Trade Ups

Many of us humans have a tendency to save the best for last or defer pleasure today, so that we can have a happy tomorrow. What if we can have it both ways? What if we can have a happy today and an excellent tomorrow?

We are all so conditioned to believe in trade-offs, that we seem to have lost the idea of trade-ups. A trade-off is when you give away today (and are miserable) because you think that misery will help you achieve some goal tomorrow. A trade-up, however, is when you expect a great day today and an even better day tomorrow. Here is how that works:

A trade-up, however, is when you expect a great day today and an even better day tomorrow.

Say you have a big goal to do something new with your life. So you set about doing, today, a task you do not prefer in order to help you achieve this big goal. That’s a trade-off. Instead, you could set a new intention that says, I only want trade-ups. You might say, I am willing to have a great day today, so that I can have an even greater day tomorrow. With this intention in place, you do what feels natural to you. You easily find a few tasks that you enjoy. You put your attention there, and go about your day.

Because I have a goal to enjoy life, I prefer trade-ups. I like to enjoy the journey and the destination. I prefer to have fun today, and even more fun tomorrow. I like to achieve all my goals and enjoy the process of working toward them. That’s how I roll now.

I used to have a trade-off mentality, until I decided that today is more important than tomorrow. Today is right here, where I am. Today is where my life is happening, not tomorrow. So, I like to stay in today and enjoy my life where it is. Yet I also enjoy making progress on all my goals. But I will not give up today for tomorrow. Instead, I want a good today, and an even better tomorrow. I decided that our abundant universe was not about trade-offs, but rather dealt in trade-ups. So I set about to let in every trade-up I could find today.

In fact, I found more power in trade-ups, and no power in trade-offs.

When you engage with life as if everything is a trade-off, you edit yourself out of the picture. You give away today, for the mistaken belief that suffering yields results. Not true. Fun and sunshine yield results. What I learned, through this experiment, is that I prefer the easy way, when the choices are between hard or easy. I prefer the fun way over all other paths. And today, I am having fun.

I wasn’t always a fun seeker. There was a time I thought fun was a four letter word, reserved for those who were reckless and careless. Now I see fun as a useful path for all my life goals. It has the added benefit of helping me accelerate getting everything I want.

If you want to continue with trade-offs, then you do you. If you want to enjoy life, then try this: Say, I want to enjoy life today and make progress on my goals. I want fun to show me the way. And I want more tomorrow of the same. This mode of intention setting always helps to remind me that I can have a great day AND make progress on my goals. It also helps me to look for an intuitive next action, rather than a hard next action.

This way of approaching your day yields surprisingly good results, if you allow yourself to focus on and capture what you do, versus what you think you are supposed to do next. What our minds want is a linear path when the intuitive next action could be something that seems unrelated to your goals, but is a step toward your goals in a surprising way.

Learning to trust yourself goes along way toward allowing yourself to experience trade-ups, versus trade-offs. Now that I fully trust that my inner wisdom is my best guide, I am able to relax into each day, accomplish progress toward my goals, and bring a sense of fun to all that I do. I now insist that I enjoy today, and use that joy to help me create a better tomorrow.

Learning to trust yourself goes along way toward allowing yourself to experience trade-ups, versus trade-offs.

You too can start working with trade-ups merely by acknowledging that you want to enjoy today and tomorrow. You can begin to see where your own limiting beliefs are telling you to sacrifice today for a better tomorrow. You too can begin to shed these limitations and create a new belief that plays to the abundance of life, rather than creating false limitations.