep. We're over, we're over indulging. I used to have a client. And when we got down to it, what his biggest breakdown was, he wasn't healthy. And what it was was he's was in sales. So he's constantly traveling. And when you're traveling, what, you're not sleeping consistently. Well, because you're in a different bed in a hotel on the road, traveling, which is, which is exhausting within itself. But also, you're entertaining guests and everything every night. So what are you doing? Well, you're most likely not eating healthy. You're eating out. Most of the time that involves adult beverages and a lifestyle that is late into the evening. And these things after years will compound into an unhealthy lifestyle. And then health will become an issue to you. And then there's unexpected change, right? So burnout, health challenges and unexpected change, unexpected change. Somebody gets replaced in a company. Somebody dies. Somebody moves on. These moments don't mean you're off track. They're just all these snags. Be them if they're if they are the people related process related or just the common life snags. It just means that sometimes life slows down. Or I'm sorry, let me say it this way. Life slows you down. So you can hear yourself again. That's why I like to take time in the morning to hear myself. No, I'm reaffirmed to myself. And listen, I just had a really, really powerful powerful meeting with a person I'm very proud to be in business with and call business partner. But the man just inspires me and get those people around yourself. But one of the things that I was missing in my process is alone that he reminding me was, it's just say five things that you're appreciative of. Because when you're appreciative, what you're doing is you're creating a frequency and a vibe and a positive energy of appreciation. If you're constantly focused on the negativity, you're going to create a vibe and a frequency and an energy that is focused on the negativity. And don't be surprised if there's more negativity and snags in your life. So the common life snags process, snags, people snags, right? The turning snags into growth. And this is a thing. It's, you know, I always say that life is about problems and then solutions. If you have solutions to the problems, you've got less problems in life. If you don't have solutions to problems, you've got a lot of problems that are unresolved. So what can you do to take these snags and turn them into growth, right? So every snag carries an invitation. If you're willing to look at it that way, you know, one of my favorite sayings is most of us didn't, you know, have you ever had that where a man I just had a bad day to day? And a lot of times if you reflect on that day, you're going to find out that you had a maybe 15, 20, 30 minutes most that were bad. But what you did was your emotions melted into an eight-hour. 15, 20, 30 minutes. And I often relate this and you know, I'm just real quick on a, on a golfing. I like golfing. I mean, I'm by no means what you would call great at golfing. But I love it. And I love it because to me, I relate life to it. And it's a par four. So that means I got four strokes to get in the hole. And maybe my first shot's bad. Well, listen, I got three more strokes. My second stroke and my third stroke needs to make up for what lacked in the first one, right? So we have a way of recovering that. And I like to look at that with life too. If you're willing to look at it in order for you to turn this snag in this moment into staying on course and still hitting the part. So first of that, you have to be aware. You can't change what you want to acknowledge, right? You ever see little kids when you walk up to them and they're nervous, what they do is they'll kind of hide behind it. If they don't look at you, you don't see them. But we still see them, you know, and that's problems. So a lot of times we don't want to acknowledge a weakness, a deficiency, or a problem, a performance, a person, or a common snag in our life or our operation, because we just simply won't acknowledge it. Because we acknowledge it, we just feel like we don't have the energy to deal with it. Well, listen, that's going to compound. So you can't change what you want to acknowledge. So first, you've got to acknowledge it. Awareness creates choices for us. And then you go back to the problems and the solutions, right? So second is adaptability. Rigid goals will break under pressure, under real life pressure. Flexible values will guide our decisions. Now listen, I could totally relate this to so many things, but I'm going to relate it to Jiu Jitsu. As a Jiu Jitsu performer, the person who is calm and in the moment and moving, but also very aware of the circumstances and moving around, the stiffer and the harder you are, actually gives up on who knows how to use connection, leverage the opportunity to sweep you and move you. Now, if you're not a Jiu Jitsu person, that may just went right over your head. But rigid is the worst thing that you can be in Jiu Jitsu. So it's very easy for me to take Jiu Jitsu for life and know that every time I'm rigid and hard and focused and just not going to budge, I'm not flexible to adapt to this. Well, I know it doesn't work in Jiu Jitsu and I can tell you from experience, it doesn't work in life either. So adapting rigid goals will break under pressure, flexible values, flexible goals will guide your decisions and allow you the flexibility to adjust as needed. If you think about it when a plane takes off and those little adjustments, they're not flying directly. They have to make adjustments and everything vector points and everything else that happened. But there's constant movement in a plane to get to a destination. If we get one bit off course for a thousand miles, imagine there's no way we're not going to land at the destination and then we thought we were ending to, right? That just makes sense. But how often do we do this to ourselves and our life? And the third is communication with, and yes, I just talked about this, communication with others. But also with yourself, sit down and talk to yourself, you know what I mean? And as I just mentioned earlier in this episode of the show, meeting with one of my friends, and he reminded me to take a moment and get more back into what you appreciate. And matter of fact, I got to complete other episode coming up soon. It's going to talk about this more in detail. So you know, we're definitely going to get more into that today, not so much. But so snags don't really stop the journey. They redirect it as long as we're willing to see what is this snag teaching me. And I'm accepting this invitation. I'm accepting what it's telling me. And then it's put me in a position to solve a problem, right? So let's let's bring all this back home right now. And as we wrap up this episode, where in your life do things feel heavy instead of meaningful to you. And that's a question for you to think on. What are you holding on to because it looks good, but it drains you. And again, we're getting back into happiness. And happiness sometimes is a status, right? And I'll be totally totally transparent again with you. I would say seven, eight years ago, I wanted to downsize our business and focus on travel and some other things and expand into another business. And my wife and I made a decision to sell a home that we were very happy with. And we downsize. Now we downsize, we remodel, and we flipped it. So it would turn it into an investment. But I say that by the perception of many of our neighbors, they felt we were in a financial struggle. We weren't in a financial struggle, but we definitely made a decision based on fulfillment and not happiness. I didn't need someone to think I was successful because of this house, because of this car, because of I have 2.5 children. I didn't need that. What I need it was fulfillment. So what are you holding on to right now because it looks good, but it's draining you. And what I mean drain you, I didn't mean it doesn't mean that I could just completely suck in a life out of you, but it's getting you your back to the word, you're not aligned with your purpose because we get these little distractions all the way, right? Does that hopefully that's making sense to you? And you don't need a new goal. You may just need to simply re-align what's misaligned. Re-alignment opposed to a new goal. So stop asking how this makes you look and start asking if this makes you feel whole, feel complete, feel fulfilled. That's where the real fulfillment lives. That is where how does it make you feel? Does it provide a purpose? Is it provide a meaning to you? So once again, I want to thank you for spending this time with me today. I hope some of this in this episode resonated with you. And if it did, please share it with someone you might, who might need this reminder, right? Happiness versus fulfillment. And I think this is this to me was a pretty powerful episode because I would say in my coaching side of being a performance coach, this is probably one of the biggest things that is most common with most of the clients that I work with. And it's always that a lot of us are running on misalignment. Misalignment. So until next time, stay grounded, stay aligned and keep embracing your awesome. We look forward to seeing you on the next episode. So please subscribe, follow, and we look for you episodes that are released every Monday. Embrace your awesome lifestyle podcast. Once again, thanks for being a part of it. And share this episode with someone who needs a reminder of who they're capable of becoming. On behalf of all of us here, I'm Miles Copeland. Thanks for listening.