I recently had dinner with a friend who shared with me an epiphany she’d recently experienced. For years, she had dreamed, planned and plotted her perfect garden. She’d drawn up plans, spoken to contractors, made multiple visits to garden centres to research ideas. And yet, now, years later, still no perfect garden.

She’d spent hours, weeks, months, probably, thinking about the garden or lack thereof. She’d beaten herself up for not being more organised, more proactive, more decisive. She’d agonised over quotes from contractors trying to figure out where the garden came in the order of priority when it came to the budget. And of course, she’d gone through all the emotions in relation to this – anger, frustration, despair, despondency, resentment and resignation until one day she experienced something else. A realisation.

Out working in the garden one day she’d had an epiphany and the epiphany was this. She no longer cared about the end result, the perfect garden, because she had suddenly realised just how much joy she was getting from the garden being a work in progress. She loved pottering about, pruning the occasional bush, going to the garden centre to peruse the latest plants and speaking to landscapers about creative ways to use the space.

She loved dreaming about the possibilities and thinking about how it could be without feeling the need to ensure that it would be a certain way. She had started to see the visits to the garden centre as pleasurable outings in their own right, rather than as a means to an end. And, most interestingly, she’d come to the conclusion that should her perfect garden ever materialise, she would probably be a little bit sad, grieving for the joy of possibilities lost to the certainty of completion.

Which got me thinking….

How many of us are missing out on this joy of the work in progress because we are so fixated on the attainment of a specific outcome?

And how could we flip this around?

If there’s no pain, is it worth the gain?

There’s nothing inherently wrong with having goals, dreams, aspirations – future states you are working towards. Where things can go a little haywire is when we start to subvert our joy in the now, in sacrifice to the expectation of happiness, satisfaction, contentment in the then.

The idea that we must struggle and sacrifice to achieve our goals has been around for a long time and many of us, implicitly or overtly, seem to subscribe to this view. If whatever we’re working towards comes too easily, we can sometimes experience a sense of unease – that maybe we haven’t set our sights high enough or pushed ourselves far enough. The assumption being that things that come easily aren’t really worth having or, that we’ll appreciate the end result more if we’ve sacrificed along the way.

I’d like to flip this on its head and suggest an alternative. Instead of thinking about life as a series of rare moments of big achievement, start thinking of it as a continuous experience of tiny moments of joy.

Revel in the muscle burn you experience while working out in pursuit of getting to your ‘ideal weight’. Delight in the mosaic you can create with sample pots as you take your time to decide what colour to paint your wall. Sink into the joy of experimenting with different styles and colours as you try to figure out what new look you’re going to embrace for the next phase of your life. Have fun as you work the room at networking events in search of that elusive connection who will help advance your career…

Banking the joys of the every day

We know, from countless studies, that achievement doesn’t actually deliver happiness. What research shows is that, on achieving a goal, most of us will experience a brief high, followed often by an unexpected low and then, the re-emergence of the hunger for something else/more/different that drove the pursuit of the goal in the first place. A vicious cycle many of us are familiar with, I’m sure.

I think that knowing this is enormously liberating. It doesn’t preclude working towards a particular goal or future state but it takes away that expectation that the achievement of that goal will deliver the joy. This frees us up to pay more attention to how we feel about what we do with our time and energy day to day.

If you enjoy what you do each day, and it helps you move towards your goals, great! Even if you never quite get there, or things don’t turn out exactly as planned, you’ll already have banked the enjoyment of the ride. And no doubt have some great stories to tell!

If you take no joy from your day to day life, but keep telling yourself that the sacrifice will be worth it in the end, that’s not so great. Subverting your current happiness in the pursuit of some idealised future state is most likely to lead to disappointment. Both that the achievement of your goal didn’t deliver to expectations and, that you’ve spent so much time being unhappy without the desired return.

Create many moments

So what can we learn from all of this? Well when you break it down, it’s really quite simple. Either do only the things you enjoy for their own sake or, find a way to enjoy the things that you are doing in pursuit of a future goal – or maybe both!

There was a great facebook meme going around recently that said ‘write down the things you enjoy, write down the things on your to do list – compare lists and adjust accordingly’

I think this is a great way to sense check how you are spending your time and energy each day. Of course this doesn’t mean you won’t have annoyances and frustrations to deal with – life’s funny like that – but you don’t have to schedule those things into your life by actively choosing to spend your time on things you don’t enjoy doing.

Instead actively choose to create moments that make your heart smile – pruning the roses, going for a walk, creating a multi-coloured filing system, crafting a beautifully written report, playing with the cat, cruising the mall for inspiration without the pressure of actually buying anything…

After all, it is these moments that form the days, weeks and years of our lives!

About Me

Tricia Alach is an author, work-life coach and wellbeing professional who specialises in helping busy people create more balance, joy and fulfilment in life! To learn more about what she offers visit www.flowmindandbody.com or connect via facebook or @triciaalach