Let’s wait until next year, when you’re younger

We always assume things are going to be easier in the future. 

And so, we hold out hope for the ideal situation and the right time and the perfect opportunity. Waiting until that magic day when things are simpler and slower and safer, at which point we can finally make our move. 

This is a way of telling ourselves a disempowering story. Pretending that the craziness of the moment is only temporary, assuming peace will come once the loose ends have been tied, this only seduces us into thinking that our happiness is not here, but there, somewhere in the near future. 

My client once made a great joke about this in our most recent coaching session:

“I’ll get to it when I have time, which I never do. Maybe I’ll just wait until next year, when I’m younger.”

Whatever project or habit or task we’re avoiding, what matters is that we accept reality on reality’s terms, instead of standing by for some imagined future that never comes. That’s the only way we move the story forward. 

Shahar’s innovative research on happiness attributes this type of thinking to perfectionism. He found that perfectionists pay an extremely high emotional price for rejecting reality, and doing so leads to an intensification of the very anxiety they are trying to suppress, ultimately leading to even more pain. 

Everyone either knows this person, or is this person. The perfectionist says that there is no level at which they will feel safe putting this thing in the world because there’s always something that’s not right about it. 

And shockingly, the work never gets done. 

It’s time to get under the covers of the stories you’re telling yourself. Stop assuming things are going to be easier in the future. 

Start where you are, and trust that you have everything you need.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

Are you still waiting for some major event that must occur in your life before you begin living?

* * * *

Scott Ginsberg

That Guy with the Nametag

Author. Speaker. Strategist. Inventor. Filmmaker. Publisher. Songwriter.  

[email protected]

www.nametagscott.com

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