Too often we are hard on ourselves and feel bad about our lack of progress. We feel guilty that we’ve missed a couple of workouts, or that our progress on our goal has stalled, or that we slipped up and ate some really fattening stuff.
But that’s looking at the glass as half empty, and it is almost guaranteed to hinder your progress towards your goal.
Today is the International Day of Happiness, a day designated by the United Nations that’s marking its 10th anniversary in 2023 and there’s cause for optimism in the latest report on world happiness.
The global happiness has not taken a hit in the three years of the COVID-19 pandemic. Life evaluations from 2020 to 2022 have been “remarkably resilient,” the report says, with global averages basically in line with the three years preceding the pandemic.
The report, which is a publication of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, draws on global survey data from people in more than 150 countries. Countries are ranked on happiness based on their average life evaluations over the three preceding years, in this case 2020 to 2022.
The report identifies the happiest nations, those at the very bottom of the happiness scale and everything in between, plus the factors that tend to lead to greater happiness.
For the sixth year in a row, Finland is the world’s happiest country and at the very bottom of the list is Afghanistan at No. 137. Lebanon is one rank above at No. 136. Average life evaluations in these countries are more than five points lower (on a scale from 0 to 10) than in the 10 happiest countries.
How do you allow yourself to be happy and proud of your progress?
Look at the glass as half full — look back and see what you’ve done so far and feel proud of your progress. Be happy about how far you’ve come so far, even if you have a long way to go yet.
There are plenty of times when I missed workouts and felt plenty guilty. There were times when I ate unhealthily and felt bad. There were times when my organization system went to pieces, when my email inbox had hundreds of messages sitting there, not acted upon.
But if I let those bad feelings have any power over me, I’d probably have given up then and there, and never have reached my destination.
The key is to step back, and look back on what you’ve done. Sure, I missed some workouts, but look at how many I’ve done! And it wasn’t long ago when I wasn’t even a runner at all! Instead of beating yourself up, celebrate your success, no matter how small!
We will always feel guilty about what we haven’t done, but it is important that we remind ourselves that it is only a temporary setback. I always tell myself that it’s just a small bump on a long road.
Take the long view, both behind you and ahead of you. Small glitches can’t derail a train as powerful as you!