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Live your dharma: The key to fulfillment

Live your dharma: The key to fulfillment

Step one is about finding what you're good at and also love to do

Jay Shetty
February 27, 2025

“I go through life feeling empty. Something’s missing. But I don’t know what.”

The most certain route to fulfillment is your dharma.

Less than half of Americans are “very satisfied” with their personal lives, the lowest number in more than ten years. While many factors may contribute to this decline in life satisfaction, my advice is rather simple. It comes from thousands of years of wisdom passed down to me while I was living as a monk in India. Are you ready for it? Live your dharma.

Dharma is a Sanskrit word that roughly translates to “your calling.” My personal formula for dharma is “Passion + Expertise + Usefulness.”

Every single one of us has a special area in which we thrive. That’s our dharma. It’s up to us to find out what it is. And once we do, it’s also up to us to live it.

Below, I’ll guide you through an exercise to get started. You can read about this, and much more, in my book Think Like a Monk.

Finding your dharma

Step one on your journey to a fulfilling life is discovering the things you both love to do and are good at doing.

Here’s a guide I call The Quadrants of Potential

I. Skill, no passion	II. Skill and passion
III. No skill, no passion	IV. No skill and passion

Here’s a breakdown of each quadrant:

I. Skill, no passion

This is how many of us spend a lot of our time at work. We’re good at it, but it’s not always exciting. In this case, you might be a fantastic computer programmer, but you’re working on a piece of software you find boring or meaningless.

II. Skill and passion

This is the sweet spot, where your talent and preferences align in perfect harmony. Our goal is to spend as much time here as possible! You can think of Quadrant II as your dream job. For example, if you’re that same programmer as above, but now you’re working at a company with a mission you believe in and the work energizes you.

III. No skill, no passion

Quadrant III is the most dreaded of them all. These are the chores you abhor. Whatever you do, stay out of this quadrant as much as you can! The tasks you do here sap your energy and motivation, like shoveling the driveway, for example, which many of us don’t enjoy (and might be bad at, too).

IV. No skill and passion

This quadrant is where a lot of new interests and hobbies reside. This could be a skill you’re really interested in and excited about but just getting started on. If you’re passionate about music, this might look like learning how to play an instrument for the first time.

Shifting your time

Try this: Think about all the activities you spend your time doing at work. What quadrant does each activity currently live in? What are your greatest skills or passions outside of work? Put them in a quadrant as well.

Now, look at each piece and ask: How can you shift more of your time to Quadrant II? For example, if you’re spending a lot of your time in quadrant I, maybe you can look for projects at work that are more aligned with your passion, or you can try to find a company whose mission you love that needs your skillset. Or, if you find yourself spending a lot of time in Quadrant IV, maybe you can take some classes or dedicate a certain amount of time each week towards leveling up your skills.

If you find that a lot of your time is spent in Quadrant III, perhaps there are people you can delegate some of those tasks to.

As you live more and more in the realm of things you love that you’re good at, you’ll reach a higher level of fulfillment each and every day. If that happens to be making an impact on other people’s lives, consider signing up for the Jay Shetty Certification School, where you’ll not only learn coaching techniques that combine growth mindsets and business skills but also how to build a client list. With 108 hours of learning rooted in trusted coaching methods, you’ll have the opportunity to grow both personally and professionally, all while becoming part of a community of coaches around the world and embarking on a new life journey.

#1 New York Times Bestselling Author
Host of the On Purpose Podcast
Creator of the Jay Shetty Certification School

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Community Challenge

I challenge you to commit to moving one activity from Quadrant 4 to Quadrant 2. In other words, find something you love that you’re not that good at, and commit to getting better at it. Come up with a plan of action. Hit reply to this email and tell me what you’re going to do to make this change a reality. I can’t wait to see what you’re up to!

Last week, I challenged you to let go of something you can’t control and invest the time you regained in something meaningful. This challenge clearly resonated deeply with many of you. Now, more than ever, we need to be mindful not to waste our energy on things we can’t control.

Many readers pointed out that they can’t really control the things they read about in the news—while they can control how often they pick up their phones to read it. It’s a beautiful piece of wisdom we could all learn from.

Reader Tamara wants to spend less time worrying about her 28-year-old son, who regularly runs out of money. “I feel like I can use my energy to model how I use a budget, share some things I use to manage my finances, and encourage him when he is productive and making sound decisions.” That’s beautiful, Tamara. I hope that, with time, your son will learn from your example.

Reader Eli wants to stop spending so much energy thinking negative thoughts about his stepmother and instead focus on getting better at meditating. Eli wrote, “I wrapped up Think Like a Monk not too long ago, and that was such a powerful book with lessons and tools that inspired me and helped me tremendously. Hearing about meditation for hours on end sounds scary at first, but I fell in love with meditation, and I want to hone the skills of endurance within meditation.” Thank you for your words, Eli. It’s a strong and powerful choice to shift negative energy into mindfulness.

Reader Anusha, who is 18 years old, shared some thoughts about the competitive academic environment in India, where she is from. “I’ve been preparing for these exams since 2 years now and often am overwhelmed with the number of people who will be writing this exam along with me. That makes it all the more difficult to get a good rank and get into a good college with a desired course. But the truth is I cannot control how many people take up these exams or how well they prepare because everyone is trying to do their best. It’s really out of my control. But what I can control is how I prepare. Focusing on my growth and improvement and spending my time and energy there is better than spending time thinking about the extraordinary competition there is today.” Good luck, Anusha. Don’t let competition cloud your focus. Run your race.

These responses all served as a reminder of how important it is for us to try to make a habit of doing this more often. Release something you can’t control, and pour that energy into something beautiful. Until next time, friends.