Money Won’t Fix Your Insecurities
Most entrepreneurs are trapped in the hedonic treadmill.
As an 18-year-old, my formula for happiness was simple:
- Study computer science
- Invent a social network.
- Become a billionaire.
- Be happy for the rest of my life.
Sure, I knew my plan sucked.
Deep down, I knew that I was lying to myself. I was running away from my problems. I was hiding from my anxiety, a colliding social circle, and from the void in my heart.
But hey, it worked. For many years, I used my childish vision of success as an escape mechanism.
When I felt unhappy, I hid my low self-esteem behind rosy future plans. When I was sitting in my apartment, I filled the emptiness by reading Elon Musk’s interviews.
The unattainable quest for success had become my drug of choice.
Once I’m Happy …
When it comes to achieving happiness, we’re herd animals. We’re neither taught nor encouraged to discover our individual path of happiness.
So, in our helplessness, we compare ourselves. We strive towards measurable success that we can see, admire, and even envy.
Especially as entrepreneurs, our goals often follow a dangerous “if-then”-logic:
- Once I’m a successful content creator, I will feel “complete”.
- Once I make 1 million dollars a year, I will finally have “enough”.
- Once I sell my business for 100 million dollars, I’ll be “worthy”.
This never works. We all know this too well. Even as a child, the next toy never made us truly happy — at least not in the long run.
In psychology, this phenomenon is called the Hedonic Treadmill. It’s that nasty “tendency of people to keep a fairly stable baseline level of happiness despite external events”.
From that perspective, success behaves a lot like a drug. And entrepreneurship is an especially hard one. It’s addictive to climb up the business ladder. There’s always that next level to achieve (that’s why Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are competing in space travel).
Did You Clean Your Room?
“If you can’t even clean up your own room, who the hell are you to give advice to the world?” — Dr. Jordan Peterson
Instead of chasing grandiose goals, fix the things you can control in your current life. Improve slowly but steadily, from the bottom up, starting today.
Want to become a millionaire? Great, start by organizing your files.
Want to be famous? Awesome, fix your family issues first.
Life is a complex system, and it will crumble at its weakest spot. An unhealthy nutrition plan, bad financial habits, or lacking social skills are examples.
So, when you’re putting your eggs into the entrepreneur basket, your life will be on shaky ground. For that reason, the best thing you can do is to strive for a balanced life.
Once you sort out all areas of your life, starting a business will come easy to you. Your life will align with a bigger purpose.
The Future Belongs to Self-Aware Entrepreneurs
Look, I’m no Eckhart Tolle groupie. To be honest, he’s pretty boring to watch. His core teachings, however, have a point. His two main messages are simple:
- The present moment is all you’ll ever have.
- The reason for unhappiness is your thoughts about a situation, not the situation itself.
But what does this mean for entrepreneurs? Should we all quit our businesses and turn into self-sufficient monks?
Of course not.
Detaching yourself from the things around you is a great first step. As an aspiring entrepreneur, the following mindset helped me in doing so:
You are not your startup. You are not your business idea. You are not your bank account.
You and your achievements are 2 separate things — and that’s great news. It means you can fail at any time, and still allow yourself to be the same person. When you follow this message, failure won’t break you, and success won’t make you arrogant.
A great example is Twitch founder Justin Kan. He sold his company for 1 billion dollars, and yet, he never felt happy. Luckily for him, he was able to see behind the hedonic treadmill. Justin changed his focus from external validation to internal introspection. Through meditation, gratitude, and exercise, he was able to tame his ego and find happiness.
Bottom Line
Happiness is far too complex to be put in a formula. For that reason, it’s so easy to get caught up in the hedonic treadmill.
Especially entrepreneurs are prone to unrealistic goals and unhealthy comparisons. If you’re sacrificing your mental health and relationships, you’ll regret it later on.
To avoid that trap, apply the following strategies:
- Strive for a balanced life.
- Tackle your biggest problems first.
- Be grateful for the present moment.
- Detach yourself from your successes and failures.
Crush your goals, but enjoy the journey.
