Does Success Equal Happiness?

byjudym

2.7K followers

5 years ago

Stop Looking for Happiness, Live in the Moment and Find it in the Now

Many of us spend most of our time looking for happiness and not enough time being happy. There’s nothing wrong with looking for happiness as long as you remember to appreciate the things that you have already. Take a minute and think of all the "really successful people" that are miserable. So, how do you find happiness in the now?

Take Pride in Your Past Achievements

Goals are important. They give us something to work for, give us direction, and make us feel productive and important. However, pursuing those goals shouldn’t prevent you from seeing the good things that are already happening around you. Just because you haven’t achieved all of your goals doesn’t mean that you can’t be happy about or proud of the goals that you have achieved. Always make time to recognize your successes and your efforts as you learn new things. Be happy and proud of yourself for taking the initiative in your life to improve.

Always Look For The Joy In All The Aspects of Your Life

Your goals are important, but they shouldn’t be the only source of your happiness. You should also look for happiness from your family and friends, your hobbies, and even little things like the weather. After all, if you always have your head down and are busy working you’re going to miss a lot of life’s best moments. And remember, there is not a rewind button. Be present and capture those magical moments now.

Think of moving toward your goal is similar to a long car drive. You don’t just stare out of the front window the whole time, you listen to the radio, you talk to other people in the car, you enjoy the scenery. You may even stop and get out of the car every now and then to look around, get a bite to eat, or just stretch your legs. Make sure you enjoy the ride.

Enjoy The Pursuit As Well As The Achievement

To stick with our car analogy for a bit, some people really like driving.

We think of our goals as things to work toward for the reward of achieving them, but a lot of reward and enjoyment can also come from the work that you are doing in achieving it.

Stopping your progress every now and again to appreciate the moment can help you to understand that maybe you don’t need to reach the next goal to enjoy working towards it.

One thing that makes it difficult to experience happiness as you progress towards your goals is that we often think of happiness as a thing rather than as a state. We link this “thing” -- happiness – with the goal and convince ourselves that without achieving the goal we can’t be happy. Nothing could be further from the truth. Be happy and you'll reach your goals easily.

To get the most out of your life, you need to learn to be happy while moving forward. And you will find the greatest success will come your way when you’re happy. There’s a classic old rock song by Motorhead called The Chase Is Better Than The Catch and whether you like music or not it’s an important perspective to keep with everything you do.

Keep A Balance Between Work And Goals

We’ve mentioned above that there’s more to happiness than just working toward your goal. Single-mindedly pursuing your goals can prevent you from enjoying many other aspects of life. If your goal is strictly creating online success, your health can suffer if you do not allow yourself to take the time to experience life’s simple pleasures.

This is essentially an argument for being well-rounded. Whatever your goal is, it will be better achieved and will bring you more happiness if you have other interests and objectives.

It can’t be stressed enough: having goals and looking for happiness is a great thing to do. The problem comes in when you convince yourself that you can’t be happy until you have achieved your highest goal. Nothing is worth sacrificing your happiness for.

This creates a feedback loop like a footrace where the finish line is always moving back. You will be happier and more successful if you learn to move forward while also enjoying the moment. So enjoy the process, keep creating and have fun while you’re doing it.

And know that happiness is a state you create for yourself at any given moment. It’s not a destination that you will one day arrive at. Always take time to be grateful for what you have and look for the joy in everyday life. Keep creating that online masterpiece, build your empire and enjoy working towards it. It makes it so much easier to create success.

So how about you... are you happy now or are you on your way to being happy?