Forget Your Dream Life, Aim for an Earned Life

After reading ‘The Earned Life’ by Marshall Goldsmith you will happily throw away your dream life. Visions of driving red sports cars, buying designer clothes and standing on stages receiving awards will fade into the background. The material items and shallow accolades will be replaced by the one true goal worth aiming for, a sense of purpose.

“We are living an earned life when the choices, risks, and effort we make in each moment align with an overarching purpose in our lives regardless of the eventual outcome.”

Aiming for an earned life promises deeper fulfillment and a more meaningful relationship with the work you do.

The Incomplete Picture

When we design our dream lives we piece together what we want to achieve and receive. Our visions are reward-focused as we work towards achieving certain outcomes. Goldsmith talks about the dangers of a reward-focused approach and warns that life is not so simple, nor is it fair. Goldsmith presents the following equation as an incomplete picture that will not bring true fulfillment:

Choices + risks + effort = Reward

We think that so long as we make the right choices, take the necessary risks and put in enough effort we will be rewarded accordingly. We want something, we work towards it, we are rewarded for our efforts and we expect to be fulfilled by that reward.

The trouble is that the emotional gift from fulfilling your dreams is fleeting and emotional rewards do not always equal the sacrifice necessary to achieve them.

Aim big

Aiming for a dream life will bring you momentary joy and a fleeting sense of satisfaction. It is when we aim for something larger than ourselves that we experience true and lasting fulfillment.

Goldsmith argues that for true fulfillment your choices, risks and efforts must stem from somewhere deeper within you and must serve more than your own personal gain. There must be a larger purpose that informs your vision, a purpose that serves a cause larger than material wealth, societal recognition or professional accolades.

The complete picture:

Choices + risk + effort = fulfillment

Purpose

Aiming for a dream life is aiming for rewards. Goldsmith argues that rewards have little utility when estranged from purpose. When we bring a sense of purpose into our work, the outcome becomes obsolete and we become fulfilled by the sheer act of working towards a purpose. Aiming for an earned life is about finding the reward in the process of your work - easily achieved when the process is serving a higher purpose.

At the core of the concept of an earned life is a detachment from the outcome and an engagement in the process of earning. Outcomes are fleeting and their rewards do not last. On the other hand, the process of serving a higher purpose brings true lasting joy.

An earned life is driven by purpose, defined by your own terms and targeted towards earning moments that serve more than your own desires. It is about making the process of your work meaningful instead of bringing hollow rewards into your life. The reward of an earned life is not found in results but in the very fact that you are engaged and satisfied by the process.

Learn how to live an earned life

To learn more about how to become more fulfilled and begin to live an earned life I urge you to pick up Goldsmith’s book ‘An Earned Life’. The book is packed with clear strategies to bring purpose into your life and achieve lasting fulfillment. It will help you to define what is really important to you so you can begin to earn a meaningful life.