Embracing the Journey: Prioritizing Process not Product
A few days ago, I decided to sit down and map out Becoming Polymathic’s growth. It’s become a ritual. Each time I begin a new business, a workout program, or a side hustle, I map out its potential. In total, I’ve made 50 maps over the past five years. This latest map, I told myself, would be different. It wasn’t going to fall to the wayside and forgotten about in a few weeks like the other 50. But what did that mean in terms of process?
Going Beyond Brain Dumps
How would I physically map out Becoming Polymathic’s growth? What timelines were realistic? What would be the milestones? To be clear, I previously mapped out this growth, but it had no significant detail. It was a collection of randomly connected ideas, functionalities, and numeric targets. In other words, it was a brain dump.
A brain dump is not a map. Don Walsh and Jacques Piccard didn’t have a brain dump before deciding to explore the Mariana Trench. They generated the best map they could given the information available and made allowances for unexpected events. It took 50 attempts, but I finally engrained that distinction into my head.
The reason for describing these mapping exercises has nothing to do with informing you about my plans to grow this outlet. Those will be reserved for another time. The reason was to introduce the important distinction between processes and products — a distinction which has eluded today’s society to its detriment.
The Dopamine Dilemma: Living for Products, Not Processes
Processes are the steps one goes through in pursuit of an outcome. They are instructions. Products are what result from one or multiple processes. They are outcomes. Products can be material — cars, trophies, cheat meals — or immaterial — achievement, ecstasy, praise. However, both material and immaterial products are made significant by one molecule, dopamine.
The Dangerous Pleasure Loop
Dopamine is commonly referred to as “the pleasure molecule” or “the reward molecule”, but both these definitions are misleading. The best definition is the title of Daniel Lieberman’s best-selling book The Molecule of More.
Dopamine is one of the most powerful neurotransmitters in our body because of its impact on our decision making. In short, if we perform an action that gives us a pleasurable outcome (product), our brain produces dopamine. That action is now associated with dopamine production, which makes our brain desire it more, which means dopamine is produced in anticipation of that action and makes the action itself undesirable.
The problem with this loop is two-fold. First, our body has a limited amount of dopamine it can expend. When we spike our dopamine in anticipation of an action, it means we have less dopamine available to perform the action itself and all subsequent actions. This spike and subsequent decline are referred to as the opponent process mechanism.
The second problem with this loop is our brain’s inherent desire to remain in homeostasis. If a dopamine spike occurs, then our brain must proportionally lower its dopamine release to remain balanced. Low dopamine levels are associated with depression, pain, and lack of desire.
A good example of this peak and valley is victory in championship-round sporting events followed by the inevitable “championship hangover”. In fact, the opponent process mechanism provides a concrete explanation to why former high-performing athletes allow themselves to degrade or have extreme difficulty giving up their chosen sport.
Embracing Healthier Pursuits: The Power of Processes
When framed scientifically, it is easy to see why our society has been misled by physical and non-physical products catering to these short, peaky dopamine spikes. These spikes occur when we spend money to buy that new sports car, stare at our social media in hopes of a “like”, or relentlessly pursue the hollow phenomenon of Hustle Culture. These things may be good for businesses, but they leave us in poor health. Why then do we choose to glorify them? Why do we consciously make these shortsighted decisions every day? It is because they give us novelty, which is necessary to keep life temporarily exciting.
Training the Brain for Process Enjoyment
Instead of glorifying products, then, perhaps we should turn to the second “p” word mentioned in this piece — processes. Processes are often boring and take great patience. However, they are a healthier pursuit in the long-term.
If we leverage the same dopamine mechanism, we can actually train our brains to enjoy processes as opposed to products. Our preference as to what processes we enjoy is subjective. For instance, not everybody enjoys exercising therefore they will not get the same dopamine release as somebody who does. However, the individual could frame exercise as part of a greater purpose such as better mental health. Then, exercise becomes a necessary step, not an option.
Attaching processes to these eternal intentions can be powerful. The lack of an end product automatically forces your brain to seek intermittent, moderate dopamine releases to sustain itself. Moderate dopamine releases, as we now understand, lead to less volatility in our overall dopamine levels, which leads to healthier internal and external relationships, and subsequently a healthier existence. A healthier existence is beyond powerful, so why not glorify that and the processes we take to achieve it? At this point, that should be a rhetorical question.
Balancing the Demand of Products and Processes
To fully benefit from this alternative concept, one needs to understand the demands for both products and processes. Products demand arrogance and vanity. Processes demand consistency and humbleness. We may be living in a society who values the former’s characteristics, but that doesn’t mean you are required to. You may be an outcast, but that is a small price to pay for the incorruptible, unassailable goal of purpose.
In hindsight, the 50 “maps” I drew were really dopamine spikes framed as necessary steps to a seemingly greater goal. However, the goal I was actually pursuing was the good feeling associated with attempting to connect all the thoughts in my head on a piece of paper, aka the brain dump. The 51st map I finished is not that. It is a map I constructed to the best of my abilities with the knowledge and vision I currently possess about Becoming Polymathic. There will most definitely be another map, or 50. I don’t know how many more nor do I give that number any significance. It is all part of the process…
Be More.
Become Polymathic.
Quote of the Week: “I hate luxury. I exercise moderation…It will be easy to forget your vision and purpose once you have fine clothes, fast horses and beautiful women. [In which case], you will be no better than a slave, and you will surely lose everything.” — Genghis Khan
