Why getting what you want is a bummer!

Why do we adapt so quickly to the things we once desperately wanted? That shiny new job, relationship, or achievement—even seeing your own book on a shelf for the first time—can lose its thrill with surprising speed.

🔗 Learn more from Dr. Laurie R. Santos - www.drlauriesantos.com

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

This could be a job that you've really, really wanted. And you get the job, and then after a few weeks you're like, yeah, yeah, I've got the job. Yep, so it could be a job. It could be food, it could be relationship, it could be an award, a promotion, a drink, a dress, a lipstick, a holiday, a donut big and small things, the thing that we want, that we put a lot of energy into. Often, when we get it, we unfortunately adapt, which then affects our happiness level. You are listening to the why Smart Women podcast, the podcast that helps smart women work out why we repeatedly make the wrong decisions and how to make better ones. From relationships, career choices, finances, to faux fur, jackets and kale smoothies, every moment of every day, we're making decisions. Let's make them good ones. I'm your host, annie McCubbin, and as a woman of a certain age, I've made my own share of really bad decisions. Not my husband, I don't mean him, though I did go through some shockers to find him, and I wish this podcast had been around to save me from myself. This podcast will give you insights into the working of your own brain, which will blow your mind. I acknowledge the traditional owners of the land in which I'm recording and you are listening on this day. Always was, always will be, aboriginal land. Well, hello smart women, and welcome to episode 32 of the why Smart Women podcast. Today I'm sitting in Sydney, australia, waiting nervously for Hurricane Alfred to land on northern New South Wales and in Queensland. So if anybody does happen to be listening to this in Queensland in a couple of weeks' time, or northern New South Wales, I really hope you did. Okay, guys, because it's looking pretty ferocious and devastating. So today I would like to talk to you about just me. So you've just got me. I mean, I won't talk for long on my own, but anyway, I would like to talk about this idea of hedonic adaptation. Now, hedonic adaptation, now, hedonic adaptation is this thing that happens in our brains and the result of the hedonic adaptation is the thing that you're most wanting in life. When you get it, you get used to it really really quickly and the shine comes off it. So this could be a job that you've really, really wanted and you get the job and then after a few weeks, you're like, yeah, yeah, I've got the job, yep. So it could be a job. It could be food, it could be relationship, it could be an award, a promotion, a drink, a dress, a job. It could be food, it could be relationship. It could be an award, a promotion, a drink, a dress, a lipstick, a holiday, a donut, big and small things, the thing that we want, that we put a lot of energy into. Often, when we get it, we unfortunately adapt adapt which then affects our happiness level.

Speaker 1: 3:24

So, for an example, in my own life I spent a really long time imagining what would it be like to write a book and then walk into a bookstore and see my book with my name on a shelf and I would imagine this a lot like. Imagine actually somebody else that I knew walking into a bookshop and going oh my God, that's Annie McCubbin and that's her book. I know her Isn't that incredible. So a lot of time Took me five years to write my first book and it was a very long, complex process. It was on critical thinking, as you can imagine. So I write the book, I find a book advisor and then I find a publisher Major Street Publishing and she says yes, and this is really, really exciting. And then the book is published and I'm at home and this box of books arrives and I open it and there's this pink book why Smart Women Make Bad Decisions, by Annie McCubbin. And there it was and this moment had arrived and I could hold it in my hand. It was unbearably exciting.

Speaker 1: 4:46

And then the excitement went on and then we had a book launch and people came and I did a reading. It was amazing. And then it got. It was in bookshelves and I would go to the airport and there would be my book sitting on a shelf. Okay, fast forward. I don't know a couple of months, maybe not even that. Yeah, maybe a couple of months. I walked into I think it was Canberra airport and there was my book and I thought, oh, look, there's my book. It just didn't give me the same reward system. Hit. Same reward system, hit that bit of my brain had adapted. So this thing that I had wanted, I'd got it and then I'd adapted. So that level of happiness and excitement simply for all of us fades.

