Loving the process

Have you ever wondered why the fulfilment you feel after reaching a target is so short-lived?

It doesn’t matter; how big an achievement is, how long it’s taken to get there or how much you’ve sacrificed to be successful, the satisfaction post-completion is always short-term. 

Why is that? 

The fact is that the vast majority of people who realise a long-term ambition, respond with more negative emotions than positive. It’s as if the structure they have built into everyday life is filling a void which only becomes clear after the need for it has been removed.

How do we avoid this?

Most people tend to jump straight into their next goal. However, I believe that a person that jumps from one achievement to the next is stuck on a road to short-term happiness. They spend so much time looking to the future, that they don’t stop to think about the here and now.

What makes me think this? This was me in a nutshell. 

I’d say that I’ve spent around 95% of my life thinking about the future and what it might hold, never appreciating what I had in the present. This isn’t me shitting on future-proofing yourself - that’s just smart life-admin - but I don’t believe for a second that the happiest people in the world are the one’s who think with the (what I like to call) ‘I’ll be happy when’ mindset.

This mindset encapsulates the exact type of person I was describing. They set a target, achieve it, indulge in short-term feelings of gratification and move on to the next thing. Sure, they’re experiencing so many things in their lives that others could only dream of, but are they really learning and gaining enjoyment from those experiences?

Most tend to see achievement as a process of hard work over a stretch of time, in a bid to achieve something that will improve their life. Though this is sort of true, it describes a direct outcome for your time and effort, but mentions nothing about the indirect outcomes. I believe the experience gained whilst attaining a goal is what people are overlooking in their search for higher levels of fulfilment. 

You don’t enjoy whatever hobbies float your boat for the outcome, you enjoy them for the process. Even though your mind is excited at the prospect of being able to complete the task, the act of engaging with the activity’s intricacies is what really ramps up your enthusiasm for doing it.

Think about it like this:

You and your friend love badminton, and get together to play each other every Tuesday. How unsatisfying would Tuesday's badminton session become, if your mate turned up, admitted you were the superior player and crowned you as victorious?

It doesn’t matter if we’re discussing your life’s hobbies or your life’s ambitions. We have to gain enjoyment and experience from the everyday grind, or the outcome will be worth nothing. To learn from your achievements and gain positive long-lasting experience from each one, you must be fulfilled by the process.

Between the years of 1992 and 1997, one name reigned supreme across the world of bodybuilding - Dorian Yates. Yates won the international bodybuilding competition ‘Mr. Olympia’ for 6 consecutive years, placing himself as the 5th most successful winner of all time. Yates became synonymous for removing himself from the public eye during the off-season and waltzing straight to the top of the podium on show day, earning himself the nickname of ‘The Shadow’.

But what’s Dorian Yates got to do with anything?

Yates is the absolute personification of loving the process. 

Bodybuilders are some of the most vain, narcissistic and self-obsessed sportspeople in the world. However, Yates was different. As his nickname suggests, he wasn’t in it for the admiration. He would rock up to a contest dressed in a baggy hoody and sweatpants, whip his kit off for the judges, smile/tense, get handed his winner’s trophy and slip off back into the darkness. In fact, Dorian has suggested that posing for pictures on contest day, wasn’t where he found his enjoyment for the sport. He found it his preparation. Contest day wasn’t where Yates found his competition, he found it on the gym floor. 

Like Dorian, we should be aiming to seek out the knowledge and experiences that our process presents. Without taking stock of our short-term improvements, we are destined to live a life of transient episodic happiness. 

If you feel like you don’t love the day-to-day slog of whatever you’re doing, I’d question whether the outcome will ever be worth it. Though for arguments sake, let’s say it is - who cares? 

Much like Yates himself, that feeling will disappear into the darkness by the time the champagne cork hits the ceiling. 

The fear of failure

When living in a society built on comparison, it is difficult to escape an overbearing feeling of inadequacy. Achieving at a lesser rate forces us to believe that we are somehow inferior to others, and unable to reach similar heights. Whether it’s through a lack of ‘essential’ commodities or god-given talent, consistency in the face of your apparent deficiencies feels inconceivable. However, just because these deficiencies exist, does not mean they are an impenetrable blockade.

In her book ‘Mindset’, Professor of Psychology Carol Dweck discusses two opposing mindsets that dominate the human race - Fixed vs Growth. 

A fixed mindset tends to be employed by individuals who live in the belief, that applying effort to achieve their goals highlights their deficiencies. Meaning their potential achievements are either postponed or abandoned through fear of uncovering that ‘weakness’. 

A growth mindset is often utilised by those who see failure as a means to learn and improve. By treating failure as an inevitability, they lack the preoccupation of weakness and therefore have a much greater potential for success.

