How to Find Contentment While Striving For Success
Santosha – contentment, satisfaction
Have you ever told yourself any of the following?
“Once I get through this project everything will calm down.”
“If I just lost 5 more pounds, I would be happy.”
“I can’t wait to retire and spend my days doing things I love.”
I try to incorporate the many aspects of yoga and Indian philosophy into my life. Santosha, or contentment, has been one of the hardest to practice and I must check in with myself on this almost every day.
If you’ve been reading my newsletters for a while, you know I am a total goal setter, list maker, task crusher who is always working on the future, the next best version of me.
I’ve never been one to settle for the situation. Let alone find contentment in anything other than a nice glass of wine in front of the fireplace where even then I’m contemplating the following day’s productivity level.
So the concept of Santosha took some time to really sink in. I didn’t want to feel lazy or spend my life letting life happen to me and just reacting. I want to be the one in charge, the one making my life happen, focused and determined to meet my goals so I don’t waste anytime in this life. Eh-hem…now you see why I am easily anxious.
What my dance and yoga practice have taught me is Santosha is more about honoring and celebrating where you are currently, knowing that this may not be your ultimate goal, but also realizing that we never really achieve satisfaction if we are always associating happiness or success to people, events or situations outside of ourselves.
Dance teaches us Santosha by living in the moment and being present. Not beating yourself up over a missed cue because we know these things happen and are simply part of the experience. Even if we are still working on technique and concepts, we are enjoying the experience and every step along the way.
Yoga teaches us that your body, breath and mind are so very different from day to day that there is no sense in judging or comparing yourself from one day to the next. Let alone to anyone else. Ultimately yoga postures are practiced so you can work out all those mental and physical blocks that keep you from finding stillness in meditation.
Life, however, conditions us for the opposite. Being “content” is sometimes associated with giving up or settling. If you are like me, you often set new goals before or the same day you achieved something you had once only hoped for. But where is the contentment, reflection and happiness in recognizing where you are?
An example for me is having dreamt of a day I could teach yoga and dance full time, but always saw it as a fantasy. Now that I actually DO these things, I’m always focused on the next class, next offering, new target for monthly subscribers, future instructors, etc. It’s a struggle for me to just sit and reflect on being content with how far I’ve come. My partner is always so wonderful at reminding me of how far I've come when I’m super concerned about reaching my next goals or worse, afraid I’ll somehow fail.
Evaluating the past and looking towards the future means you likely completely skip over the present moment. Taking time to be content means you’ll always find at least a little happiness and self-acceptance.
This week I want to challenge you that whenever you get consumed with thinking or worrying about something in the future, ask yourself how you can find contentment in the present moment.
Life moves fast, don’t speed it up by always looking ahead. Let’s take some time to enjoy the moments we are in and all we have already cultivated in our lives.
If this resonates with you, I think you'd love this podcast episode from Tara Brach. You can also join me in two yoga classes this week where we'll focus on putting Santosha into practice.
Much love and have a wonderful week.