Cutthroat Blogspot with Eoin McCarthy
Hi! It’s me again. Checking in from week number 4 of Victoria’s Lockdown. I have to admit I am enjoying this time immensely. I feel rested, fitter, healthier and more clear than I’ve ever been. It’s allowed me a lot of time to think, reflect & plan for the future – and most importantly it’s allowed me to rekindle my love for writing.
In last week’s blog entry I spoke on discipline and goal setting, this week I want to touch on the result that we get from setting those goals, “the destination” some might call it – but what I’ve found recently is that there is no such place.
We as humans are tremendously guilty of endlessly chasing our idea of “happiness”, but even when we think we have it, we still get that feeling that we’re never quite there. I want to share with you some insights from someone I’ve been following closely and learning from throughout this lockdown – Steven Bartlett. “Until you give up on the idea that happiness is somewhere else, it will never be where you are”; “Be happy with what you have, while you work for what you want”.
Now let me put this into context. Have you ever really looked forward to something and when it was finally here you felt an anti-climax? Or have you ever worked so hard for such a long time towards a very specific goal or target and when you finally reached it you didn’t feel the way you thought you should have felt? In fact, you didn’t feel any different at all? But what if I told you that when we get that feeling – maybe we were there all along. What if the journey was, in fact, the destination.
If you are like me, getting that initial idea and feeling that emotion is where I get most of my excitement when dreaming about my ideal vision of the future. Visualising it so deeply that you feel the emotion of the goal already achieved. This is why we don’t feel satisfied. Now, this brings me to my main point. What we need to realise is that there is no “destination”, it’s all about the journey and the process. We were at the destination from the moment we started to take action on it. All the fun comes from growing something and seeing it evolve. For example, if you look at billionaires, you’d think once they reached millionaire status that they’d be happy – time to party, hang up the tools and chill. But clearly, there is something more to it for them to keep the process going so much that they become billionaires, scaling their businesses to higher levels, even though it’s seen as unnecessary. It’s fair to say they must truly love the journey. It’s fun for them.
The process of creating my first collection “Unity In Diversity” taught me this lesson. It was a project that I thoroughly enjoyed working on for months without any external gratification and when I finally released it I didn’t feel any happier internally than I already was. Even now, the more exposure the collection gains, it doesn’t make me any happier than I was on the days of shooting and editing. Although I still feel that sense of pride and happiness when I get credit from my peers – I don’t bask in it because I’m already working on the next thing, today.
So now, taking all this in, when I ask myself “what’s next?”, it’s no longer a viable question. There is no ‘next’. It’s ‘now’, it’s always about what’s happening now. It’s all about the journey.
Enjoy the process of achieving your goals, because trust me it’s more rewarding than the result. Enjoy the little wins. The journey of getting to your dream destination is the best part and if we don’t live in the present moment it will destroy our happiness on a daily basis!
Until next week, peace! ✌?
P.s. Check out the latest issue of The Cutthroat Journal! I’m in there!
