Choose feeling good over achieving

While having goals and wanting to achieve is necessary for a sense of purpose and our self-improvement, it can also be a hindrance to our happiness. It can be another potential pitfall of the 'someday I will be happy... when" syndrome.

We often create goals and work around achieving them, believing they will be the turning point and bring full satisfaction and contentment. We just need to achieve that one more deal so we can be happy. Sometimes deep down we even believe we don't have the right to feel at peace and happy right at this moment yet since we still have work to do to achieve.

But what if achieving is not always the key to happiness. What if the route is much simpler and unfolding right before us. We don't need anything more at this very moment to be happy, to enjoy ourselves. Perhaps we overrate the happiness factor in having another accomplishment under our belt and an easier means to happiness is just enjoying ourselves... in either case, we need to find a way to learn to enjoy ourselves in the middle of a big achieving project.

There will always be more things to do, as Richard Carlson says in his book, our to-do list will never be empty, and there will always be clouds on our horizons, problems that beg to be solved, but we need to learn to put our own enjoyment first sometimes.