The Life Satisfaction Curve, pt. 1
Ups and downs in life are inevitable. We rise, we peak, we fall, we rise again. Here's what we can learn about this process and how we can use momentum to our advantage.
👋 Hello, friends.
In life, momentum is key.
When we’re moving towards our objectives, momentum builds confidence and we’re able to multiply our improvements.
But it’s fragile. Momentum can slow down and, unfortunately, it can reverse. The world is teeming with forces that slow our momentum. Poor habits and choices, misplaced energy, lack of discipline. We can be our own worst enemy.
This is exacerbated by the battleground for our attention, a competition fought tooth-and-nail by teams of scientists and faceless algorithms behind the digital platforms.
This week I’m introducing the first of a two-part series, in which I discuss how momentum impacts our life satisfaction.
In the face of these ever-present forces, we have to stay vigilant and pay attention to the state of our mind and body. It helps bring us closer to the person we'd like to be, and improves our interactions with the people we'd like to be with.
Part 1 relates to the short-term cycle, the periodic wave of the ups and downs of day to day life. It rises and falls with the rhythm of breathing in and out.
Part 2 will discuss the long-term life curve, which overlaps the short-term cycle to resemble the S&P500 stock index, if we’re lucky. Lucky enough to live a fulfilling life in which we put the pieces together, bit by bit, over time.
If we’re unlucky, our life is a slow or fast descent into the abyss, punctuated by some small but futile improvements in our situation.
As with any change you want to make in life, the direction you go depends on three factors:
Picking a useful direction to aim at. Most problems look to solve a problem relating to health, wealth, or happiness. Picking something related to one of these three can yield large emotional rewards.
How you allocate your time, energy, and attention in each moment. Momentum is the son of discipline. Discipline is the ability to persist with positive activities and resist the temptation of negative ones.
Luck of which external events influence you over time. War, serious mental or physical injury, natural disasters, or negative random events will slow your momentum.
Short-Term Cycle
The graph above (expertly crafted by me, don’t you think?) is a simple model of our life satisfaction, when we zoom out from the immediate present to consider the span of a few cycles.
So what is “Life Satisfaction”?
I don’t know. It’s one of the big questions that adds more meaning to our life in its exploration than receiving a concrete answer ever could.
It’s too fluid to define with accuracy. Our assessment of how our life is going cannot be unlinked from our sense of self. Both are ever-changing and complex, and we can never use anything other than the tools of our own mind. Trying to nail down the self fully is like trying to open a pack of scissors, which requires scissors to open.
For now, the best methods we have are proxies. We can add habits to our lives, such as stream-of-consciousness journalling, meditation, or going to therapy, to pay closer attention to our state of mind. We'll never reach the scissors, but these are crude, iron-age tools we can use to cut away at the plastic.
Momentum determines our movement on the curve over time. It usually takes us up or down, depending on how our days are going. At the extremes, we reach points of maximum and minimum satisfaction before directions reverse.
The Rise 📈
This curve is like a rollercoaster, but in reverse. The greatest thrill is when we’re climbing upwards.
Habits fall into place, we’re more confident in our interactions with other people, we have the joie de vivre that can attract new romantic partners into our lives.
This is the role that keystone habits play in our lives. These are the actions that, if done every day, have a cascading effect of positive influence on the rest of our time.
If we want to take better care of our bodies, it starts with sleep. If we get enough sleep, we’re more likely to exercise hard in the morning. We seek quality nutrition, because we’ve exercised and eating beige would take us away from our target. We drink more water, because in our mind that’s what a fit person does.
Each of these actions flows from making sure we get enough sleep and that it’s easy to leave the house to work out. The benefits to our consciousness are enormous. Our mind feels sharper and the clarity of thought brings confidence.
When we’re in The Rise, days feel like a virtuous cycle of incremental growth each day. Then we reach the maximum.
The Maximum ⤵
“Beyond mountains, there are mountains” - Haitian proverb
At The Maximum, things haven’t been better for a while than they are right now. Let’s take an example in which The Rise culminates in a promotion, a new PB in the gym, and gaining some traction in our creative pursuits.
The Maximum never lasts forever; it can be a transitory period of a couple of hours or longer. It is temporary because we are designed to adapt to new surroundings and status. It’s the nature of the hedonic treadmill.
The extra salary from our promotion allows us to expand our lifestyle. But we get used to that.
We’re more muscular in the mirror than we’ve been for years. But we struggle to see ourselves with objectivity and think we could look better.
We get unlucky and a bout of Covid strikes just as we’re about to go on that night out we’ve been looking forward to.
Life often gives us more challenges. If it doesn’t, the rewards (dopaminergic, financial, interpersonal, whatever) we received from our accomplishments drive us to seek new challenges for ourselves.
The Maximum doesn’t always show itself because we’ve hit some arbitrary goal we set for ourselves. Sometimes it's because we take our eye off the ball, no matter how outcome-independent we try to be with our habits and hobbies.
For me, it’s often when I take on a little too much to try and keep The Rise going. I work to maintain three keystone habits each day: 10 minutes of meditation, 10 minutes of journalling, and a brief walk in nature. If all three have been consistently accomplished, and I’ve been writing consistently for at least half an hour a day, I might overstretch myself by taking on too many daily habits. I’ll start to try to work in 10-15 minutes stretching, AND read half an hour minimum per day, AND go on the hunt for new music.
