If I Had Known… That a Successful Life Is Not Always a Meaningful One

Over the years, you have made choices and taken on responsibilities. Perhaps you have developed a satisfying career, shared your life with someone, watched your children grow, and completed projects close to your heart. You have passed important milestones, enjoyed successes, and overcome difficulties. Looking back at the road you have traveled, you have many reasons to be satisfied with the life you have led so far.

And yet something is missing.

Not necessarily a great emptiness or profound unhappiness. Sometimes just a small voice that returns increasingly often:

“Does any of this really mean something?”

I regularly encounter this question in my coaching sessions. Among executives who have reached the top of their careers, women trying to reconcile their different aspirations, and people navigating separation, bereavement, or professional transition.

Their stories differ, but the same question keeps coming back: “Is this really what I want?”

For a long time, life can seem relatively straightforward to navigate. There are milestones to reach, goals to achieve, responsibilities to fulfill. We move forward, often without asking too many questions.

Then an event sometimes upsets that balance.

A promotion that does not bring the satisfaction you hoped for. A child leaving home. A divorce. Retirement. Or simply realizing that the years are passing and certain desires or goals have been set aside.

Sometimes the signs are more subtle: no longer finding as much pleasure in a work you once loved; feeling that you fill your days without really choosing how to spend them; waiting for holidays to finally feel like yourself; or realizing that you devote a great deal of time to obligations and very little to what personally matters to you.

What gave life meaning yesterday does not necessarily give it meaning today.

And perhaps this is one of the difficulties of life transitions: accepting that what made us happy for so long may no longer be enough.

We talk a great deal about success, ambition, performance, and achievement. But we talk less about the essential distinction between succeeding in life according to external standards and feeling that we are living a life that truly reflects who we are.

Society’s markers of success are often easy to identify: a position, a salary, professional recognition, material security, a family, completed projects. The markers of meaning are more personal and less visible:

“Does what I do every day still align with my values?”

“Do I feel useful, in my own way?”

“Do my choices reflect my deepest wishes, or mainly other people’s expectations?”

“Do I still find satisfaction in the way I spend my time?”

Finding meaning in life does not necessarily mean discovering a grand mission, changing careers, or questioning everything. Meaning can be found in much simpler things: passing on your experience, caring for loved ones, learning, creating, contributing to something bigger than yourself, or simply making time again for what truly matters.

For some, it will mean taking time to mentor a younger colleague. For others, reconnecting with an abandoned passion, getting involved in a nonprofit project, enjoying quality time with loved ones, or daring to make choices that are not dictated solely by others’ expectations.

Above all, meaning can evolve.

At thirty, you may have found meaning in building your career. At fifty, you may feel a greater need to pass on what you know. At sixty-five, you may discover that relationships, freedom, or new projects are what inspire you.

None of these aspirations is more legitimate than another.

In coaching, the aim is not to decide for someone else what should give their life meaning. Rather, it is to create a space in which to explore their values, question their choices, and sometimes recognize that their priorities have changed.

This sometimes begins with very simple questions:

“What still gives me energy?”

“Which activities bring me genuine satisfaction, regardless of any external recognition?”

“What do I keep doing out of habit, duty, or fear of disappointing others?”

“If I could change just one thing in my daily life to feel more in tune with myself, what would it be?”

It is possible to keep moving in a particular direction simply because you chose it long ago, without asking whether it still suits you.

In his book Man’s Search for Meaning, psychiatrist and concentration camp survivor Viktor Frankl offers a shift in perspective that has always deeply moved me:

What if the question were not only, “What do I still expect from life?” but also, “What does life still expect from me?”

This thought does not necessarily imply religious belief or a predetermined destiny. Rather, it invites us to consider meaning beyond our own expectations: in what we can offer others, in love, in passing things on, and in the commitments we choose to make.

It also reminds us that meaning is not necessarily something we find once and for all. It may reveal itself differently at every stage of life.

And perhaps some transitions, even painful ones, lead us to ask questions we would never otherwise have considered.

Not because suffering is necessary to give life meaning, but because even when we cannot choose what happens to us, we sometimes retain the freedom to choose how we respond to it and how we wish to continue our journey.

Beyond success, do you still find in your life what nourishes you and gives it meaning?