Speaker 1: 5:53

So and I know it's the same I can remember in my 20s just wanting to go out with this actor. So bad. I'd watch him from afar and I thought he was so amazing and I would think, imagine, imagine, imagine if I went out with him and then, miracle of miracles, I did go out with him and within about six weeks I was like yeah, whatever, it was a bit boring. I didn't like the way he ate. He ate with his mouth open and I found that unforgivable. Also, he wrote me a note and his grammar was terrible. Like it was theirs, it was the wrong, theirs, it was the wrong spelling and that was pretty much the end of me. Like it was theirs, it was the wrong, theirs, it was the wrong spilling and that was pretty much the end of me. So the same thing happened At the time.

Speaker 1: 6:27

I didn't know how to describe it, but I know for all of us, this notion of hedonic adaptation, adapting to things really quickly when we get it, has a major influence on what we would call happiness. So what to do about it? If you think about us in just survival terms, we need to be aware of the negative things that have happened or that may occur so we can stay safe. The positive things not so much. It doesn't actually help us to survive. We are organized psychologically, cognitively, to look for the negative. It's natural, which is why trying to be in a positive mindset all the time is counterproductive and just exhausting.

Speaker 1: 7:25

You don't have to be positive all the time and you don't have to be happy all the time. In fact, if I said to you right now okay, guys, out there, you can have everything that you want, you can have as much money as you want, you can have the perfect relationship that you want, can have the perfect relationship that you want, you can have the food that you want, the holidays that you want, the intellectual stimulation that you want, you can have a lot right? If I said that to you, um, within I don't know about a very, very short period of time, you would have adapted and you would pretty much go back to your pre-set happiness point. And they do know this. About money and I'm not saying that you don't need an adequate amount, you do. So the whole old notion that money doesn't make you happy is only partially true, because if you haven't got enough to keep a roof over your head and have a decent lifestyle, it is definitely going to affect your happiness levels.

Speaker 1: 8:26

But and this is what happens to people is that we're constantly in this comparison space. Yes, I may have 5 million, but I now know somebody who has 10 million. So if I had the 10 million, I'd be happier. Not me, listeners, I'm not talking about myself. I do not have 5 million. But you know there's a part of me that thinks, wow, you know, if I had, if I was sitting on a few million dollars, maybe it would just remove all stress. And they know that that's not true, that you just find something else. So this idea that you would be able, you're going to get somewhere and when you get there and when you have it, everything will be good, is actually not true.

Speaker 1: 9:06

Happiness, if you want to use that term, actually requires contrast. It requires not having so that you can actually appreciate having. Yeah, so like, for instance, if all you do is eat all day and you get to the end of the day and you have a big meal, then there's nothing to contrast it to. You're not actually hungry. If you allow yourself to get hungry, then you have something really, really yummy. Then you're much more likely to appreciate it.

Speaker 1: 9:39

And this is very, very relevant for relationships. I think most of us have been in that position where we've gone wow, if I had a relationship, wow, if I had a relationship, everything would be fine. And yet if you look back through your life, how often have you actually got the relationship and it's just not up to what you had anticipated. And I'm in a very, very long-term relationship and I would describe myself as very happy. But of course that initial flurry and excitement is no longer there. But we're very lucky and something else comes in to replace that, and I think anybody who's in a sort of a successful long-term relationship knows that it's values, shared interest, respect and a deep sense of care about the other person and a whole lot of fun thrown in. That sort of keeps you together. But even with long-term relationships, even with really happy long-term relationships, it's very, very easy to get into this hedonic adaptation and take the other person for granted.

Speaker 1: 10:51

A lot of this comes from the work of Dr Laurie Santos, who's a Yale professor, a scientist and a podcast host, and her podcast is called the Happiness Lab. Yeah, so she's really extraordinary and she does fantastic, fantastic research in this space and I love her. So she talks about this really interesting idea, which means that if you can imagine to yourself and this is briefly so, you're not to ruminate on it but if you can briefly imagine to yourself that the person that you love that the last time you saw them is the last time you're going to see them just for a minute, just hold that notion just for a minute, then what that does is it sort of breaks the pattern of this adaptation, because then the next time you see them you have imagined a reality where they're no longer there. So yeah, and I'm not suggesting that you sit around sort of being depressed all day and imagining everybody you love dead, but this idea of sort of positive thinking and visualizing you know, visualizing this perfect future when you're going to have everything you want is just wrong Visualization.

