How Your Need for Progress is Hijacking Your Happiness
By: Scott Leonardi
Tags: Personal Development, Self, Progress, Self-awareness, Life

This is the feeling I started to chase and have since stopped going to the gym.

(Not that I don’t like the gym at all, mind you, but I mostly went for the machines and sauna. Ever since Corona, I wasn’t trying to be stuck inside with a bunch of panting gym rats, and who would want to wear a mask while they’re working out, anyway? I’m not training, I’m maintaining. A phrase I admittedly will use as an excuse from time to time to not push myself when I probably could.)

My girlfriend’s intentions were pure. She likes the tech and tracking and numbers that come along with making progress in areas like that. More power to her and anyone like that. (I mean, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t at least a little proud of myself for finally hitting 600 followers…thanks!)

But, as far as running went, I continued to do it for the simple joy of it. I already loved being at the beach, so killing two birds by running there instead of driving seemed like an easy solution to me.

It also got me thinking.

Why do we allow the desire to make progress in our lives to steal our happiness?

Happiness doesn’t come from anything external, and yet we act as if any break in the momentum upward will cause the entire project of reaching peace to fall apart.

We assume that every new endeavor we take on, every new project or poem or song or book or portrait or idea or allotted exercise time we have has to be better than the last one. If it’s not at least as good as what you did before, we let ourselves grow accustomed to amplifying our inner critic to the point where all we hear is YOU. HAVE. FAILED.

We place our happiness in the hands of this illusion of upward mobility without ever considering the fact that by doing this, we’re leaving ourselves feeling empty without our little project.

It’s not that we shouldn’t set goals for ourselves, but if achieving goals is where you find happiness, what happens when you’re no longer capable of reaching them?

If you only find happiness in exercise when you’ve run farther than you did the day before, what happens when you get too old to run for very long? Can you no longer be happy simply running for the sake of it? Or walking, even? What about just sitting outside?

In my case, the achievement of reaching a new running distance wasn’t where I was finding my happiness. I was perfectly content just being outside on a nice day. I got more out of the sunshine and saltwater than I did the mile tracker.

Those numbers seemed petty and laughable in comparison to the grandeur I felt just being able to feel healthy and alive while slowing jogging along the tide as it stretched its foamy fingers trying its hardest to lap my feet and soak my socks.

That being said, were it a conscious decision to make a point to run a certain distance, then sure, go for it!

But unless you’re making that conscious effort to achieve something specific, there’s no point in living under the pressure of progress for the sake of progress.

Because my goals had shifted from “run farther than last time” to simply “run outside,” I had a much easier time relaxing and enjoying my jog rather than feeling as if I had failed for not reaching some intangible number.

It all depends on what your goals are.

The thing is, most people at their core just want to be happy. And if you were to strip away the convoluted and unnecessary ways people invent to try and achieve this goal, most people could easily reach this state of peace on their own any time they wanted.

I read things similar to this all the time when it comes to artists and making more money. I literally just posted something myself about that exact topic.

When our standard for happiness has a minimum payment of: One Accomplishment, we eventually become unable to find that same sense of contentment on our own. We always need the external validation from our personal achievement or acknowledgment from our peers to say, Okay, NOW you can be happy.

What happens when you’re no longer able to make your art or reach the same goals? What if you age out of it or, more tragically, get in an accident that strips you of your ability?

Are you now incapable of finding happiness? Have you become so acclimated to acquiring badges of approval that you’ve forgotten that our sense of peace and wellbeing comes from within and not without?

When you place too much importance on continual progress, especially for the sake of progress, you’re robbing yourself of the joy that is surrounding you at all times.

Progress is merely an indicator that you’ve done something enough times to master that particular level of competency.

If that indicator is where you place your requirement for happiness, how could you even be satisfied if you were the best in the world? Then what? There’d be nowhere to go. You would no longer have your indicators of achievement and would probably end up starting an entirely new game chasing the exact same trophies.

I’m not saying progress is something to be avoided or dismissed as irrelevant, far from it. Progress has literally been what’s allowing me to type these very words to you right now. It’s the cornerstone of modern society and is what makes our lives more luxurious than the lives of the royalty of the past. That’s not the point.

The point is that you’re giving up your most precious resource to something that doesn’t need it. Your progress doesn’t need your happiness. You can achieve all kinds of things in this world without feeling much of anything about it. Happiness is simply a byproduct of fulfilling goals. Goals, however, are not the source of happiness. That source is within you and always has been.

When we can realize this — that our happiness and contentment doesn’t have to be conditional, that we can remove our source of peace from being so attached to achievement and validation — we can finally see that we are truly untouchable.

We can finally create without the pressure of beating ourselves up over numbers that don’t really mean anything.

We can finally go for a run and be perfectly content with the simple knowledge that our legs are able to do so.