Saturday, July 13, 2024

The Power of Looking Forward: How Anticipation Can Transform Your Life

What gets you up out of bed each day? What thoughts are the most inspirational when times get tough? What do you think about when you are feeling down or looking for a purpose in your life? For most of us, the best way to keep going and boost our outlook is to look forward to what is next, to prepare for and anticipate something great that is just around the corner.

Looking forward is a positive mental habit that is not only good for your mind and spirit but also your physical health. Having something in your future that is worthwhile reminds you of your purpose, gives you a reward to attain, and becomes a critical touchpoint when your mental and spiritual strength is waning. Developing a ritual of looking forward, then, is an important life skill that can help you achieve well-being and happiness.

This guide explores the importance of anticipation for our outlook and mental health. We discuss how to build healthy anticipation and the benefits of having something positive to look forward to. Finally, we offer some helpful and concrete suggestions for how to develop healthy habits of expectation for your own life.

The Nature of Anticipation

As humans, our nature is to look forward, to consider our futures, and to be guided by our hopes and dreams. Because of our natural tendency to move toward self-actualization and attempt to realize our full potential, and because we are continually changing and growing as we learn and experience new things, there is always something just ahead, something to look forward to, that drives us.

Look at your own life to understand this. Chances are, you are doing something different now than a few years ago, or your life has changed in some way. You have switched your focus for your personal goals, stretched yourself in the workplace, or realized some aim and moved on to a new one.

Our brains crave novelty. We love to learn and experience new things, which is why we often feel stifled or unsatisfied with our routine, with getting “stuck in a rut” in our daily lives. Having something new and challenging to look forward to is a way to keep your brain happy and focused while also working toward goals in the future.

Consider the nature of goal setting. Once you have determined what you are trying to achieve, you set about realizing this goal. You work hard. You may experience setbacks. What keeps you going during the challenging times or when working on that goal just gets plain boring and hard? It is the anticipation of the reward. So, you keep going, keep trying, and when you finally reach that finish line, you celebrate!

But what’s next? Rest on your laurels? Feel happy with the status quo? No! Your brain says, “What’s next?” You formulate new goals, new plans, and new to-dos. Why? Because our minds are wired to always be looking forward, to always be learning, growing, and changing. It wants to evolve, and evolution comes through change. And the promise of change is what keeps us looking forward into the future.

We all love having something in our future to anticipate. That is why we like to plan vacations in advance, to purchase tickets for events that will not take place for months, to consider our plans for the next holidays, and to set goals for ourselves. It is human nature to want something to pin our hopes and dreams on, and looking forward to something every day is even good for your mental well-being.

The Mental Health Benefits of Looking Forward

Not only do we enjoy having something to look forward to, but anticipation is incredibly good for your overall mental well-being. When we have positive things to wait for and consider, it provides us with hope, purpose, determination, and optimism, all of which are necessary for maintaining a positive outlook.

Without something positive to look toward, it would be difficult to maintain motivation in tough times. The anticipated outcome or reward is what allows you to stay inspired and continue to toil away when you are not enjoying life or your current situation.

Anticipation helps to boost our mood and improve our ability to cope and recover, as well. Consider the weeks leading up to your vacation. The very thought of time away is enough to help you tackle whatever life throws your way and enable you to bounce back from setbacks or disappointments, too.

When you have nothing ahead of you, nothing to which you can look forward or hope for, it results in feelings of hopelessness, purposelessness, emptiness, and depression. Extended periods of this type of thinking can even lead to thoughts of suicide as you wonder why you should bother trying to live your life anymore with nothing in your future.

Looking forward to something can even help you to curb your impulses and delay gratification for something later. The anticipation of future rewards, especially those that we really want, can help us to say “no” to unhealthy or unproductive choices and choose to wait for later rewards that we know will be even better.

Finding the Right Balance for Anticipation

Of course, looking forward to something is only positive when what we are waiting for is something that we deem to be worthwhile or rewarding. No one wants to look forward to a tax audit or painful surgery.