Speaker 1: 12:15

If you're sitting around doing a vision board and writing things on the mirror and saying I am beautiful and I have a perfect relationship and I have the perfect job, it's actually unbelievably counterproductive. Visualization absolutely goes against your best chances of getting what you want. Reason being is, as soon as you start visualizing yourself in this future, some part of your brain thinks you've already got it. So the part of you that is going to go forward and start working towards it just goes offline. You are, in fact, if you want something. I know it sounds really counterproductive, but you're better off thinking about the challenges and what could go wrong in trying to achieve your goal, because that way, you start getting into a problem solving mindset.

Speaker 1: 13:10

So chuck visualization out the window, especially chuck. I am thin, beautiful and desirable. Just chuck it out the window, because a whole part of your brain is going no, you're not. And then you're just in some sort of internal unconscious battle. So chuck it out the window. The universe isn't going to give you what you want anyway. So you may as well stop appealing to it. Honestly, if the universe was going to do its job, maybe you could go up there to Queensland and intervene in the cyclone rather than helping you. You know, get a boyfriend or, you know, lose five kilos. Honestly, forget it. The universe is not going to help you. It's just magical thinking. And for everybody, that's like. I don't go anywhere near organized religion, I'm not religious at all, but they're appealing to the universe. Guys, it's just God in disguise, it's all the same. You're just appealing to a higher source.

Speaker 1: 14:04

So this idea of happiness, the search for happiness, the desire to be happy, the search for happiness, the desire to be happy, the amount of focus there is and almost the inference that we deserve to be happy, is just not right. And happiness or contentment, or a sense of satisfaction or whatever you want to call it, really only comes when you have experienced the antithesis of that, when you have experienced the opposite. So you won't know. You can't know that you're happy unless you've experienced sadness. And yet we spend so much time in avoidance of what we would deem to be negative emotions. We don't want them. We only want nice, positive, pleasant emotions, and yet that's just completely unrealistic, counterproductive and it's not going to work anyway.

Speaker 1: 15:13

So, and also some things like if I think about my children, so I have my. My daughter is staying with us at the moment and she's been here for six weeks because she's in between houses and it's just been super nice. We get on really well. We go to the gym together, we have nice dinners, we've just had an awesome time, I've loved it. And she is going to go back into her house. She's moving out tomorrow and I would describe the feeling or the emotion that I have around that as bittersweet. So I want her. Of course, I want both my children to be out engaging in the world, but at the same time, I'm sad. So is that a positive emotion or is that a negative emotion? And if my focus is on only experiencing positive emotions, then maybe I'm going to try and suppress that or excise that from my experience, because there is a tinge of sadness to it.

Speaker 1: 16:25

And then you're missing out on this whole rich area of possibility of feeling stuff. You can't love somebody truly without experiencing the fear that you'll lose them, and that's the reality of it. Um, you can't enjoy, you know, a delicious meal, um, unless you've been hungry. You just can't. If you're just full all the time, it doesn't, it doesn't hit, it doesn't hit the spot. Um, you why? You won't appreciate a relationship unless you've been on your own, so that you've got that contrast. You won't appreciate warmth until you've been cold. I know that experience of having gone to freezing Europe in the winter months and walking in out of a you know a very snowy street into a warm, a delicious warm foyer and there is nothing quite like that experience, whereas if it's just warm all the time, it's like meh, it's just warm, and I guess that is the notion of mindfulness it's being able to have little moments during the day when you appreciate actually where you are and what is happening right in this moment and that is going to affect your mood.

