For a long time I’ve wanted to lose weight. I had a specific number in my head, and I knew that if I could just get down to that, I would finally be happy and content with my body and myself again. After working out and eating clean, I can confidently say that I’ve reached my original goal weight.

However, I quickly realized that losing 33 pounds was not enough. I was still unhappy. I would look in the mirror daily, picking out every flaw that I could find within myself and I quickly created a new and improved goal weight.

Today, I looked in the mirror and thought about the Brittany that was once 30 pounds heavier. I thought, that Brittany would be so proud of who is standing in front of the mirror today. That Brittany wasn’t even sure if I would make it this far or not. But here I am, and being the ungrateful person that I could sometimes be, I am still not happy.

I decided to pick out the beauty in my body. I started to view myself through the eyes of the Brittany that was 30 pounds heavier, and I actually began to like my body.

I realized that a lot of us do this. A lot of us set these big goals for ourselves, and say, “When I get there, I will finally be happy.” But we realize that when we get to that point, it’s still not enough. We are constantly trying to advance our progress. Now, there is nothing wrong with striving to do better in life. However, when our happiness depends on the amount of success we’ve achieved, we will never be fully satisfied, because we’ll always want more.

I am the biggest advocator of setting goals to become the best version of yourself possible. Your goal might relate to weight, or a business venture, or you might even strive to become a celebrity of some sort. However, there are even celebrities who have everything you could imagine, that still feel empty on the inside. The success was not enough.

You’ve got to learn to appreciate the now. You’ve got to appreciate today. Look at the things you’ve accomplished in life and appreciate how far you’ve come. Embrace the person you are today regardless of whether you’ve achieved your goals or not. Life is too short to be waiting on success to bring you happiness. You could die tomorrow, and will never be able to say that you were fully satisfied with life because you were too busy waiting on the day you achieve that goal. You were too busy working and too busy beating yourself up, that you never really appreciated earth’s beauty, never really appreciated the people around you, never really appreciated your body, or you just never really appreciated your life. You can die tomorrow unfulfilled because you were waiting on success to bring you happiness.

Learn to appreciate the life you have today. Keep setting goals for yourself, but don’t allow your inability to achieve them right away, to affect who you are or how you feel. Take a step back, look at your life… and enjoy it. Because you only get one.

xo, Brittany Kayla