I'll be happy when... insert life goal of choice here, am I right?
This the trap that I have personally fallen into many times and the one that I am ever vigilant of. The better I get at avoiding this particular catchphrase, the more I have to look out for it's evil twin "If I can just..." and let's not forget "It will be better when...". Because the long and short of it is: it's not true. Deep down we all know this and an ever-increasing number of us know this on the surface now too, but despite my best efforts, I still catch myself thinking in terms of "I'll be happy when" from time to time. And then last week, I had one of the biggest Aha! moments of my life.
I was driving home from work, excitedly thinking about the next big life goal that I'm close to achieving (more on that later this year) when I found myself wondering what would be the next big goal after I'd achieved this one? And what would come after that? And that? For a moment I was worried that I was embarking on an endless, life-long merry-go-round of goal setting and pursuing, always chasing and never reaching that mystical place in time when I've "made it", when this thought was pushed so quickly out of my head by a new one that I actually exclaimed out loud "Ohhhhh!"
In an unusual display of helpfulness, my brain reminded me of something that was said in biz club a little while ago. Goal setting is not about achieving the thing, it's about who you become along the way. In other, more familiar words, life is a journey, not a destination.
Bing! Bing bing bing bing bing! Biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing! (That is the sound of a million lightbulbs turning on in my head all at once.)
You see, I love having a goal to work towards, it gives me a reason to get out of bed in the morning and gives me a sense of direction and purpose but I also know that it's important not to get so fixated on our goals that we forget to stop and smell the roses along the way.
As I was thinking about that phrase Goal setting is not about achieving the thing, it's about who you become along the way my Aha! moment was this: If achieving the goal or reaching the milestone isn't the point of goal setting, and the journey along the way to reaching it is, then that means that I have already "made it", because that's where I am now. This current phase that I am in, the time when I'm learning, growing, meeting new challenges head on and learning new skills along the way, this is the best part, not the moment months from now when I'm sitting in a restaurant celebrating the win.
The more I thought about this seed of an idea, the more it grew until I was almost bursting with a feeling of happiness and weirdly, a sense of achievement. I felt like I'd cracked the code of life! That feeling of "I've made it" that I had been consciously and subconsciously chasing all my life, the one that I thought I would achieve through qualifications, accolades and external markers of "success", suddenly came to me in the rush of endorphins and wave of euphoria that I had always hoped it would, although ultimately not through the means that I thought it would.
Me and my inner critic, finally on the same page.
I was stunned. All this time I had thought that I would be happy when I passed the exam, graduated from university or, more largely, bought a house but suddenly, as clear as day, I could see that those milestones weren't the point. It doesn't matter that I have a certificate proving that I have a degree, what matters is the four years of very hard work I put in to get there. The qualification itself is meaningless without the knowledge. And yes it's awesome to be hitting the financial goals I have set myself for my business, but what's even better is the skillset I have developed along the way so that I can continue to expand and build and grow.
I'm so grateful for this realisation, because it has made me stop and appreciate everything that I currently have in my life and where I am at on my journey. I'm no longer in a rush to achieve the next big thing because I know that where I am now is the best bit. It's so lovely and exciting to plan the next big goal but isn't that just it? It's exciting to plan. The run up to an event is often more exciting than the event itself because you have it to look forward to, like Christmas. With that in mind, I wonder if it might be able to assuage my January blues next year by reframing how I view Christmas and New Year. Instead of seeing Christmas Day as the big event that we lead up to, perhaps instead we should view it as the end of the marathon? The cap on the festive season? This year when we sit down at our table to Christmas dinner, instead of wishing for that feeling of "We're here, we've made it, this is Christmas!", I'm going to try replacing it a feeling of "Phew! That's done!"
Ironically, I finally feel as though I've made it although it's not that surprising that the feeling arrived when I genuinely let go of trying to chase it. (That particular phenomenon is called The Law of Least Resistance - like when you finally stop waiting for the phone to ring and it suddenly does?)
The final lesson that has come through this realisation is that I feel as though I have finally reached the third and final stage of the phrase: Be. Do. Have. For the past two years, I have been doing the work on myself to grow emotionally and spiritually and this is a phrase that has cropped up many times along the way. I didn't understand it at first but as time has gone on, it has made more and more sense to me on a deeper level and I can see now that I have been using it as something of a framework in my healing without really realising.
It's easy to think that Have refers to material things, I certainly did at first and I suppose in some regard it still can, but for me it is Having the life I want. But more importantly, it is easy to think that by following the prescription in that order, Be, Do, Have, once you nail down the Be and the Do, you will naturally achieve the Have, but actually what happens when you "achieve" the Have is that you realise that you had it all along. In my experience, you don't suddenly gain the things that you wish for, they begin to accrue whilst you are working on the Being and the Doing and then one day you wake up and realise that you already Have everything that you ever wanted.
Be the version of you that you want to be. Do the things that they do. And one day you'll look back on where you used to be and see that you Have your ideal life.
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