Why Everyday Joy Doesn’t Come from Achievement
Are you looking at your life right now and wondering when will you be happy?
You see everyone else around you and wonder to yourself why can’t that be me? Why don’t I have children? Or that happy relationship? Am I the only one of my friends who’s still renting an apartment? Do you look at your long list of things you don’t have and then struggle to get out of bed?
If you find yourself wondering why you’re not happy it just might be time to look past your achievements and take a deeper look inside. Just a few days ago I was talking with a client, we’ll call her Nancy. Nancy told me she was struggling to get out of bed. That the only movement she had over the last three days was to go from her bed to the refrigerator to get that huge bucket of chocolate chip cookie dough. Ted, her boyfriend of three years had just left her because he said she wasn’t the same woman he had fallen in love with, that she was no longer the one for him.
Nancy told me she felt that she had hit rock bottom. That all of her friends were married with kids. That she was the only one of her friends who was single and that once again, she would have to start over. She felt alone and with that she had isolated herself in her apartment and found solace at the bottom of the cookie bowl. But now the bowl was empty and she still felt the same.
Nancy said she’d heard others talk about feeling empty before but she had never experienced these heightened emotions herself.
Have you ever felt this way?
Have you ever found yourself standing in the back of the room watching as everyone else seems happy, and well you, you’ve become the outsider, the only one who isn’t happy.
Well it’s not your fault. As a young woman you were handed the master copy for success. You were taught that with every milestone in life that you achieved that you’d achieve happiness. Graduate college. You’ll be happy. Get married. Be happy. Have your first child. YES! You are following the master copy of happiness and bliss.
But you’re life hasn’t unfolded this way. And as the years go by, you begin to notice you’re only getting older and your life is still the same. You’re not achieving the traditional milestones that you imagined you’d achieve and you’re not happy.
But you’ve got it all wrong.
True happiness isn’t found through achievement. True happiness is found when we feel our days. It exists in the moment you’re sitting in right now. If you can stay right here, right now, you’ll manage to see the beauty that exists around you. The sweet kisses from your child, the fresh smell of the lilies from the garden, the most generous partner who brought you coffee, the friend who called just because she was thinking of you. These are the moments that warm your heart and bring a smile to your face, but these are the EXACT MOMENTS that are so often overlooked.
In order to find every day joy you most change your focus from what will come to what is. You need to spend more of your time, honed in on what is happening in the moment that it is happening rather than what will come.
For it’s the smallest moments in your life that will bring you the most joy.
If you are looking for help focusing on joy rather than achievement, I invite you to book a complimentary consultation.