Sometimes we are happy with the life we are living. Sometimes we feel dissatisfied, but we don’t quite know why.
The reason for this dissatisfaction is our inner drive to become: our equivalent of a caterpillar’s longing to transform into a butterfly, a nut’s longing to grow into a tree. We feel happiest when we are living in line with this unconscious longing. We feel dissatisfied when there is a gap between the person we are currently being and the person we want to become.
It seems obvious what a caterpillar and a nut want to become — but what about a human being?
Sigmund Freud was the first person to research this scientifically. He discovered that:
“Life is love and work.”
Success for any human being comes when we are able to love and be loved, and to do work that is meaningful to us.
The psychologist Will Schutz then added a third dimension. He realised that people also want to be significant, to have status. We all want to be someone or do something that has significance or status compared to people or things outside ourselves. We all want to matter.
For some people this means having more money. For others it means having a bigger house or car or more followers on social media. And for some people it means making a difference to a family, community, organisation, nature, future generations, or perhaps just one other person or thing.
Whatever these three unconscious inner drives look like for you, they are what pull each of us forward and make us feel inspired and fulfilled when we achieve them:
- We all want to love and be loved
- We all want to do work that has meaning for us and uses our unique talents, and
- We all want to be significant in some way, that matters to us
This is why advertisers promise:
- “Buy this product and people will love you”
- “Buy this product and you will be smart, clever, talented“, and
- “Buy this product and you will have status, you will be important.”
What this means when the whole world is changing is that the better we know and understand our versions of these three unconscious drives or longings, the better we will be able to let go of what doesn’t matter to us and instead focus out energies on achieving what does matter most to us. And the better we will then be able to lead ourselves (and others) through this time of change.
This is another step to becoming antifragile — able to use whatever happens around us to strengthen our inner drive to become whoever we most long to be.
Are you happy with the life you are living? Do you feel the need to make a change? Is the gap to do with your love, your work, or the significance you have in the world? What do you want instead? And how will you inspire yourself and the people around you to long to make that happen?
Adapted from The Churning, Inner Leadership: a framework and a set of tools for building inspiration in a time of change.
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Photo By Maria Keays via StockPholio.com