What is the difference between happiness and fulfillment? The relationship of these two words is something that has always bothered me. Many people say they want to be happy. Many people say they want to be fulfilled. What is the difference and how do they relate?

Dictionary Definitions

Happiness – A state of well-being characterized by emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy.

Fulfillment – A feeling of satisfaction at having achieved your desires.

With those definitions here is how I see happiness and fulfillment relating…

I see happiness as a scale of an emotional state and fulfillment being the point on a person’s happiness scale where they feel satisfaction.

So how does my personal goal relate to this? My goal is to one day be consistently extremely happy. If my ultimate happiness potential is a 10 without dying then this may mean that I want to be at an 8 on a consistent basis. By my extreme standards, a consistent 8 is very hard to do. My fulfillment point right now is probably a 4. On a scale from 1-10, I would rate myself a 1 in consistent happiness right now. That sounds low but it is not relative to most people! It is hard for me to even feel sad at all at an overall 1. I would rate the average overall happy person a .10 from what I can see. Told you I have extreme standards!

Variables are always changing though, so a person’s happiness/sadness level and fulfillment point can change even if the person’s life remains the same. This could be caused by a conscious or unconscious shift within the mind. Just by achieving the fulfillment point and being there for a little while can cause this type of shift and change the person’s whole equation.

This model seems to hold true on an absolute scale of a person’s life as well as relative to specifics within it.

I think freedom is a factor in my extreme happiness. It seems to be for most people. I want a lot of freedom in many areas… Time, Economic, Fear, Social, as well as others.

Time Freedom

I want to be able to decide what I want to do at every second of every day. I don’t want to have to be obligated to anything else if I don’t want to, short of physical necessity. Many people choose to become self-employed so they can control their schedule more. This is not enough for me and it won’t allow me to achieve my financial goals, which leads me to my next area of freedom…

Economic Freedom

For most people money can buy them time freedom since it would allow them to quit the job they have and do something better with their time. Money is a very effective tool when used right. With a lot of money I can accomplish a lot of very positive things in the world and in my life. It will take an amount of money that is unimaginable to some people to make all of my visions a reality in life. Although every achievement is just icing on the cake for my happiness.

Fear Freedom

I want to have freedom from all fear in any form…period. A major fear of mine in my life is rejection. Logically it is stupid to me but in certain situations it is an automatic response from my brain to be afraid of it. I’m going to work very hard to rid all forms of fear from my mind and never let them return.

Social Freedom

Society tries to put several pressures, expectations, conditions, laws, etc, on your life. Some of these are good. Some of these are bad. I want to be able to toss it all out the window and choose what is right for me with my own logic and morals. I may never truly be free from society’s influence but I will try to swing the power as far as I can in my favor.

Freedom can be large leverage towards my happiness goal. My plan for the means to obtain all of these freedoms is through the tool of money and through personal development.

My ultimate goal in life is consistent extreme happiness. I am not there yet. I plan to get there and will try to stay there within the next 8 years. Why does it take that long? Look at my goal. The key words are “extreme” and “consistent”. This means I want to be ecstatic about life everyday.I consider myself consistently happy right now, day to day. I love what I do. I love who I am. I love where I am headed. I would not trade lives with anyone else, ever. But, as always with me, I’m not satisfied with staying in one place. I have to constantly improve. I hate wasting potential. So I seek to be consistently extremely happy.

What does this mean though? Let me see if I can give you an image to describe it. Have you ever had days where you wake up feeling very alive and genuinely happy for no apparent reason? Where even though it is a normal day you just feel so happy that you can’t help but smile but don’t know why. It just continues on throughout the day, you feel so much potential in the air and you see everything from a new positive perspective that day.

I’m sure it has happened to most people. I currently have days like this a few times a year, where I feel so good and so happy for no tangible reason. This is what I want everyday to be like for me. I want to build a life that fosters this and most importantly reshape my mind to where this feeling just comes to me even if it is a normal or even bad day.

This takes a lot of hard work, both to create the outside environment and the inner mindset.