Slow Progress is Better Than No Progress
Think of one of your goals, and imagine achieving it…right now. It’d feel great, right? For a bit, yeah, but the feeling would likely wear off pretty quickly. It usually does.
Why is that? It’s because of a trait we all share, a term coined “Hedonic Adaptation”. To sum it up, we love the thrill of the chase, but the satisfaction we get from catching the thing we were chasing only lasts a little while. Soon after, we find something else to chase, and the cycle continues, which is why it’s also known as the hedonic treadmill.
It can sound ungrateful or pessimistic if we look at it through the never-satisfied lens, or it can be accepted and used as a powerful tool for increasing motivation.
Sure, we don’t get lasting satisfaction from catching something, but we love the chase the entire time…no matter how long it lasts.
We love the chase so much that the moment we catch one thing — achieve a goal — we immediately start looking for the next thing to run after.
So, while it’s awesome to grow exponentially and crush your goals as fast as possible…
…you’ll likely be more happy overall if you take your time getting there, because you’ll have more time to enjoy the progress you’re making. Plus, the exponential growth can only last for so long before it levels off — to stick with the running on a treadmill analogy, you’ll eventually get tired and slow down — and that can be very demotivating. There are countless businesses that have made bad decisions trying to grow as fast as they did during an exponential growth period.
Don’t make that mistake. Slow and steady wins the race. If you move forward by just 1% per day for a year, you’ll be almost 4x better than when you started! It all adds up.
If you happen to improve at a faster pace for a while, fantastic! Enjoy it. But when things are humming along as fast as possible, just enjoy the process. Look back at how far you’ve come, not just today, but over the past few weeks, months or years.
Remember, regardless of how fast you’re moving, it’s better than not making progress at all.
All of this isn’t to say that reaching the destination and achieving goals isn’t awesome. It definitely is. The point is to consider whether you care more about one moment in time — the moment you catch what you’re chasing — or all of the moments that lead to it, combined.
Running around aimlessly is nowhere near as thrilling as a chase, so always have a goal in sight, but remember that it’s the progress itself that gives you consistent, lasting joy.
So, don’t worry if it’s taking longer than you thought it would. Just keep making progress.
Originally published at https://makeprogress.com.
