Mental Health Mondays #20: Finding What Our Soul Actually Wants
Not just what looks good on paper.
I have a confession to make: I am an “under fulfilled overachiever.”
It’s a term coined by author and career coach Megan Hellerer who went from burnt out and unhappy working for Google, to starting over from scratch and creating a career coaching program for people who feel a level of discontentment even when they’ve checked all of the important career and life milestones.
Hellerer’s book, Directional Living is basically a permission slip to stop chasing “success” and start trusting your inner compass to build a life that actually feels good, not one that just looks good on paper.
I’ve realized in the last decade that sometimes when you get exactly what you want it’s often the wrong thing to want, and when you reach the destination and check off the box, you’re still left wanting more. It’s this dissatisfaction and unease with the life that I thought I wanted that led me to start a completely new journey as an expat living abroad. It was grounded in what I truly wanted in my heart and soul instead of living the life that everyone else expected or that society tells you is the key to fulfillment.
Why is it that so many of us “have it all” and are still crying ourselves to sleep—if we are even able to fall asleep at all? We can all do better but first we need to take a moment to pause and feel our feelings, understanding that if you are feeling ill or nauseous with the Sunday scaries before a week at a “dream job,” maybe that’s not really your true dream or soul’s calling.
Our physical response to the lives we are living are a tell. Those feelings in our gut can show us that what we are doing isn't in alignment with what we want deep down. It’s through Hellerer’s work that we can redirect ourselves and our efforts towards a lived experience that will truly make us happy inside and out.
Check out a portion of my recent conversation with Megan Hellerer below and tell me in the comments if you can relate to the feelings she is describing—if you are living the “dream” that, for your whole life you thought you wanted, only to reach the destination and realize that you might need to take a U turn.