“Find something you love and make it your own with as much care and precision as possible.” —Karen Brooks, journalist and the Food Critic at Large for Portland Monthly

A beautiful and deeply satisfying discovery awaits those who stumble upon the recipe of fulfillment and success as defined by their own terms: no one else could have given them directions or enumerated the ingredients except themselves.

This is not to say we did it entirely on our own. No, no, no, no, no. Support and encouragement from others, tutelage and training from those far wiser and experienced in their fields provided opportunities for growth, deepened understanding and consequentially opened doors and windows should we choose to step through and evolve, but we had to make the choice. We had to make the decision to engage, to partake with humility and be willing to learn, listen and try, make mistakes and see those mistakes as gifts as well.

I chose the photo above because just five years ago I captured a similar photo – strawberry foreground and pups in the background, both in the garden of Le Papillon. Over the past five years, my contentment has deepened fathoms beyond what I could have imagined. And to the outside world, my life looks quite ordinary, maybe even appears boring and uneventful to some, but readers of TSLL know that is far from the reality ☺️ Fulfillment found and engaged in daily and success as I define it – deep, enduring contentment that is actively nourished and toned, and it all began with following my curiosity and honoring what kept reappearing in my mind’s eye regarding what energized me versus what depleted me.

So what does pique your curiosity? What keeps arising in your mind that you want to explore, try or learn more about? It takes time to understand what your passion is, but curiosity provides the map even if we don’t know what the map will lead up to discover. Which is why, don’t be too narrow when it comes to labeling what you are passionate about. As I have shared before, blogging wasn’t even a profession when I was a young girl, let alone did I know the term contentment and the philosophy of contentment, but I kept following my curiosities and one thing led to the next, then the next, and upon reflection it all makes sense, but I could not have foreseen or predicted, more importantly, put into precise words when my curiosity began to lead the way and I followed. I am just grateful I trusted it. And our curiosity, if we are in tune with ourselves and have done the homework of understanding our inner voice, is quite savvy and clairvoyant when it comes to leading us to where we need to be and what we need to see or experience. Then, it is up to us to be fully engaged with our life.

The recipe for fulfillment and thus success on our own terms which will lead us to true contentment happens to be quite simple and that is the irony, because due to it being so simple, some misunderstand that the ingredients mentioned here in today’s post are not concrete, but rather conceptual and only become concrete when we each apply the knowledge of ourselves and the lessons and thus discoveries gathered from our unique journey.

Yet another necessarily ingredient for fulfillment is understanding where the engine resides for why you do what you do when it comes to your passion. Arthur Brooks writes in The Atlantic about late bloomers sharing how intrinsic motivation is key as opposed to extrinsic motivation.

“The intrinsically motivated have a strong need for autonomy. They are driven by their own curiosity, their own obsessions—and the power of this motivation eclipses the lesser ones fired by extrinsic rewards.

“Extrinsically motivated people tend to race ahead during young adulthood, when the job is to please teachers, bosses, and other older people, but then stop working as hard once that goal is met. They’re likely to take short cuts if it can get them more quickly to the goal. Worse, as research by scholars like the psychologist Edward L. Deci has established, if you reward people extrinsically, you can end up crushing the person’s capacity for intrinsic motivation.” —Arthur Brooks, “You Might Be a Late Bloomer“

Case in point. As a young adult, I had the good fortune of being on high achieving athletic teams in a variety of sporting arenas, but individually, I was not recognized as some of my fellow players had been; however, I was delighted to be a contributor to the success we all celebrated. Some of my teammates who received the deserved individual accolades loved the sports our teams excelled in, others loved the attention and success we had and of course some enjoyed both, but as an adult I can truthfully say, not receiving those individual accolades – VIP or Player of the Year for example – was a gift because it gave me the space and clarity to know with certainty whether I would pursue further athletic endeavors because I genuinely loved the sport or the external and fickle and not assured external approval; in other words, to know intrinsically if I loved the sport enough for its own sake whether the praise came or not. Because if I pursued the sport because of the accolades, that was not guaranteed.

What I learned and am grateful to have discovered early in my life via this sports lesson is the exhilaration and stress-reducing qualities as well as good healthy habits working out vigorously gave the quality of my life, and as a result, I have forever included fitness as part of my daily regimen. Nobody needs to be cheering me on to do that. ☺️

The next ingredient that leads to success that cannot be expected, but when it occurs, does so because action was taken, is taking risks. Taking risks, as renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma points out in the quote below, comes more naturally in the area of our interest and passion because we cannot imagine not taking a risk. In fact, it may not even seem like a risk to those doing so, but rather solely to on-lookers. Why? Because it’s not the on-lookers’ passion. It’s not their intrinsic motivation that is fueling their exploration to become savvy to the knowledge and skills that must be learned to put the odds in the risk-taker’s favor.

“Passion is one great force that unleashes creativity, because if you’re passionate about something, then you’re more willing to take risks.” — Yo-Yo Ma

So, let’s take a look at this recipe. It really is quite simple, and it all begins with understanding our inner voice and courageously choosing to trust it.

The Ingredients:

• Understand your passion, don’t hold too tightly and let it wiggle and move and evolve.
• Be intrinsically motivated (in other words, explore, create, travel, tinker and engage because it tickles your curiosity and energizes you to do so, not because others will reward, applaud or give you attention)
• Take risks without expectations, rather with intention and an open-mind
• Enjoy what you do, something that energizes you while you engage with it.

Now, get about the business of putting this amazing, one-of-a-kind recipe together, because you are the only one that can do it. 😌

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