Define Your Imports and Exports to Increase Fulfillment
If you remember back to high school economics, we learned about imports and exports. When a country was exporting more goods than they were importing, they were probably in pretty good shape. If they were importing more than they were exporting, things could be getting a bit dicier financially. The concept is quite simple and we can apply the same logic when we think about how to change your habits to increase fulfillment.
Another way to frame this is thinking about your fulfillment as a cup and things that contribute to your fulfillment fill up the cup. Things that don’t drain the cup.
What do I mean by that? Well, if we think about our daily lives there are activities that contribute to our fulfillment, success, or accomplishment. At home, these might be things like exercising, learning an instrument, reading a book, writing, creating art, or traveling.
At work these could be things like pitching a new idea, closing a deal, or planning a workshop. Let’s call these things our individual exports, or things that contribute to our “fulfillment bank account” and fill up our cup.
On the flip side, there are definitely activities that can be a drain on our fulfillment if we aren’t careful. These are things like scrolling social media, binging on Netflix, absorbing cable news content for hours, or excessively watching sports. These can empty the cup if we aren’t careful.
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying we should never do these things and some “imports” are necessary. Say washing the dishes every night. It might not be fulfilling, but it’s still necessary. Sometimes we have a terrible or exhausting day and we just want to sit down, crack open a beer and watch the game. Our favorite show on Netflix might give us comfort in a trying time. Nothing wrong with that at all.
Problems tends to arise when your imports heavily outweigh your exports over time. Your habits tend to settle in and if you are a net importer, your feelings of fulfillment, success, and accomplishment will tend to wane.
My Fulfillment Cup Was Empty
This happened to me before the election. I spent a lot of time consuming the news, trying to figure out what was going to happen and overall spending a lot of time doing things that I got absolutely nothing out of at the cost of all the things that would have contributed nicely to my fulfillment bank.
I wasn’t spending enough time doing things with my family.
Exercising stopped and my weight and blood pressure went up.
I stopped spending time painting and creating art.
Writing didn’t happen.
My Italian lessons stopped.
Not fulfilling. In fact, it turned into something more characteristic of self loathing.
The question is why? For what? Looking for a hint or a clue that would make me feel better in the short term about what was possibly going to happen in an election that was months away? None of that helped one bit. The election still happened when it happened, the result was what it was, and nothing I did in the lead up to it influenced the outcome of it one bit.
It was simply time lost. Not fulfilling.
We all have our version of the election, or something that is dragging us down. It might be worrying about a potential promotion, a medical anxiety, or could be as simple as what someone else thinks about you. It’s a vibe killer and causes us to be net importers rather than exporters. If you can relate to this, here are four things you can do to Change Your Habits to Increase Fulfillment.
1. Time Limit Your Imports
Sometimes all we have to do is be made aware of something and we will take action. For example, when we start scrolling, there is often no regard for how long we do it for. Maybe it’s until we get bored. If you time your scrolling however, you are more likely to stop doing it sooner. There are a couple of ways to do this. Set yourself a limit at the start of the activity and set an alarm.
The other way to do this is use an app like Rescue Time, Freedom, or Space to help track your screen time. Apple Screen Time is another simple tool that works well. The functionality is the same as tracking your spending in a budget. You are more likely to stay within your financial goals when you are fully aware of what you are spending.
2. Schedule Your Exports
As important as it is to put up deterrents for your imports, it is even more crucial to schedule your exports. Just like you would put a meeting on your calendar at work or a doctor’s appointment in your planner, you have to schedule the things you really want to do. Getting up and asking yourself if you would like to exercise today is far less effective than scheduling yourself to exercise from 8:00 – 8:30 in the morning.
While building the things you want to do in your calendar gives you time and space to do them, it also means you can’t schedule something else in that time. Obviously there may be occasions where something comes up, but instead of just deleting it from the calendar, you can find a time to reschedule it, putting it right back into the forefront of your activities.
One cheat code that works really well is to pair the things you might not want to do with your guilty pleasures. Working out is fulfilling when it’s accomplished, but you really want to binge on that favorite podcast? Allow yourself to binge on the podcast but only while working out. Now you associate the reward of the podcast with working out and you are more likely to do it again.
3. Build Systems and Spaces to Thrive In
Calendars are great, but in “Atomic Habits”, James Clear talks about being the architect of your own environment. An example he gives is that if you would like to read more, leave a book on your pillow when you get up so that when you are ready to go to bed, you pick the book up and read a few pages each night before going to sleep. This is better than keeping the book in your nightstand where you are less likely to see it.
In the same way we have to be careful not to build a detrimental environment for our habits we want to eradicate. Don’t keep your phone on your person 24/7 if you want to decrease screen time. Instead charge it in another room if you want to spend time doing something else. If on a diet, don’t put the candy at eye level. Put it on the top shelf so it’s harder to get to, or better yet, get it out of the house entirely. Being your own architect will help you understand how to change your habits to increase fulfillment.
My Secret Tool to Fast Tracking Fulfillment in My Personal Life
When you do things that are fulfilling, track them. You get a tiny dopamine hit in seeing them accomplished and it’s a great way to ensure you build positive habits. I use a highly adaptable spreadsheet to do this and I visit it at the end of the day. I will track the things I want to focus on, such as reading or spending time doing a family activity. If I accomplish the activity, I put a number 1 in the box for the day and it tallies up how many times I do that activity for the month.
I also use the spreadsheet to track things like my workouts, blood pressure, and other physical goals that I have. I’ve even used it to build a system for cleaning the house to see how long it has been since I cleaned various rooms and which ones need attention next. If you are a data nerd, the graphs you can make to illustrate your goal progress are endless!
Don’t Go Cold Turkey
To change your habits to increase fulfillment it’s important to remember that both your imports and exports are necessary to a healthy existence and you need both to survive. We are not striving to cut imports to zero and exports to infinity, and I’m certainly not giving you a pass to never do the dishes. If we can make a few adjustments to tip the scales a little bit further towards net exports, our fulfillment balance sheet will undoubtedly be healthier and that is definitely worth striving for.
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