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Think about the day you launched your business. Or the day you landed your first customer. Or the day you moved to a new location. Or, more broadly, the day you moved into a new house or sat in your new (or, if you're like me and despise instant depreciation, new-to-you) car. Pick one and reflect. How did you feel?
You felt happy. You felt excited. Everything felt new: filled with promise, filled with hope, potential, and anticipation.
Think about that day.
Now think about today.
Those feelings? They've probably disappeared. Today feels the same as yesterday. Tomorrow feels like yet another in an endless string of similar days stretching off into the distance.
What changed? You changed.
Psychologists call it hedonistic adaptation, the phenomenon of people automatically shifting the joy of a new purchase back toward their emotional norm. In non-science-speak, it's the reason that "aaah" feeling you get when you look at your new business, house, car, etc. quickly goes away.
Days after losing in the 2010 French Open quarterfinals, Novak Djokovic told his coach (as Billy Oppenheimer writes in his weekly newsletter) that he had decided to quit playing tennis -- even though he was ranked third in the world and was a favorite to win Wimbledon later that summer. His coach immediately recognized the problem: Djokovic was too focused on rankings, titles, records--external pressures and expectations had become internal as well.
As a result, Djokovic said, "I was mentally at one very messed up place."
Then he thought about how many of his earliest childhood memories involved a toddler-size tennis racket and a soft foam ball. "I just really loved holding that racket in my hand," Djokovic said. "I still love holding a racket in my hand. Whether it's a Grand Slam final on center court or just playing around on a public court, I like playing for the sake of playing."
Djokovic agreed to take a few weeks off, but the next day realized he wanted to hit balls just for the sake of hitting balls. "And I never looked back ever since that moment," Djokovic said. "I started to play freely. I became the kid I was when I started playing."
Adapting is natural. When something good happens, you feel happier for a while. Then you adapt to your new situation and return to your baseline "happy state." When you start a business, you soon adapt. Your business is "just" your business. But if you landed a major customer? That would be great--for a while. But if you did $1 million in revenue? That would be great.
We all naturally revise our expectations upwards--and when our expectations go up, our level of happiness goes back down.
Now think back to the first day you picked. Say you chose the day you launched your business. You were excited. You were thrilled. Finally--finally--you could start calling your own shots. Finally--finally--your professional success would be limited only by your skills, creativity, and work ethic.
Since that day, nothing has changed except you. You still call your own shots. Your professional success is still only limited by your skills, creativity, and work ethic. You're still your own boss, you still get to do what you love, you still get to take chances and seize opportunities and work with people you enjoy.
In almost every way, today is just like that first day.
You just see it differently.
Do this. Think about that first day. Picture yourself getting ready to walk through the door, to sit at your desk, to embark on that new adventure. Remember how you felt. Remember the goals and dreams you had. Remember how thrilled you were to start a new life. Remember when you were a "kid" who had just started "playing."
Then look around. Nothing will have changed except you, but now in a really good way. Because you'll remember what it felt like on that first day.
And you'll feel like today is the first day.
Because it is.
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02.02.2024
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Think about the day you launched your business. Or the day you landed your first customer. Or the day you moved to a new location. Or, more broadly, the day you moved into a new house or sat in your new (or, if you're like me and despise instant depreciation, new-to-you) car. Pick one and reflect. How did you feel?
You felt happy. You felt excited. Everything felt new: filled with promise, filled with hope, potential, and anticipation.
Think about that day.
Now think about today.
Those feelings? They've probably disappeared. Today feels the same as........
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