We all Want Contentment. Here’s How To Get It

We all Want Contentment.
Here’s How To Get It

by Warwick Fairfax

May 30, 2025

Life can be confusing. Finding a life you love, a calling you feel off-the-charts passionate about, is not easy. We can be discontented when we are not living a life we love and are trying to satisfy the expectations of others, including friends and family. We can feel trapped in a life that we don’t want to lead. But even when we are leading a life we feel called to, with a mission that we feel is important and that we believe will lead to a life of significance, a life on purpose dedicated to serving others, there can still be problems. We might feel that we could so much more. There are so many people who need our help. We could do so much more for so many. We are letting ourselves and others down. We are not content.

It is possible to be discontented irrespective of the situation. And it is possible to be content in many different situations. So how do we find contentment?

1. Contentment is not found solely in what we are doing. No matter how noble the cause, contentment is not found in that cause. It is found within.

2. Dig deep into your own beliefs and values. Many major religious ways of thought and spiritual perspectives teach us that contentment is not found in things or as the Bible says in the things of this world.

3. Ask yourself if your identity is wrapped up in the cause you are devoting your life to. If the answer is yes, you have a problem. Contentment will be virtually impossible in this case. It will always tend to feel like you are not doing enough. You’re disappointing yourself and others. You are on a treadmill that you can’t get off – and, if anything, is getting faster.

4. Decouple your identity from your mission. You really need to do a gut check. Can you keep going with your mission and not have your whole sense of self wrapped up in the cause? If the answer is no, you may be faced with a hard decision. You might need to consider getting out and handing your mission to someone else. Isn’t the mission about more than you? If you truly care about the success of the mission and it is not about you, then you should be willing to hand it over to someone else.

5. Either way, do some deep soul work and self-reflection. Ask yourself why you tend to get your whole identity so wrapped up in what you do. Is there some hurt or some need that was not met growing up? You might need to consider counseling, or at least coaching, depending on the issue. At a minimum, talk to some friends and family about why you get your sense of self so wrapped up in what you do.

6. Make a decision that you will no longer have your identity wrapped up in what you do. Life is made up of a series of decisions. Decide today that you are going to take a different path, the path where contentment is from within and not based on what you do or what others think of you.

7. Pursue some practices that will help to make this decision a reality. Depending on your spiritual frame of reference, have a daily practice of prayer or meditation, start to daily read the Bible or some other spiritual writings you feel drawn to. Associate and get involved with other like-minded people who can support you becoming the you you want to become. This could be groups at church or some other spiritual groups.

8. Get grounded in your new spiritual paradigm. Once you feel that your inner soul life is heading in the right direction, you have a decision to make. Can you continue pursuing the vision that you are off-the-charts passionate about that leads to your life of significance without having your identity and self-worth wrapped up in it?

9. Either way, live your life based on your inner soul. Don’t live to please others or to fulfill your own unrealistic expectations. Enjoy what you are doing as a byproduct of who you are and what you believe. Focus more on the joy of the journey rather than continually striving for goals which can often be unattainable. When our identity is wrapped up in what we do, we continually the move the goalposts, which will virtually ensure we will never be satisfied.

Life is about the journey not just the destination. Achieving our goals and making our mission and vision become reality is not the only thing that is important. It matters a great deal who we are and how we treat people along the way. We are actually defined by who we are, our character, which is often measured by how we show up to others and how are with them. We may indeed achieve some great goals and our mission may succeed beyond our wildest dreams. But at the end of the day, when people are looking back at us, if we have lived our life rightly, people will remember more than what we achieved, they will remember who we were.