Running on the hedonic treadmill
I have recently started going to the free counsellor that my university offers. It’s six free sessions in this old 70s building. I have to walk through multiple doors and turn down several corridors to get to my therapist’s room. When I get there, he invites me to sit on an art deco couch, that I’m afraid I’ll break and know wasn’t chosen for its retro vibe but rather because it was all their budget allowed.
My therapist and I get to chatting about my obsessive need to create and achieve goals. I have always struggled with ‘living’ in the future. While chatting my therapist simply asks me, “well, what’s the end goal? When will you finally be happy?”
My inability to answer such a seemingly simple question sent me into a spiral of overthinking. Googling everything to do with goal setting and achievement and it led me to the hedonic treadmill theory.
“The hedonic treadmill is a psychological theory that suggests that humans tend to quickly adapt to either major positive or negative life events or changes and then return to their regular level of happiness. The more a person achieves, their expectations and desires rise simultaneously, leading to never feeling a sense of overall satisfaction and therefore no permanent increase in overall happiness.”
Essentially, I’ve been running on a treadmill my whole life, towards this unnameable goal that will never make me happy. Great.
This was enough to send me into an existential crisis. If our achievements don’t make us happy, what does? How do I become a happier person if achieving my goals doesn’t do it for me? In my search for answers, I enlisted the help of psychotherapist and author, Ailsa Robson.
After introducing her to my obsessive need to create goals Ailsa tells me I likely do this in an attempt to escape present day reality. This is problematic because it’s in the present that we find happiness. The ultimate question though is how do you stay in the present?
Ailsa asks me what I do to find myself in the present. I answer that I don’t, and we laugh.
“Micro-dosing mindfulness is really helpful,” Ailsa suggests, “A lot of us don’t have the opportunities to build in long moments of mindfulness so say you’re washing the dishes, or you have a moment in the sun, or you see something in nature, take those moments.”
Ailsa introduces me to the five-sense technique as a way to ground myself in the present. “It’s an opportunity to stop and check in,” she says, “What can you hear? What can you smell? What can you see? What can you taste? What can you touch? It allows you to drop it into your body and out of your mind.”
The hedonic treadmill theory points out a common misconception – that if we achieve x, y or z, we will become happier – but as we know now, that’s not true. Considering this then, where do we find happiness?
“It’s about asking why you’re striving for these achievements,” Ailsa says, “It’s about recognising those values, what do you value most?”
To break it down, Ailsa asks me what one of my goals is. I tell her that my upcoming goal is to graduate from university. She asks me why I put value on that goal. I respond that I’ve always valued education because my parents sacrificed everything to provide me with an amazing, high-quality education, so I feel as though I owe it to them to succeed and graduate.
“So, you value family,” Ailsa tells me, “Your happiness comes from honouring your family and you don’t need a university degree to do that, there are other ways.”
When you reflect on your goals and really boil them down, you’re left with the ultimate reason of why you want to achieve that goal, what you truly value and your happiness comes from that.
“When it comes down to it, we’re already enough. Even without a university degree, even without achieving all these goals, we have worth,” Ailsa says, “It’s about understanding where the drive comes from and understanding yourself. Try and understand why you derive happiness from those achievements.”
Of course, this makes sense. I always attributed my worth and my happiness to what I achieved, that I would finally be happy when I graduated or did this or that, but Ailsa was right, my family is what actually makes me happy. I don’t know why I never realised that.
Ailsa says it’s a learnt trait. We have learnt to attribute our worth and happiness to productivity and achievement but that’s not real. It seems as though capitalism has reared its ugly head again. I’ve been tricked but it’s time to unlearn this quality and stay in the present.
“I suggest people learn more about themselves and to be more curious. Find out why they are striving for these achievements and if they aren’t happy or aligned with what they are doing and it's going against their value system, they need to learn more about what they value,” Ailsa suggests, “Practically, it’s important to practice mindfulness, being present, getting out of your head, grounding yourself in your body and your sense and just realising that you’re enough as you are.”
Words — Evangeline Polymeneas
Image — via CLO
