How to Stop Living on Autopilot and Build a Life That Feels Aligned, Fulfilling, & Meaningful

On today's episode, I'm going to be diving into a topic that I have been talking a lot about in my personal life with both strangers, but also people close to me in my circle and my orbit.

And this topic, if you can't tell by the title of this episode, is around what it means to create a fulfilling and aligned life.

And as I share this out loud, it is kind of crazy to me that this concept, what fulfills you, started many years ago when I was just out of college.

And in all honesty, if I was talking to a 22 year old about a fulfilling life, I would wonder, what does this girl know? But in retrospect, one of the things that really put me on this path was just a very early experience of feeling alone, lost, directionless, and just simply very sad.

And On top of that, as I started to climb out of that period of my life, when I started to see success in other parts of my life, such as work or just things that were starting to develop, I still felt that loneliness.

And just for like deeper context, I was probably a junior in college at this time.

when I started to really build and scale my first business, which was custom figure skating dresses.

And if you don't know my background, I'm actually a former competitive figure skater.

And so I started this business on eBay many years ago.

And when I was navigating a breakup, I decided to pour into the growth of this business and really change the direction and actually make something out of it because, you know, I was making money, but it wasn't at a scalable size.

And again, granted, I was in college, but I was very determined and I started to put my focus here.

When I started to make movement and awesome movement, quite literally, in this business of mine, I remember vividly where I was, what I was doing, when I still had this epiphany of, oh, wow, I'm I don't feel that much better about my life.

And this actually happened a couple years ago as well.

I think this would be three and a half or almost four years ago now when I also went through this feeling.

Also, you know, maybe a couple months after the end of a relationship.

And I was gaining new clients left and right.

And I remember while that was helpful financially and that was exciting for the growth of my marketing agency, there was this repeated level of emptiness that I felt like it didn't really matter as much, which sounds really weird to say, but that was just this honest, raw emotion I had.

And I share all of this because some of that is probably relatable, irrespective of whether you have a business or not.

But maybe it's like you have a really high paying job, but you still feel a certain way.

Or maybe you have a lot of great things in your life, but you still feel a little shallow or maybe you feel a little empty or you feel like you lack a sense of purpose.

I've had this conversation.

several times in the past few months, one of them being with one of my best, best guy friends who is such a lovely person.

And it's funny because I think both of us, we compliment each other as friends where the things that come easier to him are are the things that I might sometimes struggle with in my personal life, and then vice versa.

The things that he struggles with are things that come very easy to me, and so it's an amazing friendship and very much like luck of the draw.

But in conversing with him about stuff like this, I have heard and have noticed how he feels... down on a lot of days.