There’s a funny feeling you get when you’re on social media…

You see people who are in amazing shape, who seem to be way ahead of you in all these different areas of their life.

On one hand, it’s exciting and inspiring because you see that a better life is possible for people who maybe are just like you.

But when you put the phone away, you come back to reality.

You look around:

• you look at your body
• you look at your life
• you realize that things might not be just where you want them to be yet.

Instead of measuring how exciting it would feel to be that person… 

(which, ultimately, you don’t know at all, it might suck to be that person)

Now, instead of measuring that excitement, you start measuring the difference between where you are at and where that person’s at.

And that can be really demotivating.

 Instead of it being about you measuring how awesome you can be, you start measuring how far behind you are.

You start measuring the gap instead.

That feeling sucks

 Now look, is being in awesome shape really all that fantastic anyways?

 Yes.

 I’m not going to lie to you and tell you that it doesn’t feel amazing.

And that all the hard work, sacrifice, and dedication that has to go into getting in great shape is not worth it.

 Because it totally is.  

But that doesn’t mean that life has to suck until you get there.

 You’re going to spend overwhelmingly more time in the pursuit of your goals than time you spend appreciating what you’ve accomplished.

So if:

• you’re not quite in the shape that you want to be just yet..
• or your business isn’t crushing it just yet…
• or your relationship isn’t as good as you want it to be…

Don’t let the distance between you and your goals make you unhappy.

“desire is a contract that you make with yourself that you’ll be unhappy until you get what you want.”

– Naval Ravikant 

 And look, I’m not proposing that you have to be a Buddhist monk and eliminate desire from your life.

That’s probably untenable for most people.

I’m proposing that you can be both happy and in the pursuit of your goals.

 In fact, you might even do a better job of pursuing your goals if you find a way to allow yourself to be happy in the process.

 Start by asking yourself this

Why do I want to get in shape?

Why do I want to build this business?

And why do I want to have an awesome relationship with my partner?

Why do I want to {insert goal here}? 

At the end of all the workouts and all the work hours and all the date nights, I can pretty much guarantee you that it will boil down to you being happy.

That’s the end goal.

In the past, I’ve tied my self-worth to my follower count or to my bank balance and to my body image.

It only ever led to disappointment.

Even when I accomplished something awesome, I’d be like, well, this is it.

I’m still me.

I’m still the same guy, even though I’m more jacked or more rich or got more followers or whatever.

But, that’s really just not what I was after the whole time.

Let’s get practical

You need something to be happy about along the way while you’re pursuing your goals.

Cause you don’t have the thing you want just yet, right?

So how do you actually be happy when you don’t have the things you want?

Look right in front of you.

Like the small moments where you and your partner are having coffee together in the morning.

You can be grateful for that, right?

Or maybe you can be grateful for the weight loss progress that you HAVE made so far.

Or all the awesome people that you get to work with.

There is more to be grateful for in your life than you can handle.

And you only need to acknowledge it in order to appreciate it.

“Your disposition counts more than your position”

– Jimmy Carr

You can be a sad, lonely, depressed person with a kick ass body and all the money in the world.

 Or, you can be happy, experience love, and satisfaction without even having material wealth or even your health.

That’s a choice

It starts by focusing on what you do have instead of what you don’t.

Here’s the take home message

Focus on what you have accomplished, not just on what you still have to accomplish.

Focus on what you do have and not just what you want

I get that you want to lose 44 more pounds, but bro, you’ve already lost six!

High five!

Enjoying your life in the pursuit of your goals won’t make you less likely to achieve them.

Consider this a permission slip from your Uncle Matteo to be happy before you get where you want to go.

Peace.