Most people, when stepping back and really looking at their life, are at least a little bit disappointed. You don’t feel that disappointment day to day because we are wired to make things seem better than they actually are. Like tuning out a loud, continuous beeping noise, your brain works very hard to limit continuous feelings of pain, guilt, frustration, or disappointment. What’s most remarkable is that it does this without you having to consciously think about it.
Whether it is your body weight, your finances, your relationships, or your career, I have two questions for you: First, if I showed a younger version of you what your life looks like in those areas right now, would they be pleasantly surprised, disappointed, or think that is how they expected things to look? Nobody daydreams about mediocrity when they are young. We think big when we are younger, have grand visions, paint pictures of success and happiness, and absolutely do not anticipate being thirty to forty pounds overweight, juggling our monthly bills or being unable to afford the things that we desire, merely existing in a passionate-less marriage, or being stuck in a lower-rung, non-stimulating job.
So, this leads to my second question… if any of these areas in your life are disappointing, have come up short of your early life expectations, and are not getting any better or are worsening each year, then what will things look like next year? In five years? Ten years?
Take where you started in your late teens or early twenties, then look at where you are now and extrapolate out to get a good idea of where you’ll be down the road. It is not hard to see that if you do not make some drastic changes, or in many cases even simple ones, your level of happiness and contentment will continue to decline.
Our happiness is very dependent upon the space between where we think we should be and where we actually are. The larger the gap, the less happiness there is. We can analyze that space between where we are and where think we should be and usually get some answers on why we feel so miserable day in and day out.
There are two ways to help minimize the disappointment and maximize the happiness. The first would be lower our expectations of how we think our lives should be right now. The second is to work harder to improve those areas of our lives and work to get them closer to where we think they should be. Ideally, we need to do a little bit of both. It is a very tricky task. On one hand, you should have big goals and grand visions of what your life should look like. However, you must be somewhat realistic initially and expand those visions as things unfold and progress. If you thought you would be the president of the company by now, but have only been with the company for a handful of years, need a more advanced degree to even be considered, and can’t stand your fellow employees, then you are being unrealistic. Of course, you are going to feel disappointed. Now, I’m not saying that you should not have the goal of being the president of the company, but to feel like you should be there already, and to experience emotional turmoil because you are not, makes little sense.
If you have been doing what you feel is all the right stuff, but are not the president of that company and feel like you should be and really want to be, this is where extrapolating comes in. If you continue to do the things that you have been doing over the past year, five years, or ten years, and you do the same things in the same way, then where will you be next year, or in five or ten years? Realistically, you will be no closer to where you feel you should be.
So, there are two things that will help boost your productivity, reduce your daily disappointment, and improve your level of happiness. Make sure the gap between where you think you should be and where you currently are is not too great. The second is to think about what you thought your life would look like when you were younger, grade it where it is right now, and then extrapolate out to see what your life will likely look like years down the road if you do not change your current habits and behavior.
Reset the gap I explained earlier and change your daily activities, and you’ll be on a path to greater happiness and a life that looks more like the one you dreamed of when you were younger.
