3 Questions to Ask Yourself in the Pursuit of a Life of Joy & Fulfillment

Is it over yet? Have I made it to the other side? Where’s the fast-forward button?

Those are the questions I was asking myself during my most painful years of growth & transformation in the fateful years of 2019-2022. It was on 2-22-2022 that I hit rock bottom, and realized that I had been asking myself the wrong questions.

Today, on the dawn of a New Year, I am going to share 3 empowering questions to ask yourself when you’re ready–truly ready— to stop playing small, blaming others, and get serious about the pursuit of a life of joy and fulfillment.

1. What area of my life do I most want to transform this year?

Back in 2022, when I was at rock bottom, I needed a whole-life make-over. The one thing I knew for certain was that there was little to no joy in my life. I didn’t enjoy my life’s work anymore (high school French teacher), I was financially strapped (blaming my ex), one of my three children was living in a therapeutic boarding school because I was unable to parent him they way he needed, my love-life was non-existant (especially my self-love life), and I had no inspired direction besides writing a few blog posts here and there to pep-talk myself out of my self-imposed shit storm.

It was overwhelming to consider a whole-life make-over, and that’s when I decided that the one area of my life that I could transform was my connection to joy. It was obvious by February of 2022 that there was no proverbial fast-forward button. If I wanted to be happy, I needed to pursue that at all costs. And I knew that if I could be happy again that everything else would eventually fall back into place.

Julia Cameron, author of The Artist’s Way, taught me that Spring of 2022 to reconnect to the joy of my inner child. There’s an exercise called Touchstones of Happiness where you write a list of all the things that bring you joy, from hula hoops to sunsets to an awesome playlist while cooking dinner. Make a list of 20 simple pleasures in life. Then notice how many of them are free. Choose one and do it that week.

A simple list of 20 things that made me happy was how my happiness recovery began. Not by fixing my financial house or changing careers or finding the next love of my life. That was too overwhelming of a task. Just seeking a little more joy in my life, everyday was where I decided to begin, because I knew that the pursuit of happiness was the one area of my life where I had the power to change instantly.

2. How committed to that transformation am I?

My friends, if you desire true transformation, you need to be all in at a comittment level of 10. None of this 6-7, uninspired bullshit. Level 10. Why? Because life will test your resolve. Life will ask you to show up for yourself. Do you reeeaaaallllly want this? Show me!

For the greater part of my life, I had always been happy. As an adolescent I used to sign my letters “Keep Smiling” then write my name with a mermaid tail. Life wasn’t perfect, but in retrospect, it was damn close. I know now that I was born into the lifepath of “The Most Blessed Card”, the 10 of Diamonds and I am grateful for that foundation. I also know that “the blessed” life is far from the reality that many others grew up in, and I see you and acknowledge that.

My point here is that I back in 2022, I was feeling the contrast between the happiness that I had experienced for most of my life and the current reality of a dry well of happiness. I wanted soooo badly to get back to that place. I was fucking DONE being miserable and blaming my ex, my job, the pandemic, the school system & my life life circumstances for the sad life that I was living.

I was fully committed —level 11— to climbing out of that dry well of misery. It was time to put my oxygen mask on first, and that began with writing a simple list of 20 items that bring me joy and then pursuing each and every one of them for starters. I needed to reconnect to what it felt like to be happy.

Eventually my pursuit of happiness led to me quitting the job that was no longer fulfilling, selling my house that no longer was filled with happy family memories, and getting real with myself and my blame game. The fast foward button didn’t exist. Since I had to keep moving forward in life (the only option), I choose right then and there to get off the path of fear and blame and onto the soul-aligned path of love and joy. I was fully committed to finding JOY in the journey. And it began with a hula hoop.

3. What’s one inspired action step that I can take today in the direction of that area of transformation?

Notice the key word here: inspired. Not forced. Not should. Not have to. When you decide to pursue an area of transformation with relentless passion, inspiration is the game changer. When you’re inspired, you automatically open yourself up to more happiness and clarity. What once seemed so big, dark and heavy feels a little lighter.

I worked at a sort of “outside of the box” high school back in 2022. One that had hula hoops in classrooms and where staff meetings included spirited team-building experiences. As much as I loved my career, the people and the school that supported me through the most traumatic years of my life, it was time to move on. I was inspired to quit my job in pursuit of something more soul aligned.

My principal gifted me her hula hoop as a departing gift.

One year later, I was leading a Summer Solstice retreat and that hula hoop came with me. I wasn’t making any money on my retreats, and I really had no idea what I was doing, but I went to places that felt inspiring to me and I had FUN. The hula hoop serves as a reminder of my committment to myself & reconnecting with my inner child’s “touchstone of happiness”. I have it to this day and have been known to take it out from time to time move the negative energy out and pull the positive energy in.

I’m not saying that you should quit your job & take up a career as a hula-hooping retreat leader. I am saying that you get to choose your own inspired step. Maybe it’s making an appointment with a financial advisor that your friend keeps recommending, or doing a photo shoot with a trusted friend who has been dying to help you set up your dating profile, or making a vision board of that dream trip that you’ve been saying you want to take for years, or taking yourself on a mountaintop to watch the sunset.

Remember, transformation requires clarity (question 1), committment (question 2) and inspired action (question 3). This isn’t a “have to”, it’s a “get to.” Mindset is everything.

When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change –Wayne Dyer

A Life Worth Living

When you choose to change, it will get real scary. Demons will come out of the closet, old habits will entice you to go back to the safety of the cage where you’ve been playing small, you’ll doubt your ability to “make it”, and you’ll probably lose some friends along the way.

This was all true for me (read about that more here).

Ask the caterpillar how it felt to dissolve into nothing before beign reborn as a butterfly. Ask the snake what it’s like outgrow its skin. Ask yourself what will hold you back from stepping into the greatness of living into your full potential?

This is why your level of committment is so important. YOU, my sweet reader, are the author, director and star of your life. YOU get to choose how this story plays out. Write a good story. Start today.

Today, nearly 4 years after hitting my rock bottom, my Soul Purpose is to help those who are at a pivotal crossroads in life to courageously step onto their Soul Aligned path to joy and fulfillment. If that’s you, maybe your inspired step for today is to book a Soul Purpose Clarity Call with me so I can hear more about your story and help you uncover the roadblocks that are in your way to a life of joy and fulfillment.

And before you know it you’ll be skipping down your own yellow brick road and the happiness and you will feel completely different. Because this time, you earned your happiness. You fought for yourself. You committed to the path of self-love. And you relentessly pursued a life worth living.

My New Year’s wish for you:

May your path be clear, my friend. May you know that you deserve all that you desire. May you seek guidance to support you. May you trust that the path of love and joy will never lead you astray…it will bring you home.

You are the one. The game changer. The transformer. The script writer. The star of your life. I cannot wait to see you shine your biggest, boldest, most beYOUtiful light in 2026 and beyond!

Here’s to love and joy in the journey,

Andrea Blythe, the Traveling Magi of Let Love Rise.