How to Stop Delaying Happiness and find Joy in every Moment?
4 Ways to Stop Living Life on the Layaway Plan and Live in the Present
Are you guilty of delaying happiness for some far-off future date, believing that it resides on the other side of your next achievement?
Perhaps you have gotten into the habit of reserving your happiness until you achieve that next big milestone. Only to achieve it and not experience anywhere near the level of happiness you thought awaited on the other side.
Whatever the case may be, know that you are not alone. This post will outline 4 Ways to Stop Living Life on the Layaway Plan and Live in the Present.
The Unconscious Habit of Living Life on the Layaway Plan
There’s this widely accepted notion that happiness is experienced after an intended goal, milestone, or achievement is reached. This implies that happiness can only be realized as a result of achieving something external to yourself that is revered as worthy of happiness. In order words, it mistakenly suggests that happiness is an external state that can only be actualized when a preferred outcome occurs. This proverbial attachment to expectations figuratively places your happiness at the mercy of things working according to plan. In other words, if things don’t pan out exactly as you imagined withholding happiness is justifiable. Essentially, the more we withhold ourselves from experiencing the joys of everyday life, the more we subject ourselves to undue suffering.
Making our happiness contingent upon everything working out according to plan is a gamble, as the natural ebbs and flows of life, make it all the more unpredictable. No matter how we meticulously plan out our life, there is absolutely no guarantee that things will evolve according to plan. From receiving an advanced degree to investing your proverbial blood, sweat, and tears, to achieving your aspirations, delaying happiness for an ambiguous future time doesn’t serve your highest good. In fact, it has the exact opposite effect.
Attachments to outcomes is a habit that relatively starts early on, with some as young beginning in the teenage years. Often ambitious, career-focused teens, get so caught up in the draw of tirelessly striving to achieve academic accolades that they dedicate their high school tenure to taking on the most complex college-level courses, often foregoing any semblance of fun. Whether their intention is to be awarded with the title of valedictorian or to get accepted into some of the country’s top Ivy League schools, delaying gratification until some far off time, can have ill effects on one’s wellbeing.
Interestingly, these ambitious aspiring youth put in the work to not only achieve a lofty perfect GPA but many push the limits often going above and beyond the long-held standard of just a 4.0. As a relatively seasoned card-holding member of generation Z, this in itself is unfathomable in that it’s even possible to go beyond a perfect average. As a result of exclusively dedicating their young lives to academic excellence, it’s often at the sacrifice of experiencing the joys found in daily life.
No matter how lofty one’s future goals maybe one can not exclusively live life on the layaway plan. Attaching external expectations and foregoing happiness for an unspecified amount of time can only increase suffering, decreasing your vibration. The truth is, no matter how much we plan for the future, nothing is guaranteed, as all we ever have is the present.
Or perhaps you’ve experienced a physical transformation, where you either gained or lost a considerable amount of weight. Depending on whether your experience was intentional or not, the outcome was either a very good thing or a not-so-good thing. Whatever the case may be, you may have found yourself in dire need of a completely new wardrobe. As most things tend to evolve, it’s likely that things did not evolve according to the plan.
Just maybe, you are fairly satisfied with the way you have progressed along your weight loss journey. Only, you very well may be far from your ideal weight. Being that things have not yet panned out according to plan, you very well may have decided that you would not celebrate the little wins until you actualized your intended outcome. In other words, you may have lost a pretty significant amount of weight through persistent concerted effort, only you chose to not give yourself permission to celebrate the small victories along the way. If this in any way rings a bell, then you are in good company.
Give Yourself Permission to Live Life in the Now
When it comes to living life on a layaway plan it is reminiscent of my journey to become more physically fit. After months of persistent physical effort, I finally began to see the fruits of my labor. Soon it became apparent that I was past due for a new wardrobe, only I came to this realization much sooner than I initially expected. Although I achieved objective results, which were worthy of celebration, I believed that I could not celebrate until I had achieved that magical number. No matter how close I was to this proverbial magic number, in my mind I had not yet achieved the level of success I envisioned until I could confidently say that I either met or exceeded the goal.
No matter how loose and ill-fitting my clothes were, I was determined to not take any action until the attachments to my expectations were actualized. So there I was, determined to remain steadfast in my convictions. Basically, I was committed to looking absolutely ridiculous and feeling even worst all so that I could say that I remained loyal to my initial intentions. This is all fine and dandy, but to what end? At the end of the day, it made absolutely no sense that I would willingly deprive myself of experiencing the joys of achieving the small wins along the way.
Regardless of whether the scale was two to three pounds away from my target number, the truth is I did it, and that in itself is worthy of celebration. As with most who get sick and tired of being sick and tired, I finally decided to give myself permission to stop subjecting myself to any unnecessary suffering and allow myself to be in the moment. Sure I may not have been exactly where I ultimately wanted to be, but I was a whole lot closer than when I first started, and that in itself was sufficient.
4 Ways to Stop Living Life on a Layaway Plan and Live in the Present
1. Observe where you are directing your Attention
We are attentive beings, in that where our attention goes our energy flows. Every second of the day we are either knowingly or unknowingly focusing our awareness on one thing or another. Directing your awareness to those engrained habits that have unconconsicouly become a part of you, equips you with the power of choice to choose where and how you elect to focus your awareness.
2. Acceptance
Whenever we observe ourselves engaging in habits that we may not consciously agree, release the urge to overly critique it. Judgment tends to lower our frequency making us feel any number of negatively charged emotions.
When we observe our actions we are not always going to be pleased with what we see. So instead of resisting what is, release any judgment and accept it, as is. All too often we tend to confuse acceptance with an agreement. We don’t necessarily have to like what we observe but we need to accept it and release any resistance.
3. Pause & Breathe
Habits can become so ingrained within us, that we figuratively begin to automatically complete certain actions. In essence, you are acting without thought, and it becomes that much more difficult to disrupt the pattern. Unlike thoughts that can stray, and wander through the past, and future, we can only breathe in the present.
Therefore, whenever you notice yourself engaging in habits you are aiming to shift, observe the pattern, pause to disrupt it, and take a few cleansing breaths. This practice redirects the awareness back onto the present. Cycle through this process as many times as needed.
4. Redirect Your Awareness
In the case of postponing happiness, observing the pointed focus of your awareness supports you to recognize old habits, and course correct by bringing your attention back onto the present by cycling through the practice of pausing, and taking as many deep cleansing breaths to redirect your awareness back to your intended focus.
5. Begin AGAIN
Any and every subsequent time you consciously observe your awareness drifting back into any old default habits that no longer serve, begin again. Cycling through the process as many times as needed. The same way it took time, and consistent repeated efforts to form deep-seated habits requires you to invest the same level of effort to form new habits that honor your well-being.
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