I’ve always been the type of person who booked holidays fairly last minute, so you can imagine what an experience it was when a few years ago I booked a holiday a good 5 months in advance.
I literally remember counting down to this holiday like it would be the best holiday that anyone had ever gone on in the history of womankind!
I was so excited and remember wondering why I hadn’t booked my holidays in advance before? If this is how it felt, I would definitely be doing it more in the future.
Everything was instantly better. If I was having a bad day at work, I’d just think about my holiday! It was like a holiday before the holiday itself.
Finally…
After months of looking forward to it, the day finally arrived.
I got up at 4 AM, buzzing with excitement. Of course, It wouldn’t be a holiday if I didn’t have to get up at the crack of dawn.
After sharing the flight with a loud obnoxious group of people that were somehow even more excited than I was, we finally arrived.
And you know what….?
It was just ok… It wasn’t a bad holiday, it was just OK.
Since this isn’t a blog about travel and holidays I won’t bore you with all the details of what went wrong or what could have been better, but after such an incredible build up, it was a bit of an anticlimax.
You’re probably wondering why I’m telling you this story.
Well, I was reflecting on this holiday anticlimax and it got me thinking about happiness. More specifically, how we put it off. Whether it’s happiness in life, in relationships or in relation to work and our careers.
What we fail to realize is that the journey is often so much more enjoyable, or can be so much more enjoyable than the destination itself.
Happiness now or never?
So many of us are waiting to be in the right job, to be in the right company, to meet the right person, or to have the career of our dreams before we can be happy. We think that until we have that thing we want until we’re in that position, we have that job, we’re in that company, we can’t be happy.
What this means is that when you don’t like the job you’re doing, when you want a career change, job change or some other big change in your life, you suddenly put happiness on hold.
You spend your life waiting to arrive. So everything up until the day that you are in your new career, your new job, doing the thing you want to do, you don’t allow yourself to be happy.
The thing is, this can be counterproductive. I don’t know about you but when I’m unhappy, I’m not at my most productive. Even if you take action, you’re not putting the best of you into it and since you get out what you put into things, you’re less likely to get the results you want.
So, if you find yourself waiting to be happy, thinking you would be happy if only you were in that new career, in that new life, but you find yourself not actually doing anything towards it, then it’s likely that you feel stuck.
This is very common because the moment you start working towards the things you want is the very moment that you’ll feel happier.
Even doing the tiniest little thing can make a difference. Making a decision to take a step towards what you want, taking the smallest step, just getting started.
Choose happiness now
When you flip your mindset and realize that the journey in itself can bring you enjoyment, suddenly a career change or life change that you know will take months or even years will seem possible.
And who knows what will happen along the way. Who knows who you’ll meet or what you will learn? If you don’t start taking action, then you will never know, and worse still, you’ll remain stuck and unhappy, waiting for happiness that may never come. Because the one thing we all do is move the goalposts, once you achieve the thing you want, you want something more.
So instead of feeling stuck and unhappy in your current situation, ask yourself, “What one small step can I take to move me closer to what I want?” and “ What is great about my job, life or career, right now?”
By starting to take action as well as noticing the good things in your life right now, you’ll finally be in the driving seat of your life and you’ll feel more in control, which will make you feel a whole lot happier, more productive and more likely to achieve the success you want.
How being happy now can lead to more success:
Shawn Anchor is an advocate for positive psychology. In this Ted Talk he explains why we’re all thinking backwards when it comes to happiness, and why focusing on being more positive and happy in the present, will ultimately make you more successful than waiting to be successful before you can be happy. So, if you’re putting off your happiness until you have the perfect job, career, salary… fill in the blank, then there’s definitely another way.
