Letting Go of “I’ll Be Happy When”

I Will Be Happy When…
I will be happy when I lose this extra weight.
I will be happy when my clothes fit me again.
I will be happy when I am all caught up with my to-dos.
I will be happy when I organize my house.

In other words, I live in a kind of perpetual “I will be happy when” purgatory, where happiness is always postponed until the next thing is fixed, finished, or accomplished.

The last time those words rolled off my tongue, I was thinking about all my grandiose New Year’s resolutions, a ritualistic habit many of us share. It usually starts to creep into our conscience during that strange week between Christmas and New Year’s, when excess still lingers, but guilt starts to settle in. And the simple act of setting a goal can feel soothing in itself. It creates the illusion of relief. I don’t have to worry about it today because I have set my intention, and this time I will accomplish it. Case closed.

But the last time I caught myself saying these words, I stopped before I could even finish the sentence, because my list is way too long.

It has been a gruelling year, and many things have had to take a back seat. And while I hold no regrets, because it has also been one of the most fulfilling years of my professional career, the truth is that I have not practiced the kind of self-care that is critical for women my age. Especially for someone who hit menopause early and is already showing signs of osteopenia.

So, in ritualistic fashion, I started making a mental note of all the goals I would have to hit to finally be happy again. But before I could even get through a quarter of them, I realized something. By the time I get through this list, the year will be over, and I will be in the exact same position I am now.

That was when it hit me: if I have any hope of getting back on track, it has to be incremental.

Building habits is monotonous. It is tedious. And the bigger the change, the harder it is to maintain. Especially when you are dealing with the snowball effect that months of self-neglect can create. It becomes overwhelming, and instead of making progress, you stay stuck, always waiting to arrive at some future version of yourself.

So instead of “I will be happy when,” I want to live from a different place.

I am happy and grateful for the opportunity to take another spin around the sun. But if I want to enact the changes I need to make, I have to start small. I need to tackle one thing at a time, embed it into my routine, and then add the next change, and the next. Not all at once. Not perfectly. Just steadily.

Because the only way to get back to myself is to begin.

And this issue of Threaded is an invitation to do just that—to let go of the “when,” honour what’s true right now, and start where you are.