It’s easy to picture our future happiness. Once we lose five pounds, say, or own our own home. Maybe when we publish our first book or hold our first plank for a full minute? Man, I’ll be so happy when…

Whoops! See? You can get lost in picturing the things that will make you happy. What about the things that have made you happy?

I recently read a Modest Money post about the concept of “reverse gaps”—essentially, we tend to think about our future selves, but we’d be a heck of a lot happier and feel far more accomplished if we spent more time thinking about our past selves. 

Here’s how to flip the switch: when you find yourself thinking, “I want to be able to do a pull-up,” stop and consider two years ago, when you couldn’t do a push-up. Don’t you feel stronger now? Huzzah!

This is a pretty simple trick that aligns with something I emphasize a lot: you’ve got to celebrate the little things.

When we have a big item on our to-do list (“Revamp web page”), we’re usually pretty good at breaking that down into individual steps, if for no other reason than to have something to cross off our to-do list.

But we need to do the same thing with our accomplishments: if you say you will be soooo happy when you recover from an injury, lose the weight you gained while you were laid up, and fit into your high school pants, you’re delaying happiness. Maybe for years. And when you do hit that giant milestone, it might feel like no big thing.

Instead, choose to be super happy the whole way along. When you hit small milestones—say, you can balance on one foot again—be sure to high-five your friends. When you get to your happy weight and find you have to amp up your workouts to get a good sweat going, pony up for a celebratory massage. And when you fit into those pants, well, burn them. No one should be wearing their high school pants. For real. Perhaps it’s time to buy new pants!

The whole time, as you stop and savor these little victories, be careful to compare your current accomplishment with where you have been (maybe where you were when you set the goal). “Today, I did my first pull-up. Two years ago I couldn’t do a push-up!” is a far more triumphant thought than, “I can do a pull-up! How happy will I be when I can do FIVE PULL-UPS?” Stop chasing happiness so you can live happy now.