And, and, and.
It’s unsustainable; I’m trying to maximise momentum because I’m impatient and subconsciously seeking more.
That’s when momentum starts to reverse and we start descending the curve.
The Decline 📉
“We must be aware that momentum born of old habits and destructive behaviors might be momentum, but it’s momentum slammed into reverse.” ― Craig D. Lounsbrough
The reverse rollercoaster kicks in and our overall sense of fulfilment starts to reduce.
Without our noticing, it can misalign the aspects of our life that were in balance just a few days ago.
The stress and impostor syndrome of the new job causes us to overeat when we get home.
Then we miss a workout the next day.
And then we beat ourselves up after we binge a little too much of the show that just came out.
We try to grasp at the satisfied, accomplished version of ourselves we were last week. The “should-dos” in our imaginary (or actual) task list start to pile up, and we fall behind on our life admin. We are resistant to talk about it with others, because we don’t want to burden them, though these people were recently sharing in our victories.
In The Decline, we tend to misplace the reward-motivator function of dopamine. Instead of pursuing behaviours that contributed to the rise, we can do the opposite. Instead of craving the reward from a workout and healthy meal afterwards, we can expose ourselves to the escapist comfort of our favourite childhood film and a pizza.
Neither of these behaviours are a problem in and of themselves. I enjoy films and especially enjoy pizza.
The difficulty comes with repeated behaviour; as with any habit, the repeated behaviour and release of dopamine and serotonin keeps cementing that behaviour and our body craves more.
Ever thought how, from one month to the next, your instinctive browsing of your phone transfers from mentally stimulating YouTube videos to scrolling endlessly through Instagram? It happens to me frequently. That’s The Decline talking.
The Minimum ⤴
“The fun you have in the Dark Playground isn’t actually fun because it’s completely unearned and the air is filled with guilt, anxiety, self-hatred, and dread.” - Tim Urban
At some point, if we’re lucky, we hit The Minimum. We’ve been spending too much time in what Tim Urban has coined “The Dark Playground” and living life in a haze of comfort, guilt, shame, and comfort.
Drifting in some dull dream. Some people are unlucky and never wake up.
There comes a breaking point. Maybe we look at ourselves in the mirror and see some mysterious body fat has appeared, or bags under our eyes from repeated poor sleep.
When we’re here, we can make the mistake of overhauling too much of our life in one go.
We vow we’re never drinking again, that the extreme diet starts right now with no compromises, that we’re going to “show her” by deleting Facebook, lawyering up and hitting the gym (link to the meme).
It’s a mistake because we try to supercharge our momentum to avoid more discomfort. When the memory of other points on the curve is still fresh in our minds, we can become impatient to return there.
There’s also the temptation to believe that tomorrow’s version of ourselves will be an unstoppable beast.
We think they'll be more capable of handling this amount of change, that their discipline will be iron-clad, or that today’s problems were one-offs.
How many times has that turned out to be true?
In reality, discipline, focus, happiness, and patience are skills like any other. They need constant practice, and the healthiest way when we’re at the bottom of the curve is to start small.
In my life, the trigger point is to look around my room - am I still making my bed first thing in the morning? Am I shuttling clothes from my bed to my yoga mat because I’ve been too distracted to spare five short minutes? When’s the last time I used that yoga mat, anyway?
That five minutes is a hit of well-earned dopamine. With one moment to take in the feeling, I am in a better place to do the other small things that have piled up.
When we vow to get our shit together, momentum builds from the small wins. And the cycle starts again.
Takeaway 🥡
Where Are You In The Cycle?
The cycle combines different parts of your life. Your relationship with your friends has its own cycle. How well you’re taking care of your mind-body system is another cycle. Another one could be the progression with your creative pursuits (or lack thereof). You can go as deep as you like, but pay closer attention to the overall sense of how life is going, as you experience your days and weeks.
Wherever you are on the cycle right now, take note of what signs often manifest at each point. At the moment, I have a lot of tension in my shoulders and back; I’m not stretching enough because I’m not making the time. I’m taking on a lot right now and other things are slipping, too. I’m in The Decline.
The Minimum only arrives when you wake up from the dream. If you feel that momentum has been taking you in a negative direction, don’t judge yourself harshly. It happens to all of us. Resolve to make this moment The Minimum, and address the most troubling aspect of your life. Address it in the smallest daily way possible. My yoga mat example from earlier was not hypothetical.
If you want to build in some keystone habits to make The Rise more sustainable, focus on the basics. Sufficient sleep, water, exposure to nature, and quality nutrition. These are the 80/20 principles of gaining positive momentum. If you manage to do these for a few days, the clouds in your consciousness will start to lift.
Paradoxically, maximalism is not optimal. Hyper-productivity makes you less productive. Less is more. Trying to hold onto The Rise for dear life will bring The Maximum to your door. I love paradoxes.
Be aware of your mind and where you are on the curve. With enough practice and awareness, The Rise will outperform The Decline more often than not. And that is how our lives are changed, one step at a time.
Have a great day.
Alex