Success and Happiness - IV

Dopamine, one may say, is the reward chemical. Endorphins may give you pleasure but, by and large, the pleasure that they give is meant to suppress pain. Dopamine gives you pleasure as a reward for achieving something.

To be sure, you get a dopamine kick out of food. But, then, you should remember that the body's mechanisms were developed at a time when starvation was the norm. So feeding the body IS an achievement for which it duly rewards you. Even if, for you, it is not much of an achievement. (Much like it pushes you to overeat so that it can save fats for a future when you may starve again...even if you are never likely to starve.)

Dopamine hits happen when you do what the BODY likes you to do, yes...be it listening to great music, eating well, whatever. But it also floods you when YOU achieve YOUR goals. Thus Dopamine is the happiness chemical directly related to success.

Understand, that YOU will have to feel it is a success in this case. As in, the chap who feels that passing an exam is an achievement will get a dopamine kick when he does; the chap who comes in second may feel depressed cos he set 'coming first' as his goal; and the chap who did come first may feel indifferent cos he did not consider that exam itself as important enough to set any goals around it.

THIS, then, is why you need to set bite-sized goals; goals around what you do currently and not only on where you want to reach in the far future; goals around what you DO (learn something new; increase efficiency of performance, whatever) That's how you get the joy of achieving and form the habit of doing the right things.

Career goals come with the stress of non-performance. As in, if there is a positive high of achieving, there is also the anxiety of not achieving. It helps to have multiple activities, for each of which you have goals, so that you get your dopamine highs one way or the other. Goals relating to your daily exercise levels, goals relating to learning a new hobby...and even successes like solving the day's Sudoku or Wordle. Unless you start feeling shamed if you fail to solve a day's Wordle, these are stress-free ways of getting dopamine highs.

The body does not know that solving a Sudoku is not as important as writing code. (I do not either but you don't care about me!) All it knows is how involved YOU are in the activity, so get a dopamine shot for free with your Wordle. Listen to music that moves you, do things that you do well...be it chopping vegetables or carpentry or painting.

Focus on ONE thing as your yardstick for success, to the exclusion of everything else, and you are likely to be the club bore who has no conversation; as well as an unhappy person except on the days when you see some 'success'. Focus on one thing primarily, yes, but leave enough time in the day for rounding off your life with other activities. AND ensure that you have some measures of 'success' in ALL of them!

Work-Life balance is NOT only between career and family. It needs to be on ALL facets of life!