#1841 The Hedonic Treadmill - Harps

then a day or two later, it's not great. And I get to top of the mountain or the top of the mountain, I should say, and I realize I'm not at the right mountain, or I want to be at the mountain over there, or the thing that I thought it would give me, it didn't give me the external kind of thing that I wanted that I was

focused on, that I was chasing. I got it, I acquired it, and I didn't have the internal shift or joy or experience that I thought I was going to have, Or maybe I had it for a little while but then it went away. So have you ever worked to ass off for something, something that you really wanted? A job, a goal, a car, a particular outcome, a house, a number on the scale of whatever, a lift, a time,

and you got it. You felt amazing, felt incredible. And then a day later, or a couple of days later, or not long after, you were like, ah ah, you know that high. You had that sense of excitement and satisfaction, and its short term, it fades, and then suddenly you're scrolling and searching and planning and chasing and wanting the next thing, the next goal, the next shiny object, the next When I get this or when I get that,

I'm going to be happy. You know that story, And then pretty soon you're back in the cycle, the grind to shoot kind of like what like a kind of a psychological hamster wheel. Does that sound familiar? Well, if it does, don't stress. You're not broken. You're very much like a lot of people. You like me, I've done this. You're not ungrateful, you're not doing life wrong? Are you quite typical? Quite typical? Sorry about that. You're not special,

You're just you're just regularly, You're just human. And that experience is what I spoke about before. That's called the hedonic treadmill or hedonic adaptation. It's the pattern where we something great happens, we get excited, we're happy, we're joyful, we're euphoric. But then pretty quickly we go back psychologically and emotionally to where we were, and even biochemically, like we return to a baseline of biochemistry that is our normal or a baseline of emotion or a baseline of happiness.

Even after major wins or conversely painful set we adapt to our circumstances, and once that thing stops being new, once there's no novelty, we stop getting that buzz from it. So let me give you a few examples. So you finally buy the car that you've been dreaming about, You're driving around like your bloody living large, like you're in a Disney movie, you're in some commercial. Two weeks later,

it's just another car, it's just your car. You're getting back into the routine and the rhythm and the pissed off at traffic and the you know, and now that that level of absolute fastidiousness and care and panic that you had about anyone sitting in it or taking having food in the car or anything getting a fingerprint on it, and all of that kind of associated joy slash anxiety

slash euphoria of having your new shiny thing. It's gone and you're still the same person and you're still got the same car how you wanted, the car that you really wanted, and it provided a short term psychological and emotional pick me up. But then pretty soon you've adapted.

Pretty soon you're back on the treadmill and you look something different, or maybe you lose some weight, as is often the case on Planet Craig over the years, where I've worked with millions of people, millions thousands of people who wanted to be leaner or a lighter or more jacked, or whatever it was is, you know, and someone loses ten k's and they feel good, they feel proud, they feel confident, they're excited, they feel amazing, and then, not

long after, not always, but typically or often, their brain quietly whispers something like that's not enough, like you look good, but five more would be better. And so we move

the goalposts, we move the finish line. We actually create emotional and or psychological prison or barrier for ourselves to be happy, because when we achieve the thing that we wanted, we don't allow ourselves to be happy, or the happiness response disappears pretty soon, and then we seem not to learn because we go, oh, well, it wasn't ten kilos, so it must be fifteen kilos if I lose fifteen kilos, And then we get to fifteen kilos and we're still

not happy or not happy for long and interestingly, there doesn't seem to be any wake up call or any awareness or any kind of aha moment, and we just you know, double down, and we go, well, if it's not fifteen, it must be twenty, and so on, you know. Or we move to the coast and all of a sudden, we've got beautiful views, we've got stunning sunsets. We're living the dream. We're in the beautiful kind of environment that

we wanted to be in. But within a short period of time, we don't really notice the beautiful views, or we notice them, but they don't have the same impact the sunsets. It's not the same relationship, the same experience. And it's not that it's bad. It's just that we've adapted and adjusted, and that is us and the treadmill. So we move forward in life, things move, things happen, but that happiness doesn't always move with us. That's the

