There is a great book that I recommend that you read. It is called The Shack. It has many psychological and theological lessons that are essential to live a happy and prosperous life. Like I said, you have to read it to get such a rich reading experience.
In that book, there is a story where Jesus and Mackenzie are walking on the river and they encountered a big fish. Jesus tells Mackenzie that he has been trying to catch the fish without success. Then Mackenzie tells Jesus that he is God and he can just get the fish by command. God can do anything. Jesus replies that there is no fun by just getting the fish without effort.
Jordan Peterson, clinical psychologist, explains that we enjoy our journey to get our goals more than we enjoy reaching our goal. If you think about it, it makes sense. We enjoy more a new relationship, a new car, new career, new apartment, moving to a new city and so on when we work of it. We fantasize with the reward and make it so desirable that we are willing to work hard for it, but the fantasy and desire becomes more fun than the goal itself.
In the bible I found the next passage, Jeremiah 29:11, “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
The journey is more exciting than the actual goal...
One of the things I noticed about myself is that I do have faith and I see myself thinking about my goal and enjoy it before I reach it. The more difficult it becomes the more I enjoy it and more committed I am.
Like the passage says, I focus so much in my future reward with hope and make it so real that I start enjoying the journey.
As my journey continues towards my goals, I learn many new things about the goal and myself. That fact that I am committed to reach my goal gives me the discipline to learn and experiment. I become a different person and enjoy such process. There are many times where I fail and that makes me more resilience for example. That in turn helps me to cope with other difficult situation in life that they used to bother me.
Here I give you an analogy to make sense. Every time my body gets used to a set of weights, I lift heavier weights. For example, I used to squat 65 pounds. Now I can squats 315 pounds more than 35 repetitions. Sixty five pounds are so easy for me now that is not even enough for me to warm up. I have become stronger.
The same happens with obstacles or problems in life. When you overcome problems, you become more resilience. That means that you become stronger for the next more difficult obstacle or problem that you need to face and the past problem becomes just an easy task just like the 65 pounds squats.
This is the reason why the journey is so important not the goal itself if you are trying to lose weight. You become so tough that life becomes easier. Life will always be difficult and the only way you can enjoy life is by you becoming tougher than life.
There are times when I get frustrated because I focused too much on the goal that it becomes impossible. When I am trying to force something my way, I noticed that I never reach my goal. One thing is having faith, creating a plan and work towards the goal and letting it happen and other thing is to try to force the goal to happen.
I think frustration happens when we are so desperate to reach our goal...
that we forget to enjoy the journey not understanding that life is actually the journey not the goal we are going after. If we don’t enjoy the journey chances are we are not going to reach our goal.
We release dopamine when we are in the journey towards our goals just as we release dopamine when we reach it. So that says that we are not more happy achieving our goal than working towards it. What I can tell you from personal experience is that many times I am so focus in my objective that when I reach my goal, I just take the goal for granted and just continue working towards the other one because the journey is what makes me happy. Have you ever noticed that in your life?
I have explained to our members at Custom Body fitness to set goals, create a plan and focus on what they are doing to get there. Losing weight is not about the pounds they have lost on the scale. It is about the person they are becoming by learning new habits while they are in their journey.
Trying to lose weight..?
Really, this is your life, the fact that you are living every moment, becoming a better person. Trying to diet, take supplements, force your body to change, weighing yourself every day, weighing your food, counting calories become very stressful when you can just learn about eating habits and exercise and change those habits enjoying the journey of become a new person.
Make your life a happy story by enjoying every journey and chapter of your life even though things don’t come out as you planned it. The goal is only part of the journey, not the whole journey. Weight loss is achieved by the habits you changed not by the pounds you lost.
Comments