If you’re waiting for everything in your life to fall into place so you can be happy, you’ve got it all wrong.
Eighty-eight percent of adults across the world look for new experiences to make them happy, according to a 2022 report from Oracle. They’re setting themselves up for disappointment, because those perfect conditions seldom come to fruition, says Rachel Goldman, a clinical psychologist and professor at New York University.
“Don’t wait for that one thing to be happy,” Goldman tells CNBC Make It. “I hear people say, when I get a partner, I’ll be happy. When I get married, when I get that job, when I lose X amount of weight, I’ll be happy.”
Instead, find joy in the process of working hard to make those things happen, says Goldman. You’re unlikely to find every single moment enjoyable, she adds — but you shouldn’t wait until you finally get that promotion to feel happy for yourself, for instance.
Some days, you’ll feel happier and more successful than others. Those peaks and dips make it additionally important to find ways to “create your own happiness,” notes Goldman.
“Why wait 10 years, five years or even a month when you can make small tweaks now to make yourself feel better?” she adds.
Focus on what you can control
Goldman’s other top piece of happiness advice: Only focus on things you can control right now.
“There’s always going to be things out of our control,” she says. “And if we focus on those things, it’s not going to help us, it’s going to make us actually feel worse.”
If you’re on a job hunt, you can’t necessarily control how a recruiter will react to your resume, or how quickly you’ll get hired. You can, however, feel satisfied knowing that you took all the necessary steps to be a competitive applicant — from tailoring your resume for the role to asking good questions at the end of your interview.
“[Focus] on the here and now,” says Goldman. “Not the ‘what if I lose my job and five years from now?’ but ‘what can I do about it right now to help maintain my job?’ Or, ‘What can I do better right now to help my financial situation?'”
This mindset helps separate highly successful people from everyone else, according to billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban. “The one thing in life you can control is your effort,” Cuban said last year, in a LinkedIn video post. “And being willing to do so is a huge competitive advantage, because most people don’t.”
Put simply, don’t place conditions on your happiness or make yourself unhappy by dwelling on things that are out of your hands. “It’s all about our mindset,” Goldman says.
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