What Is the Key to Lasting Prosperity? 

“I believe the key to lasting prosperity is evolution, because, again, our desires are always going to be changing,” says holistic wealth and wellness advocate Leanne Jacobs in this video for SUCCESS magazine.

Our desires are always changing—whether it’s because we decide we want to pursue a new reward or to find a new purpose because our old one no longer makes us as happy as it used to. But constantly seeking more doesn’t always serve to benefit us. According to a study published in PLOS Computational Biology, “sensibly or not, people often find it hard to remain happy with what they have. …We keep getting lured by the promise of unfathomable future happiness whilst hardly enjoying the riches of the present.” Researchers looked at how comparison and aspiration can harm and/or benefit us in several areas. When experiencing continuous change, “constantly rising aspiration helped in achieving better performance but also resulted in ever-increasing dissatisfaction.” At the same time, they saw that having a fixed aspiration level can be harmful and result in sub-optimal performance.

So the search for more and better can be a benefit—if we don’t aim so high that we never reach our goals. But the question remains: How do we get there? 

Creativity is key to lasting prosperity

For Jacobs, it’s a matter of our creativity.

“In my personal opinion, prosperity is really just the manifestation of creative energy,” she says. “So, you might be really creative or have these great ideas and you’ll manifest it into money, but it’ll end up getting stagnant and moving you eventually into a comfort zone. So you kind of want to stay on your creative toes. That’s how long-lasting prosperity, in my opinion, is.”

However, it doesn’t stop there. We don’t just need to stay on our toes. We need to be willing and ready to change, according to Jacobs: “And also, you’re gonna have to graduate. You’re gonna have to evolve. What made you money 10 years ago might still bring you some income today, but you’re always going to be in a place where to get to that next level is gonna require evolution, graduation and just renewed energy.”

And people want to be able to evolve, at least according to research. A 2021 survey conducted by Gallup and Amazon found that 57% of employees were highly interested in upskilling for either career advancement (59%) or to facilitate a career change (38%)—a number which increased to 71% “when that training [was] free and workers [were] paid while doing it,” according to the study. Of those who had participated in upskilling at some point, 71% “[agreed] or strongly [agreed] that it [had] enhanced their satisfaction with work.” Additionally, about “two-in-three workers [said] it [had] raised their standard of living and quality of life.” Not only that—upskilled employees had an increased likelihood of being in a good job and saw an estimated 8.6% boost in their annual wages.

This article was updated May 2023. Photo by JLco Julia Amaral/Shutterstock