What do I do when I come down from the high?

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Happy Sunday and thank you for opening this week’s #TheLifeofJLOWE newsletter! Starting today, I’ll be hours deep into rehearsals every single day for Miami Carnival Panorama, and I could not be happier.

Since playing my first Miami Carnival Panorama last year, I’ve been looking forward to this week of October where I get to rehearse like crazy, be surrounded by Trinis and steelpan and get to play the instrument I love for hours.

For the Panorama competition, we play an 8 minute song, and I can remember so vividly the feeling of euphoria that I felt for the first 7 minutes of the song, and equally as vividly, I remember the sadness that I began to feel as I realized we were nearing the outro of the song in the last minute.

“I can’t believe it’s about to be over!” I thought to myself.

“I wish this feeling could last forever”

Everything is temporary - including the “honeymoon phase”

As I reflect on last year’s performance, it’s also made me think about the high that I was on in the weeks after quitting my job. In the immediate days after, I was filled with adrenaline every morning, with a newfound purpose to waking up and owning all the hours of my day again. Day in, day out, it felt like the world was my oyster and I was super excited for all the possibilities that were ahead of me.

About a month and a half into quitting my job now, I can tell you that that adrenaline feeling has subsided.

But that doesn’t mean that my motivation has subsided with it. Nor has my happiness!

What it does mean is that I’m out of the “honeymoon phase” of being unemployed (self-employed, thank you), and though I’m still at a moment in my life where the world is my oyster, and there are still tons of possibilities ahead of me, the reality that I have to choose one of those “possibilities” to give my energy to is setting in.

The reality is that yes - I can be a music producer, a live performer, a scuba diver, a runner, a world traveller, a writer or a YouTuber if I want - but none of those things happen overnight. The immediate excitement and high I felt at the possibility of pursuing a more fulfilling career after quitting is one thing, but the reality of actually pursuing it is another.

Oh, and no - this isn’t a harrowing reality by any means. This is an exciting reality, that means that I get to choose what I want to devote my energy to and actually get out there and do it.

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How to stay motivated after the “honeymoon phase”

Have you ever tried to develop a new habit, and then found that you’ve fallen off after the first few weeks?

Whether it be starting to go to the gym, going for a walk once a day, reading a book once a day or writing in your journal consistently, it’s easy to do something new the first few times, because you get a dopamine hit from doing that new thing every time.

As you begin to get further into building the habit, you find that you exit that “honeymoon phase” where you feel great about yourself for doing that new thing, and it just becomes another thing that you have to do.

This is the same feeling of diminishing returns that I described earlier that I had when I quit my job - and it’s because of this psychological concept called the Hedonic Treadmill, which suggests that you will always return to a baseline level of happiness after a windfall of happiness.

So if this Hedonic Treadmill is a real thing, how do you stay motivated?

Hacking the Hedonic Treadmill

A few weeks ago, I talked about defining happiness for yourself. I’ll re-share the thought from The Way Forward here:

The way to hack the Hedonic Treadmill is to stop finding all your happiness in your accomplishments, in your possessions or in things that have been invented by society to give you that windfall of happiness.

Yes, naturally you will get dopamine and other biologically hard-wired emotional responses to achieving things. That’s perfectly normal, and of course the reason why there are so many things in this world that can be achieved.

But the difference between retaining your motivation to do something long term and falling off of a new habit within a few weeks is being able to find happiness and fulfilment in the present and in the process.

If you’re able to become obsessed with working towards something, rather than the actual outcome of what you’re working towards, not only will you have more motivation to work hard, but you also won’t lose all that motivation once you get to the goal that you set out to achieve.

Conclusion

So it’s pretty simple: The secret to staying motivated is learning to find motivation in the right place.

It’s not about running your first marathon, it’s about loving the 5k’s that you run as you train.

It’s not about reading 100 books in a year, it’s about enjoying reading each one individually.

It’s not about becoming Youtube famous, it’s about loving the process of filming and editing videos.

It’s not about getting super jacked, it’s about feeling great on leg day, then arm day, and loving showing up to the gym every day in between.

It’s not about landing the job or career of your dreams, it’s about loving the process of learning, self-discovery and personal growth that happens as you search.

So this week, if you’re look to re-find motivation in something, think deeply about what it is that made you set out on whatever journey you’re on in the first place, and check yourself. Check to see whether you love what you’re doing, or if you love where you think it will take you.

Fall in love with the process itself - and you’ll find a never-ending source of motivation and happiness as you work towards whatever goals that you’ve set for yourself to achieve.

Until next Sunday,
Justin