It Doesn’t Get Better Than This

Stop postponing your happiness until the next achievement.

By Brooke Hicks · The Life Coach School

What are you waiting for before you let yourself enjoy your life?

Finishing the project. Making more money. Getting the result. Having fewer responsibilities.

It sounds reasonable to believe you’ll feel better then. But notice what happens to the moment you’re living now. It becomes something to get through on your way to somewhere else.

Consider a different relationship with now

The thought that it doesn’t get better than this can sound discouraging. When I began exploring it, I found it surprisingly freeing.

I wasn’t telling myself that my circumstances could never improve. I was considering that my capacity to experience joy wasn’t something a future accomplishment would deliver.

Our thinking shapes our emotional experience. If I believe a future success will allow me to feel proud or peaceful, I can examine the thoughts I expect to think then.

What am I planning to believe about myself? What am I planning to appreciate? Is any of that available to me now?

Planning isn’t the same as escaping

You can be present and plan an ambitious future. You can write a book, build a business, or pursue a meaningful change.

The difference is whether you believe your current life has to be inadequate for you to want something new.

When you tell yourself the project is standing between you and happiness, you spend the workday resisting the very thing you chose to create. The future starts to look wonderful because it won’t contain the experience you’re arguing with now.

You can choose to participate in the work instead. You can be interested in the process, notice what you’re learning, and still look forward to finishing.

Notice the moving finish line

If you practice postponing happiness, reaching a milestone may simply give you a new milestone to wait for.

You get what you wanted. Then you notice the next thing that is missing. The habit of leaving the present moment behind comes with you.

This is why appreciating your life now matters. It’s a skill you take into the future you’re creating.

Think about a time you now remember fondly. While you were living it, were you busy wishing it would be over? Were you waiting for more money, more certainty, or a different life?

It is possible to look back and recognize value you couldn’t see while you were there. What might you be missing in your current experience?

Make appreciation specific

Choose one ordinary part of today and give it your attention. Notice who is with you, what your body can do, or what is meaningful about the work in front of you.

Then write down the thought that keeps sending you into the future. Identify the feeling you believe that future will give you.

Explore a believable thought that lets you access some of that feeling now. You don’t have to insist that every circumstance is wonderful. You can find something to appreciate without denying what is difficult.

Thoughts create feelings, feelings drive actions, and actions create results. When you feel more engaged with your life, notice what changes about the way you participate in it.

Want more without withholding today

You can love what you have and want something new. You can be content and creative at the same time.

Try pursuing your next goal without making happiness the reward you withhold until the end. Let the life you’re living today have your attention. It is the only place you can practice the experience you keep hoping to have.