I’ll feel better when …
Do you find yourself thinking:
- I'll be happy when ...
- Once things slow down I'll feel ...
- When I
- get married
- go on vacation
- have a baby
- move
- buy a house
then I'll be happy.
This was me. I love to plan and I was always daydreaming, romanticizing and looking forward to the next season. The next holiday. Weekends. Vacations. Milestones. I couldn't understand why I was still unhappy once they arrived. Usually the having of the thing I most wanted fell short of my fantasy. Or, once it arrived, my excitement would quickly wear off.
I remember feeling so confused and then depressed once we bought our house. We had been working towards buying a house for years. The day had arrived. We moved in and ... I felt no different. I thought for sure happiness was on the other side of buying a house. It's not. It's not on the other side of any of those things.
Even if the thing you're most looking forward lives up to your expectations, it's still not the people, event or money that makes you happy. It's your thoughts.
Here are good questions to ask yourself to help gain awareness about what you're thinking:
- Why will you be happy once you have the thing/things you most want?
- Go to the place where you already have it. What will you be feeling and thinking?
I've got good news. All of those thoughts and feelings are available to you right now. You get to be happy, fulfilled, satisfied, proud, and excited - right now. In fact, if you want to be happy when you have the thing you want, you have to be happy now. There's a great meme going around right now that says: If you can't find joy in a cup of coffee, you won't find it in a yacht. Gratitude treats all things the same.
That's because joy and gratitude comes from our thoughts. Not from our things. Yachts and coffee are neutral circumstances. One doesn't have more inherent meaning than the other. Our thoughts are what give things meaning. And, our thoughts are optional.
If you want to learn how to stop putting off feeling good, book a consultation so we can get started! Don't put this off, too 😉 Yes, I'm talking to you!
