Live Light: Joy Is Part of the Success Formula

What Happened to Enjoying Life?

As kids, play is part of our job. It’s how we learn, connect, explore, and create.

Then somewhere in adulthood, something shifts.

Our calendars fill up. Responsibilities multiply. Careers grow. Families need us. There’s always another decision to make, problem to solve, or person who needs something from us.

If you’re like me, you can become so good at adding things to your plate that joy gets buried underneath all the doing.

It’s not that I wasn’t enjoying my life. I had plenty to be grateful for. But underneath the responsibilities, emotional clutter, mental load, and endless to-do lists, joy became harder to access.

We get things done. We show up. We handle the meetings, clients, kids, deadlines, and decisions.

We become really good at managing our lives, but less present for actually experiencing them.

I know this feeling personally. There was a season when my life was full of things I had worked hard for, and plenty of things that were supposed to be fun, but so much of it still felt heavy.

Dinner with friends could feel like another commitment. A vacation, another thing to plan. Even something I enjoyed could feel like one more place I needed to be.

That’s the thing about burnout: life doesn’t have to be falling apart for you to feel depleted by it.

And when we’re depleted, we can start reaching for the quickest ways to feel good: wine, sugar, online shopping, scrolling, gambling.

I enjoy plenty of quick pleasures too. But I’ve learned:

Relief and joy aren’t always the same thing.

Sometimes relief helps us escape the moment.

Joy helps us come back to it.

When Did Success Become Something We Had to Endure?

I used to LOVE the quote:

“Difficult roads lead to beautiful destinations.”

And I still appreciate it. But for a long time, I interpreted it as:

Keep your head down. Keep grinding. Push through. Eventually you’ll get where you want to be.

The destination became the reward.

I’ll relax when this project is over.

I’ll have more fun when things slow down.

I’ll enjoy my life when…

But there was one big problem:

My actual life was happening on the road, and I wasn’t always fully present to experience it.

A demanding season doesn’t have to be devoid of joy. You can have a deadline and laugh until your stomach hurts. You can carry significant responsibility and slow down long enough to enjoy your coffee.

Joy doesn’t require everything to be going perfectly.

It requires us to be present enough to notice what’s good while we’re here.

And joy often lives in ordinary moments.

The song you blast in the car. Five minutes outside without your phone. The conversation that makes you laugh. The walk where you actually notice what’s around you.

Not more things to add to your calendar.

Small moments that bring you back to yourself.

Your Brain Needs More Than Relief

When we intentionally make room for joy throughout our day, we may feel less need to escape from it at the end of it.

If we wait until we’re stressed, overwhelmed, or depleted to give ourselves something that feels good, our brains naturally look for the fastest path to relief.

The wine. The sugar. The shopping. The gambling. The scrolling. The Netflix binge.

These can provide quick pleasure or relief, but when it wears off, whatever we were trying to escape is often still there.

The relief was temporary. The underlying need never actually got met.

What if instead, we intentionally created small moments of joy throughout the day?

Music. Laughter. Movement. Nature. Connection. Creativity. Play.

Would you notice “the pressure” feeling lighter? The goal isn’t to eliminate every quick pleasure. It’s to expand the ways we experience joy so we’re not waiting until we’re completely depleted to give ourselves something that feels good.

Create Your Joy Menu

Here’s your coaching practice for this week:

Create your own Joy Menu.

And before your productivity brain turns joy into another thing to accomplish, don’t. 😉

This isn’t another to-do list. It’s a collection of things that make you feel alive, present, playful, connected, or simply more like yourself.

Because if you’re waiting until everything else is finished before making room for joy:

Everything else will never be finished.

Adding intentional moments of joy to our lives is one of the ways we learn to live lighter.

Not because our responsibilities disappear, but because they stop being the only thing we make room for.

Maybe living lighter is about clearing enough emotional and mental clutter to experience the joy that’s already there.

Joy and play aren’t rewards we earn after we become successful.

They are part of the success formula.

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This Week’s Challenge

Create your Joy Menu:

Three 5-minute joy practices.

Three 30-minute joy practices.

Three bigger experiences for the next month.

Then put a few on your calendar.

And I’ll leave you with this:

How can you add more joy and fun into your life that doesn’t solely look like a glass of wine, a piece of chocolate cake, a bet, or another purchase arriving on your doorstep?

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If this message encouraged you, I'd love for you to share it with someone who may need it today. And if you haven't already, subscribe so you don't miss the next installment in our Live Light series.

With gratitude,

Nikki

Dulce Vida Coaching