Are You Chasing the Life of “More” or Are You Settling?

How do you know if you are settling in your life?

This is a question that consumed me for a very long time and one that has also taken me a very long time to answer. I spent most of 2020 contemplating this and at the end of last year, I was finally able to find an answer that sat well with me.

Let me give a little backstory as to why this question was consuming me...

I once was with this guy for three years who I thought was the love of my life. After dating for two months, we had already moved with each other, we knew we wanted to get married, and essentially this was “it” for us. The only tricky part was that he wasn’t American. We were working on a cruise ship, so this was never an issue for us until it came time we wanted to settle down in the United States.

So, we started meeting with immigration lawyers and discussing getting married (slightly prematurely) to help expedite his visa process. But that’s when it hit me: Will marrying this man allow me to live the life I want for myself?

He was great–he loved me more than anything, he knew me better than anyone, and I could trust him more than anything. But was that enough?

I realized that YES I could marry him and live a very happy life. But living a happy life is very different than living the life I want to live.

I think there are ten million scenarios for the way my life could unfold and I would be very happy, but that’s not what matters. What scenario did I actually want to unfold? That is the question I needed to answer.

Thinking deeply about this, I realized that staying with him wouldn’t bring me the life I deep down wanted to live.

He flew back to his home country and I was left alone to figure out the life I wanted to build for myself.

This is where my fear of settling began.

Since giving up this guy who some would look at and say is “perfect”, I made a promise to myself that if I wasn’t going to settle with him, I couldn’t allow myself to settle for anything – otherwise making that decision wouldn’t have been worth it.

But now, I find myself stuck in a conundrum:

Am I chasing the life of “more”, a life where enough is never enough, or am building the extraordinary life I want for myself? How does one know the difference?

And if I stop chasing or stop building, does that mean I’m settling?

I had specific questions like: Should I expand my business or be happy with where it’s at? Should I go live in a bunch of different places or just enjoy where I’m living now? Should I strive for bigger and better adventures or be appreciative of the experiences I’ve had?

My brain was constantly spinning whenever I tried to answer these questions.

If I work to expand my business, live in a bunch of places, and strive for bigger adventures, am I falling into the “I always need more” trap?

I was searching and searching for the answer to these questions, asking my therapist, my friends, even my established self-development expert clients, but nothing was sitting right with me.

Here are some of the answers I received:

“You work for yourself, you live in a beautiful place, you do what you love personally and professionally, you are living the dream.”

“If you are happy with where you are and happy with what you are doing, then there is no way you’re settling.”

Sounds good, right? Sounds like I should just relax and enjoy, right?

But it left me feeling empty.

Until I had a surreal experience where I was able to have a one-on-one conversation with one of the top psychologists in the world and my personal favorite self-development expert, Peter Crone. I asked him all these questions.

Here’s how he responded…

Appreciating where I am is nice, but by staying there, I’m putting a glass ceiling over myself. I’m putting a cap on what I’m able to experience and achieve. Sure, I can be happy with where I am, and I should be happy with where I am, but by staying, I would be settling for a mediocre life. There is nothing wrong with living a mediocre life, but the mere fact that I am asking these questions means I have a burning desire to do something bigger.

His final words to me were: I should explore my limitations and see where my capabilities can take me.

That hit me hard…Explore my limitations.

I finally realized that is the scenario I want to unfold. I want to see how far I can go in this life. That doesn’t mean I’m chasing the life of “more”, it means I’m utilizing my capabilities and exploring what I can achieve.

Although, Peter made it especially clear that I need to still be happy with where I’m at and not believe “I’ll be happy when…”. The second I fall into that mindset is the second I fall into chasing “more”. As Peter always says, you’ve never been to your future, so how do you know your happiness is there?

So here’s what this all means for me:

I know I am happy with myself right here, right now. And I’m going to take that happiness and use it as fuel to explore my limitations and capabilities. When I find myself unhappy, I’ll know I explored too far – I hit my limit. But until then, I’m going to keep pushing forward. I’m going to keep improving, building, growing, seeking, experiencing, and exploring.