Those who are fearful of the unknown or who dread change may not feel the same way about a forthcoming event as others, and their anxiety can interfere with their ability to anticipate the positive outcomes.

Placing too much importance on or expecting a perfect outcome can definitely interfere with your ability to look forward to a future event. Take, for example, the notion that holidays must be perfect and everyone must be happy all the time. When you believe this, you will struggle to anticipate your next family gathering because you have placed too many ambitious standards on the event and are setting yourself up for failure. Putting too much emphasis on a specific outcome can ruin your ability to look forward to something new, exciting, and fun in your life.

Those who struggle with change or the unknown may find that careful planning and preparation for an anticipated event or experience will lower your anxiety and allow you to enjoy your anticipation as well as the experience itself. Finding healthy coping strategies for your worries is vital for enabling you to not only enjoy the outcomes but also to learn to savor the anticipation as well.

When you are working toward a substantial change in your life, planning can also be a helpful coping strategy that will help you enjoy the build-up. You can plan for ways that you will cope with various outcomes, which will leave you better prepared no matter the result. The more prepared you feel, the less anxiety you will have, and the more you will be able to simply enjoy looking forward to what comes next.

The Connection Between Gratitude and Anticipation

Looking forward can help you feel more grateful for what you currently have in your life, as well. When you learn to look forward to simple things in your life, you can appreciate what you have and avoid feeling stressed about things that are outside your control.

For example, learning to look forward to going to work each day helps you appreciate that you have a job that supports your life. Looking forward does not have to involve grand goals, enormous events, or once-in-a-lifetime occurrences. It can be as simple as looking forward to waking up tomorrow morning, kissing your kids when they come home from school, or time to reflect during your commute home. It is all in how you frame your outlook and your expectations.

Looking forward to the simplest and most mundane parts of your day can teach you a great deal about what you value, what is vital for your life, and what is causing your stress. And it can improve your outlook and help you develop gratitude for things that perhaps you have been taking for granted.

Anticipation does not just have to be about far-away destinations or long-term goals. When you reframe your thinking, you can learn to look forward to each day, which can help you realize all the positivity and blessings you have in your life that perhaps you have ignored or lost sight of.

Creating Healthy Anticipation in Your Life

Creating future rewards or payoffs for yourself is the key to developing healthy anticipation in your life. These future rewards can be things that will occur in the next few hours, days, months, or even years. The further away the anticipation is from your current reality, the larger the payout will need to be to sustain your interest and keep you motivated to realize it.

For example, while the promise of a cup of coffee with your best friend after work may be enough to get you through a tough day, that same promise of an afternoon chat with your pal in the distant future may not be enough to see you through many months of struggles. The reward must exceed the struggle.

If you want to learn to develop healthy anticipation in your life, then it is essential that the things to which you are looking forward are healthy and helpful for you, and that you develop habits and routines that will enable you to reach that goal. Let’s consider, for a moment, how habits are developed.

Most habits are created through a pathway that involves some sort of cue, which triggers a routine or behavior, which will ultimately lead to some type of reward or pleasurable experience. When trying to develop healthier habits, many people focus on the cues or on practicing the new routines consistently, but few focus on the rewards. It is here where your anticipation is born.

Learning to create new rewards for yourself, rewards to focus more on the everyday and on developing your wellness of mind, body, and spirit, you can use habits to transform your life. Looking forward to something every day of your life can become a key routine that improves your wellbeing and contributes to your overall quality of life.

When you learn to look forward to things actively, you create new rewards. This habit can help you build self-discipline, and it can supply you with the motivation you need to realize your potential, to achieve wellness in all areas of your life, and to find true happiness.

What are the types of rewards that create anticipation? They do not have to be complicated, nor do they have to result in tangible possessions. For example, looking forward to seeing a new movie later in the week or buying tickets for a concert next month are healthy ways to build anticipation in your life. Looking forward to eating your lunch each day or to hugging your spouse when you get home are also examples that improve well-being but do not require extreme planning.

