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 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. When there is a gap between the life we are currently living (the person we are currently being) and the person we most want to become then we feel dissatisfied. When we are living in line with our unconscious longing, this is when we feel happiest.
It is obvious what a caterpillar and a nut want to become — so what about a human being?
Sigmund Freud was the first person to research this scientifically. He told us that:
“Life is love and work.”
Success for any human being comes when we are able to love and to be loved, and to do work that is meaningful to us.
To this, the psychologist Will Schutz 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 other people or things outside ourselves. We all want to matter.
For some people this means having lots of money. For others it means having a role in an organisation or having a bigger house or car or more followers on social media. And for some people what matters is making a difference: to a family, a community, an organisation, to nature, future generations, or perhaps to just one other person or thing.
Whatever these three unconscious inner drives look like for you, they are what pull us forward:
- 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
When we achieve these things we feel inspired and fulfilled. This is why advertisers promise us:
- “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.”
And when the whole world is changing, this means that the better we can know and understand our own versions of these three unconscious drivers 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. 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 to strengthen our inner drive, to become whoever we most long to become.
Are you happy with the life you are living, the person you are being? 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 other people 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