adaptation that's the hedonic adaptation. And in many ways, you know, they generally don't talk about this when they're talking about this kind of almost this biochemical and psychological and emotional adaptation that happens. But I think one variable that we need to think about and factor in with this stuff

is gratitude. I know, for me, maybe this is part of the antidote, but for me, part of the antidote is to hit the pause button a little bit and try to you know, it's very hard to be objective about the thing that you're in the middle of, right because you're in the middle of it. And so everything that you're in the middle of, everything that I'm in the middle of, that is a subjective experience for you

and me. And if you're in the middle of something that's pretty good objectively from the outside looking in for the rest of us, you're in the middle of something that's pretty good, but your story is this is shit, and you believe the story, then your body believes the story the psychology, and now pretty soon you're having a shit experience, not because you're in a shit situation or circumstance,

but because you've told yourself that. Conversely, conversely, sometimes we're in the same situation and we have an experience, we have an encounter, we have a moment in time, and the moment in time could be that you bump into somebody that is in a really really, really fucking terrible, horrible,

undesirable situation and they can't get out of it. They'reon they have a terminal illness, or they have a permanent disability, or they're in some kind of situation that there is either no solution or there is no simple or fast solution.

And then you go home same person, or you jump in the car, you get in your car, or you get in your house or where it is, and all of a sudden you've had an encounter where somebody and all of a sudden you realize, fuck, my life is good, my body is good, my relationships are good, my situation is good. And there's been a psychological and emotional shift at times, not because anything's changed in your world, but you're now looking at your world through a different lens,

albeit typically momentarily, because you have this encounter. You have this encounter, So why does it happen? Why does this hedonic adaptation happen? Why do we spend and our life or part of our life on this treadmill. Well primarily because which is good and bad. But your brain is amazing at adaptation. It's wired. Your brain is wired, ironically not to be content. It's wired to keep you safe

and scanning and where and vigilant. Especially you know, historically, evolutionarily speaking, our brain was like that was our protector. Its job was and still is, but maybe we don't need it as much as we once did. It's to keep us safe and aware and vigilant and scanning the horizon for threats and problems and issues. Its job is not really to keep you and me satisfied or still. In many ways, our brain is built for survival, yes, survival,

not serenity. So the moment something becomes familiar, even if that's something is amazing, our brain often files it under normal. Okay, this is not special, this is not unique, this is not great, this is not amazing. I know this now, I'm familiar with this. Now I've had this, And now your brain files that thing that was fucking amazing under normal. Now it's normal. It's not abnormal, it's not special, it's

not spectacular, it's not incredible. Now it's normal. And all of a sudden, that feeling that you had, that biochemical reward that you had it goes to dopamine. The initial dopamine hit disappears, and then suddenly you're searching for the next thing, the next big thing, the thing that's going to light you up, the thing that's going to excite you. And we do this. We do this all the time.

We do it with money, we do it with career, we do it with bodies, relationships, we do it with a myriad of things, and we The underlying story is like when I when I do this, when I own that, when I have that, when I look like that, In other words, when X, then when I get or do well,

be or have X, I'll be happy. Despite the fact that we've told ourselves a version of that story hundreds, maybe thousands of times, when I do this, when I have that, when I own that, when I earn that, when I look like that, when I arrive at this place literally or metaphorically or spiritually or psychologically, when this happens, then, but often we get there and we're just us. We're

just us. We might have a temporary emotional and or psychological or experiential shift, but it's it's just us with slightly nicer scenery, and here's the kick out right. This doesn't this is really interesting. It doesn't just apply to the good things like people. When we think about this adaptation, this hedonic adaptation, we primarily think of all the good stuff. Good stuff happens, it blows our socks off, it's amazing.

