You Promised You’d Be Happy When You Had Everything You Have Now
Are you guilty of this?
Saying to yourself, “Once I get this raise I’ll be happy.” “Once I get a new house I’ll be happy.” “I just need a new car then I’ll be set.”
If you’re like me, these phrases are a regular occurrence.
We promise ourselves we will be happy when we reach our goal. And then we reach it!
But guess what? We just keep moving the benchmark so we never actually achieve our goal.
And at one point you promised yourself you’d be happy with everything you now have.
In fact, everything you currently have… is everything you dreamed of at some previous point in your life.
So why do we break our promise to ourselves?
Part of me thinks it’s just the way we were wired.
Think about it.
If you were a struggling human hundreds of years ago, being content was not in the best interest of your survival.
If you had enough food for the week and called it good, you would likely starve when food was scarce.
If you had enough firewood and the days were warm, those who were happy and stopped working were the ones who froze and didn’t pass on their genes.
We all probably come from the most neurotic, overplanning ancestors who survived all the trials and tribulations of tougher times.
Yet, their genetics, their brains… continue to exist through their children, and their children’s children, and their children’s children’s children… aka us.
A generation that doesn’t have to worry about lions, and bears. A generation that instead has heat, water, and electricity through our communities.
A generation that has drive-through DQ Blizzards and hot juicy hamburgers whenever we want them.
We are the luckiest people in history yet our brains are still wired to constantly want more, MORE, MORE!
If we aren’t happy with our health, comfort, and 6 different streaming services, will we suddenly become happy when we upgrade from an iPhone 14 to an iPhone 15?
Probably not.
The key is to understand our wiring and make a conscious effort to rewire our brains.
How can we do this?
In my experience, the two things that work best are focusing on gratitude for all the things we already have, and journaling to track our progress over time.
Gratitude shifts our focus from the 1% of things we want to the 99% that we already have.
It is a realistic reframing that puts things into perspective.
We have everything we need to be happy and grateful at this very moment, yet we are wearing blinders and focusing on the wrong things.
Here are a few articles to shift your perspective and increase gratitude:
By keeping a journal we can catch ourselves making these unrealistic demands and claims to ourselves.
Did your journal entry last week claim you’d be happy once you got x, y, or z?
Keep yourself accountable and say well I got what I wanted but I didn’t abide by my promise to myself.
Here are some tips and tricks to journal effectively:
Remember, at one point you said you’d be happy when you reached the state you are in now.
Let’s make sure we keep our promise to ourselves
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