![]() That means, either increasing the duration of my meditation or decreasing the temperature of my cold showers. To preserve that feeling of “productiveness”, I needed to make the habits more challenging. When I was getting started, I felt productive whenever I pushed through my desire to avoid doing them.īut as they became more habitual, the feeling of productivity slowly faded. This explains the feeling I had when meditation and cold showers became a part of my morning routine. The rewards you get from your efforts will eventually reach a peak, then, they will slowly diminish as time goes by. This lines up with what economists call the ‘ Law of Diminishing Marginal Productivity. This explains why some successful people feel “empty” even after doing something worth celebrating. The higher the baseline, the harder it is for us to feel pleasure. But that addiction raises our dopamine baselines. This explains why success can become addicting. The more challenging a goal is, the more dopamine is released. Our level of happiness is influenced by the dopamine that is produced in our brain whenever we’re in pursuit of achieving a goal. The more we have, the happier we should be. The emphasis is on our over-consumption of material things that we think make us happy. The pursuit of happiness is often tied to the hedonic treadmill. This leads to the never-ending cycle of seeking and finding pleasure.Īnd because it never ends, it’s exhausting. The more goals we achieve, the more pleasure we get. The achievement of any challenging goal gives us pleasure. It is a psychological condition when the emotional reward we get from achieving something eventually fades over time.Īs humans, we are wired to seek pleasure. That confusion led me to what is known as the hedonic treadmill (or hedonic adaptation). Again, the cycle of ‘achieving something, then feeling empty after’ surfaced. However, when the “struggle” disappeared, the whole thing became boring.īoring in the sense that doing them no longer makes me feel like I can achieve anything. Over time, I had to push myself less and less until one day it became a habit. ![]() That means, using a lot of willpower and mental-self-punishment whenever I skip a day (because y’know, life happens). ![]() I had to push myself to do them every day. The more productive I become, the higher my chances of achieving whatever goals I decide to pursue. If I can turn them into habits, I’d be way more productive. Once I had all those, I felt lost and wondered, “Is this it? Does this mean I’m done with life?”Įveryone has gone through that phase at least once in their life.Ī recent example was when I integrated meditation (to gain clarity) and cold showers (to increase my energy) into my daily routine. The first sign of this happened when I followed the typical life path of an immigrant: move to a new country, finish school, then get a job to get a better life. But after going through it so many times, I realized that it is a cycle that I cannot escape in my pursuit of progress (of continuous improvement). I’ve gone through the cycle of setting a goal, achieving the goal and then feeling lost…multiple times! ![]()
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