![]() ![]() That simple reframe can bring so much happiness back, by forcing yourself to appreciate the opportunity you have that day.Īnother resource I used to keep me motivated was the hashtag #IGetTo On Instagram. Instead of saying “ I have to go to work to keep paying my student loans” you can change your mindset to say “ I get to go to work to pursue financial independence for a better future for my family“. ![]() You can start by doing it once a day in the morning. The best part is you can incorporate it into your day right away. This simple mindset reframe reminds you to acknowledge where in life you are fortunate as well as all your opportunities. She was a guest on my show the Inspire To FIRE Podcast and made it clear why the mentality of “I Get To” is so powerful.Ī quick summary of the idea is to take moments in your day to reframe your mentality by replacing “I Have To” with “I Get To”. I was fortunate enough to be introduced to this concept by Shang from Save My Cents. However, I will share a couple of ways that I’ve found to work for me and can be effective for you too. That’s why I say “getting off “ the hedonic treadmill instead of “get off “ the treadmill. Getting off the treadmill requires work, attention, focus, and mindfulness. This is what the hedonic treadmill looks like: Wanting Something –> Waiting To Accomplish It To Be Happy –> Accomplish It –> Adapt –> Want Something Else. That is the moment I realized I was on the hedonic treadmill and I needed to get off! I would have been thrilled to have a balance of $51,504 2 years ago! The balance has dropped from $100,000 to $51,500 in only 2 years! I could see the light at the end of the tunnel and that week I was excited and motivated.įlash forward to today, my student loan balance is $51,500. My loan went from $100,346 to $99,346 and it felt great! I remembered how happy I was when my student loans crossed below $100,000. Is It Really Going To Take 3 More Years Until I Can Be Happy? The reality was I wouldn’t be able to fully pay off those student loans for another 3 years. I felt like once that happened I would be happy! Specifically, I remember thinking about how happy I would be once I had my student loans paid off. I found myself in a constant internal struggle between striving to reach financial independence as fast as possible and at the same time trying to acknowledge the progress I had made at the time. The example above about wanting to be in a certain financial situation was how I realized I was on the hedonic treadmill. How I Realized I Was On The Hedonic Treadmill The hedonic treadmill is just another form of hedonic adaptation. The desire can be anything like an item (consumerism), a state of physical health (weight loss), or even financial (more money). This is until we find the next “desire” that we think will make us happier. This is because once we reach something that makes us happy as explained earlier, our minds tend to bring us back down to our baseline happiness. The hedonic treadmill is best described as our mind’s constant struggle to desire more while thinking it will lead to more happiness. This is something I’ve found myself stuck on for far too long until I ultimately realized I needed to change my mindset. The latter describes the hedonic treadmill. In an ideal world, our minds would only bring us back up to our base level of happiness and would not bring us down after something good occurred. This is a case where hedonic adaptation can be a bad thing.Įxtreme happiness fades and leaves us seeking more happiness again. On the flip side, if something good happens that makes us extremely happy, our minds will still bring us back to our base level of happiness after a while. This is a situation where hedonic adaptation is helping us. This “adaptation” helps us deal with the curveballs that life will sometimes throw at us but it can also create an internal struggle for happiness.įor example, if something bad happens to us that makes us unhappy, our mind can adapt and after a while bring us back to our base happiness level. Hedonic adaptation is the habit for our happiness level to return to a stable level despite any positive or negative changes in our life. To understand the hedonic treadmill, we first have to understand hedonic adaptation. How I Realized I Was On The Hedonic Treadmill. ![]()
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