And then the same good stuff happens. But over time, our relationship with that changes, or our response to that changes, and now it doesn't feel amazing anymore. But this also happens with negative experiences. So you lose your job, you break up with someone, you miss out on something huge, you're disappointed, you're shattered. It's horrible. It's an emotional and

psychological and financial and sociological disaster. It sucks, but truthfully, for most people, not all, but most people, over time, and quite often it's not a long time, our psychological and emotional state returns to somewhere close to where it was yesterday or the day before or a week before. So it happens with good things. That happens with bad things.

It happens with the things that give us joy and pleasure and dopamine and give us that positive kind of integrated response, the psychological and emotional and biochemical and all of that. You know, it happens with the good stuff, also happens with the shit. And we call this emotional. This is I love this term this. We call this emotional homeostasis. And it doesn't mean that those things don't hurt. Of course they hurt. But it means that most of

us are more emotionally resilient than we think. Of course, things suck, of course things are hard. Of course, in the moment, it's fucking horrible. I've had a few things in the last year happened that when they happened, and in the very short term after it was horrible, it was it was very, very difficult. But you shift, you adapt, you come back, you bounce back to you know, to that that kind of status quo, that emotional, psychological, biochemical status quo, or as I called it, a moment ago,

that the emotional homeostasis. And so it just means that either way, most of us are more likely to get back to baseline out of a positive or a negative thing more quickly and more often than we think. Most of us are more emotionally resilient than we think. It's been my experience watching lots of people and also myself going through stuff where I've had people that I really love die. I've had one of my best friends in the world die in front of me. As you know

about my training partner died in the gym. Fortunately he only died for seventeen minutes. He came back, but that was pretty fucking traumatic. But that trauma fortunately because he came back, I guess, But just that moment of being over someone who's literally dead, who has no heartbeat, who has no respiration, there's no brain activity, nothing for seventeen minutes, and I was over the top of him for eleven

minutes giving him CPR. In the moment, You're like, wow, this is full on, And for a day or two or three after it quite traumatic. And of course everybody responds differently to different stimuli, so I'm not suggesting anyone should be or do or respond a certain way. But I know for me, I got back to somewhat of a normal kind of baseline quite quite quickly. So whether or not something great or awful happens to our baseline mood, our baseline biology and physiology tends to reset. If not quickly,

definitely over time. All right, so we've got a bit of an understanding of what it all means. So what do we do with it? What do we do with it? I should probably thought, should probably have thought this birth through. No, I've got some DearS. So what do we do with this knowledge? What do we do now moving forward? Do we just give up? Do we not chase things? No, it's a good question, and the answer is that we

don't try to stop growing. We're not trying to stop growing, We're not trying to be successful, We're not trying to chase goals. Of course, I'll never tell you to do that, but maybe part of the answer is to stop assuming that the next big thing is the cure for inner peace or contentment or calm or perpetual joy or happiness, but rather to be more self aware and saying to yourself, if this is true for you, just as it is

for me. There are many times where, especially when I was younger, when I thought, once I have a B and C, I'm going to be good, and that urgency, that need, that whatever, that whole, that emotional or psychological whole will go and I'll be more fulfilled and I'll be more confident, and I'll be less insecure, and I'll be happier, and all of these things will happen because I'll do this thing in my physical external world, and

I'll have this correlated internal, non physical, unseen spiritual, psychological emotional shift and bibity bobbedy boo. I'll be fucking great.

Well it doesn't happen, which is why at sixty one, I can still share these thoughts and ideas and stories with you and be still periodically the overthinker, still operate an ego and do dumb shit, still be fearful, still regret things that I do, still get a myriad of things wrong, but with I guess for me, but with a greater awareness that that internal kind of space that I want to get to or I want to inhabit

as much as possible. And by that internal space I mean that of calm and contentment and joy and satisfaction. And you know there will be periodic, of course, anxiety and discontent and fear because I'm human. But when I'm for me, in order for me to get to that place where I'm I'm consistently my internal reality is for one of the better term a more enjoyable place to be. That's not so much for me anyway. That's not so much about me changing the things in my external world.