Speaker 1: 17:59

The reason I have an issue with gratitude is, of course, gratitude from all the research is highly, highly efficacious. It's a wonderful thing to have in your life. Unfortunately, I think it gets misused by women who are trying to justify staying in relationships with feckless, lazy, abusive, disinterested, disengaged men by trying to constantly make lists of what they're grateful about. If you're in a terrible relationship, get out of it. Just get out. Especially if someone's narcissistic, the chances of you changing them is zero to none. So if you're in a bad relationship, go and get a new one. But in terms of gratitude, that's not papering over some sort of disaster in your life. Gratitude is very well researched and very, very good, but I don't like the term anymore. I find it there.

Speaker 1: 18:53

So I like to think of just little moments in the day that are a bit zingy, you know, a bit nice, you know. You look down at the ground and there's a flower growing up out of the pavement, or you pat your dog, or you have a particularly delicious coffee or something. Little moments in the day where you can actually focus on being where you are. That is the fundamentals of mindfulness. It's actually hasn't got anything to do with humi-gumi, spiritual meditating, it's just actually being where you are and appreciating those tiny moments, because I think we get so caught up in the next thing. So we're going to get so caught up in studying to get the degree, to trying to get the next job, to organizing myself, to going on a holiday, to having the holiday, instead of focusing on the outcome.

Speaker 1: 19:48

There will be moments on the way, and I hate the word journey as well, but I'm trying to think of another word that's not journey. Okay, let's call it an odyssey, let's just make it a big thing. You're on a big odyssey to get to some amazing outcome. Maybe you're working towards a wedding that you've always dreamt about. Maybe you're working towards getting a degree. Maybe you're working towards finishing a really big project in your work. Whatever it is along the way is where the happiness and appreciation needs to be, because once you get to the end, because of hedonic adaptation, you're simply going to want to move on to the next thing. It's along the way, it's the journey, it's the odyssey, not the destination.

Speaker 1: 20:40

And you know, back to this notion of contrast, you're not going to appreciate money unless you've had none, and maybe that's where the whole entitlement things come from, if you've never, ever, known what it's like not to have and you're born into money or vast wealth, it's going to be very, very hard to imagine a life where you don't have it. And if I can get briefly political for a moment, I think this is where we go so wrong with conservative politics that everybody has the opportunity and the means to do well for themselves, and that is simply not true. So much of whether or not we are successful is simply circumstantial. Way too much weight is given to attitude instead of the environment and the circumstances. Anyway, that's been my little chat on hedonic adaptation and I did think of it because I saw my book in a bookshop and had a little moment of happiness, but nothing like the thrill that I had the very, very first time I looked at my book on a bookshelf and I had a deep and profound and thrilling moment. So I hope this has been helpful. It is part of the human condition. We just adapt to what we have. So there's some tips in here on how to deal with that and have a lovely afternoon. And for all the people in northern New South Wales and Queensland, I hope you did okay in the cyclone. Thanks for listening. Bye for now.

Speaker 1: 22:27

Thanks for tuning in to why Smart Women with me, Annie McCubbin. I hope today's episode has ignited your curiosity and left you feeling inspired by my anti-motivational style. Join me next time as we continue to unravel the fascinating layers of our brains and develop ways to sort out the fact from the fiction and the over 6,000 thoughts we have in the course of every day. Remember, intelligence isn't enough. You can be as smart as paint, but it's not just about what you know, it's about how you think.

Speaker 1: 23:01

And in all this talk of whether or not you can trust your gut, if you ever feel unsafe, whether it's in the street, at work, car park, in a bar or in your own home, please, please, respect that gut feeling. Staying safe needs to be our primary objective. We can build better lives, but we have to stay safe to do that. And don't forget to subscribe, rate and review the podcast and share it with your fellow smart women and allies. Together, we're hopefully reshaping the narrative around women and making better decisions. So until next time, stay sharp, stay savvy and keep your critical thinking hat shiny. This is Annie McCubbin signing off from why Smart Women. See you later. This episode was produced by Harrison Hess. It was executive produced and written by me, annie McCubbin.