The problem is that the anxiety that comes with failure doesn’t descend from self-judgement, but from the judgement of others. If we allow the opinions of others to dictate our actions, we fall into the trap of treating failure as a trait rather than an outcome. Accepting other’s opinions as beliefs rather than realities, decreases the influence they hold over your decisions, and therefore reduces the likelihood of surrendering to the fixed mindset.

In a 1999 New York Times article, Cultural Historian Scott Sandage called attention to the progressive change in our views on failure.

“Failure has been transformed from an action to an identity.”

Sandage’s research shows that the meaning of the word ‘failure’ has gradually mutated from an act into a flaw. The alteration itself has been drawn out over so many years that few had noticed it’s detrimental effects, not only on the amount of people willing to fail, but the amount of people willing to risk.

Lauded visionaries of today are held aloft as shining examples of success, yet there is little mention of the failures they endured to achieve it. Do you think that Apple Inc. was created in 1976 and has been continually successful to this day? How about Microsoft Corporation in 1975? Sony Corporation in 1946?

Various failures in protection of customer data, along with financial debacles such as; Sony’s 9 year stint of Bravia TV seeing losses of £4.6 billion, Microsoft’s $6 billion bath on the purchase of aQuantive in 2007 and Apple Inc’s $450 billion drop in market value in the first quarter of this year, say otherwise.

The average person has none of this on the line. No money. No employees. Their decisions have virtually no impact on the lives of others. Yet that fear is still present. Not only is it still present, but it’s debilitating. 

So, how do we stop this freight train of uncertainty? 

Just because you currently align yourself with the fixed mindset, doesn’t mean that this cannot be consciously altered. In her book, Professor Dweck goes on to discuss the changes people can make to help adjust their mindset.

The studies that Professor Dweck presents, show a remarkable change in the responses of subjects from minor tweaks to their prospective. Opting for more challenging tasks, aiming for improvement rather than achievement and praising effort over talent, all had positive effects on the participant’s ability to accept failure as part of the process. You would be forgiven at this point for thinking that this all sounds a little too easy - where’s the catch?

The catch is that it isn’t easy at all. Forcing your mind to think in a completely different way will not happen overnight. It may take a large amount of time and effort to realign your habitual tendencies with your new ethos. 

However, as long as we battle our natural urge to fallback into our previous disposition, we can begin to change the way we view our short-comings and start to progress instead of capitulate.

I hope after reading this that you have become more aware of how and why we tend to ‘play it safe’ sometimes. At the end of the day fear is completely natural, but we can’t let it dictate our actions and future. The daily battles you have with your conscience don’t stem from a flaw in your character, but a flaw in the thinking of humanity. We are adverse to risk not because we ‘aren’t wired right’, but because of a defective viewpoint in mankind. We don’t fear failure through judgement of ourselves, but through the disparaging eyes of others.

Once you accept these ideas and build a resilience to their effects, you will have a much better opportunity of leading the life you wish to live. After all, the definition of failure isn’t down the opinion of others, it’s down to you. 

Control the controllables

Some of you are living a chaotic existence; paying bills late, forgetting birthdays, neglecting relatives, all transparent symptoms of a disordered lifestyle. Relinquishing the control that you once had over these elements doesn’t happen overnight. It’s the eventual outcome of allowing your list of responsibilities to grow, whilst doing nothing to enhance your mind’s abilities to cope with that demand. 

Everyone has responsibilities and they all require a certain amount of care, consideration and attention. However with so many plates to juggle, how can we possibly stay on top of them all?

First of all, you have to accept that you are not a robot. You are going to forget things, neglect relationships and put your needs before the needs of others. These are facts of life. Once we have accepted this, we can begin to find ways of maximising the amount of control we can have.

What would you think if I said I could significantly reduce your stress levels, just by getting you to write out a daily ‘to do list’?

I’d imagine something along the lines of:

“Check this joker. He reckons he can sort my life out by getting me to write a fucking list.”

Utilising lists will not directly impact the amount of responsibilities you have. However, clearing your mind of less important tasks can alleviate some of the pressures we place on ourselves. Gaining control over your responsibilities isn’t as simple as just remembering them. It’s being able to prioritise and manage your time effectively. Once your mind has been cleared of the inconsequentials, you can begin to home in on what has eluded you thus far.

So, how does this look in real life?

Instead of attempting to cram as much information into your brain as possible, and run around like a headless chicken trying to remember it all, we’re going to list what needs to be done in the order we need to do it. 

Eg:

1. Walk the dog
2. Go food shopping
3. Pick up dry cleaning
4. Kids party @12
5. Visit Grandma
6. Clean the house
7. Sort your tax return
8. Iron clothes for the evening
9. Pick up kids @5
10. Bath the kids
11. Get ready
12. Go out with partner @8

This might seem simple. Why would you need a list to remember your plan for the day? 

As a one off, this would make zero difference in how you cope with the pressures of life. However if you had to remember all of this whilst looking after the kids, working full time, holding down a romantic relationship and fielding calls from relatives insisting they’ve not ‘heard from you in a while’, I guarantee your tone would change. 