It's not so much about arriving at a certain outcome or ticking a box or making a certain amount of money or producing a certain whatever. It's more about me working on me, not me working on all the other things that people see. But for me, anyway, it's more about me working on me. So what are some ways that we can potentially get off the treadmill. I'm going to give you some. They might sound some of them a little fluffy, but I've already the first one I've

spoken about practice gratitude. Yes it sounds fluffy, but it's neuroscience. Gratitude literally forces our brain to focus on the good stuff, to focus on what's working, to focus on the positive, and to have a different I guess perspective about what we are in who we are and where we are and how we are and what is great about our life. So we're focusing on what's good, not what's not just what's missing, and that focus, that focusing on the good now.

By the way, when we're practicing gratitude and when we're focusing on the good. We're not pretending that it's all good. We're well aware that there's shit. We're well aware that there's problems. We're well aware that things won't work out moving forward, and that bad things happen to good people. We're practical, We're grounded in reality. We know that things are going to be good and bad. There are going

to be peaks and troughs. But in the middle of the inevitability of the madness and mayhem and unfairness that comes with life, along with the beauty and joy and wins and successes along with that, we're going to consistently look through a lens of gratitude and thankfulness if we can as much as possible. So when I feel a bit sorry for myself because I fucked my back, he's a really quick kind of reset button. Yeah, but it's

not cancer, is it. Or when you know, I lose a gig that I was going to that I thought I had booked in. It's a really good gig, it's a big conference, it's lots of money, blah blah blah, and I'm getting a bit sad. He mac sads because I'm feeling sorry for myself. And then I look around me at the reality and the comfort that I live in, and I'm like, shut the fuck up. Most people in the world, or at least a huge percentage of people in the world, would love to live where you live,

or in your situation, or have your financial situation. So just pull your head in. So for me, practicing gratitude Number two building meaning, not just milestones, building meaning. So instead of chasing a number, you might ask, why do I care about this? What's this goal really about? For me? And when I speak about our values and living in alignment, but when our actions align with our values, not just vanity, not just ego, not just greed, but all of a sudden,

now we're on a rewarding journey. It's a different paradigm. It's a different energy. Number three invest in experiences and people. Research shows that we adapt slower to experiences than possessions. So weakened away with your mates, with your friends, meaningful conversation, a cold swim at sunrise, Those moments stick. They create stories, and not just dopamine spikes. They create memories that can

live on with you. There's nothing wrong with building a business, building a brand, getting stuff, owning stuff, but I think inevitably we all, I hope we all get to the point where we go, oh, it's not about stuff. Stuff's not bad. Wealth is not bad. Being wildly successful in your career is not bad. By the way, if that's you,

fucking well, congratulations. But if you are that person who makes lots of go, who's got a great career, has got a great body, and got lots of toys, and then I'm sure you well understand that that isn't the meaning of life. It's just part of life. Number four, we're getting there. Number four is train your baseline. We spend heaps of time working on outcomes, but very little

time working on our emotional set point. You want to be happier, You want to be calmer, You want to be more grounded than prioritize, sleep, move your body, get outside, meditate, laugh, hug, a fuck with as I say, or not a fuck with, hug, someone say something kind. You know that boring but brilliant, biologically regulating stuff. That's the real training. Train your baseline and flip the formula and the conversation a little bit from Instead of I'll be happy when I get X,

try when I'm grounded. When I'm calm, when I'm grateful, I tend to produce better outcomes. Anyway, Happiness is not just a reward. It's not just something we're chasing. It's literally something that's fuel. It's it's like psychological and emotional fuel for help to help us live better. So let's sum it up. Stop waiting for the next win to make you happy. Start doing the work to be happy between the winds, because that's where your real power is.

Life's going to keep changing, goals will keep shifting, the treadmills always fucking running. But the real freedom is learning how to step off. Sometimes, step off the treadmill and enjoy the walk. All right, team, be good, love your collective guts is think better, choose better, be better, live better. Harps out