While planning your next vacation or a milestone anniversary celebration for next year are examples of larger anticipatory goals, you can also set much smaller ones for yourself, including wearing your favorite sweater to work tomorrow or spending time with your family this coming weekend. All of these provide you with positive rewards to anticipate and something that you can work toward in your future.

Having something to look forward to in each moment of your day is a helpful habit that will enable you to get through challenges, to endure hardships, and to engage in hard work when it is needed. Without the promise of rewards, these trials and tests become challenging to endure, but knowing there is a payout later will sustain you for the long haul.

Strategies for Building a Daily Ritual of Looking Forward

1. Make Plans: One of the first things you can do to have something every day that you can anticipate is to make plans. Start scheduling things for the future. Place them on your calendar, where they will remind you of their arrival. For momentous events, you can even start a countdown on your calendar and mark out each day as you get closer to your reward.

2. Focus on the Small Things: Instead of only looking forward to your next vacation or big event, why not focus on what you can anticipate from your daily life? Take some time to consider the best parts of your day. What is something you enjoy doing each day and make that the focus of your anticipation.

3. Adopt a New Hobby: When you have a hobby you enjoy, there is always something toward which to look forward. Hobbies allow you to learn, express yourself, meet new people, and relax, and all these are wonderful things to anticipate. Just like other major events, you should place your hobby on your calendar, so you can eagerly await the time you get to do it.

4. Don’t Allow Anticipation to Overshadow Your Actual Enjoyment: Sometimes, we can get so caught up in building up an event and waiting for its arrival that we forget to live in the moment when it is happening. Stop and savor the moments when they arrive. Allow yourself to be present and fully aware of your much-anticipated outcomes, and in this savoring, you will appreciate all the time that you wanted this to be realized.

5. Celebrate Something: Celebrations are always fun things toward which you can look forward. And these days, it seems that there is always something to celebrate. Is today National Best Friends Day? Or National Hot Fudge Sundae Day? You can also make up your own celebrations, too!

6. Set Goals and Celebrate Their Accomplishment: Goals are an essential part of anticipation, and they are good for your mental well-being, too. When a goal helps you become healthier or more connected to yourself, it is a double whammy. And goals do not have to be hard to give you something to enjoy.

7. Use Checkpoints: Crossing things off your to-do list and accomplishing a task for each day can feel very satisfying. Once you have reached your checkpoint, you can reward yourself with time off-task or a much-earned bit of frivolity. Checkpoints throughout your day help you stay focused, give you a goal toward which to work, and once you mark them as completed, give you another milestone toward which to look.

8. Develop Mindfulness: By learning to be more aware of and appreciative of your present, mindfulness can also help you learn to look forward to the everyday events and accomplishments of your life. Learning to appreciate the day-to-day activities means that you will never be at a loss for something to anticipate.

9. Plan a Vacation: One of the most essential reasons that vacations make you feel more positive is because it gives you something to anticipate before they actually happen. When you plan a vacation, you not only get to enjoy the experience but all the thinking and anticipation that occurs before your actual time away.

10. Make a Happiness List: If you are looking for things in your daily life that you can look forward to, start by listing all the things that make you happy. Make a list that includes everything you genuinely enjoy each day.

11. Explore Solitary Moments: Creating space for yourself and your thoughts in each day is an important goal to have, as well. Our lives are busier and more complex than ever, and it can be hard to find time for yourself. Maybe it is time you planned a date with you or scheduled some quiet time on your busy agenda.

Final Thoughts

There are so many reasons that looking forward to something can improve your well-being. The most important of these is that anticipation is necessary for your mental health. It staves off boredom, reduces anxiety, provides purpose and hope, and enables you to develop resilience and self-discipline. You need future rewards to set goals. And goals are what give you a reason to get out of bed each day.

You can improve your quality of life and enjoy more happiness when you include a ritual of anticipation in your life. Find something to look forward to, enjoy making plans, and always have a dream on the horizon.