This is the elephant in the room when trying to understand how you got to this stage. It’s not the amount of time that these inconsequential additions take up, it’s that the additions keep coming. This is why you constantly feel confused by your seemed lack of ability in distributing your time effectively. It’s not because you can’t cope with the tasks themselves, it’s because you can’t cope with the volume.

Imagine your responsibilities sit on a scale of pressure. To feel the gratification that comes with being in control, your scale must remain in balance. The more responsibilities you have, the more pressure you apply, the more imbalanced your scale becomes. Once your mind reaches capacity, it will be forced to remove anything it can to realign the scale (and you thought that being forgetful was a trait not a choice).

Side note: This is also the reason why people who have very few pressures in their life, have an overwhelming feeling of emptiness. They lack pressure, therefore lack control. The scale works both ways. 

The satisfaction your mind craves is from control. To provide the best conditions for this concept to become reality, you must implement a manual removal of all unnecessary pressures. If something monotonous needs to be done, write it down. Remove the basics and allow yourself to prioritise and manage yourself in a way that provides you with that control. 

If you don’t, your lifestyle will remain in anarchy. 

Comparison Disease

Jealousy is a touchy subject. Most of us experience it regularly and yet pretend we’re immune to it’s ever-growing hold on the world. The feeling that someone else has more than you, is happier than you or is better than you, dominates the psyche of the anxious. This constant bombardment allows no rest from the negativity that invariably arrives as we are constantly viewing our lives as a state of ‘what ifs’. 

I guarantee that the people you feel belittled by would kill for some of the things you have. Yet, our mind has an intriguing way of focusing on the things we don’t have, rather than the things we do. This is ever present and envelops our mind on a daily basis, but it is especially prevalent during our time spent on social media. 

The internet was invented with the idea of connecting the world in a way that information could be passed and shared freely and quickly, dramatically reducing the social and economic gap that had emerged across the globe. However there were side effects that came along with the instantaneous dispense and consume culture that was cultivated. Over the years, this sharing of information has slowly turned from a creative encyclopaedia of factual intelligence to an incomprehensible dick-swinging contest. 

The internet was supposed to be a place of learning, yet it’s regression has taken the shape of a window into the life you wish you had. I highly doubt the inventors of the internet were sitting their on day dot, hoping that one day Mary from Derby could tell her 296 Facebook friends how many expensive holidays she’d been on this year - but here we are. The most fucked up thing about this whole situation is the consumers can see the chaos unfolding in front of them, but attempt nothing to avoid it. 

How many times whilst scrolling through Instagram have you said/thought something like: “I don’t care what you are eating”. Or how about: “May as well delete Facebook, just a load of people I barely know posting stuff about shite I don’t care about.”

Yet we continue to haemorrhage our time and effort into mulling over the goings on of other people’s lives, most of who we don’t even care about. That’s seriously fucked up.

These problems would be alleviated if our brains processed information based solely on logic and reason. However our mind has an unfortunate habit that it just can’t seem to kick - Comparison.

“Comparison is the thief of joy” - Theodore Roosevelt

In a time were sensitivity runs roughshod and anxiety prevails, comparison is the greatest enemy to one’s happiness. 

Your insatiable hunger for information consumption, coupled with the holy bond between your mind’s worst habits, has resulted in a constant state of comparison. 

“Is my car as nice as his is?"

“I wished I looked like her in that dress.”

“She’s on holiday again? She’s so lucky.”

We realise we’re doing it and we understand that we have to stop, but like an addict hooked on their town’s most stepped on substance, we just can’t seem to put down the pipe. 

We’re consumed with consuming. It’s taken over us like a viral infection takes over it’s host. It’s our default setting, our return to balance, our homeostasis. 

There are huge portions of your life that are not only under appreciated, but completely ignored. Every single relationship you hold dear is one day closer to ending whilst you sit there comparing. Your kids are one day closer to leaving home, your partner is one day closer to giving up hope, and your parents are one day closer to being laid out in a box. All whilst you sit there contemplating what you could have, instead of what you do.

When asked about the subject of jealousy in terms of wanting what somebody else had, Jamie Alderton had this to say:

“If you wouldn’t swap your entire life with someone else’s, then why feel jealous?”

If you wish it were you going on 3 holidays a year instead of Mary, would you be willing to give up your kids to get there?

If you wish you could have as good a relationship as Steve and Jane, would you swap your parents for their’s to achieve that?

If you wish you could look as good in that dress as Sarah does, would you be willing to divorce your husband to get there?

I think not. There’s a good chance that if you sit down to consider what you find important in life, that you already have the majority of those things sitting right in front of you. You’re just that busy comparing the inconsequential details that you can’t see the wood for the trees.

Happiness is wanting what you already have. So put down your fucking phone and appreciate it, because one day it will all be taken away.