The Disappointment of Success

This last month I hit some wild milestones (for me) with my side projects. Milestones that prior to the last 28 days I thought I was a long way off achieving. This is terrible news.

I’m a little metric obsessed and so seeing the charts climb tickles all of the dopamine triggers I’ve been conditioned to enjoy. In the moment it’s very exciting to see the digits grow beyond what I thought possible. I have the unhealthy habit of extrapolating out a days success into the next 365 days and saying to my self “Look! If I do this 365 more times I’ll be set!”

The unhealthy part comes when the numbers inevitably trail off and I realise it had nothing to do with me. In my little snow globe of experience this typically happens. As Gandhi said “no boon sees two summers” I don’t really know what that means but it feels relevant. Anyway, these things always seem to wind back to somewhere about where they were before. Perhaps with a little increase, If you’re lucky. I find this pretty challenging and it leaves me wanting to chase the success rather than chasing things that are meaningful. Which can then lead to a slump of motivation.

The only solution I’ve found so far is time (the unsatisfactory answer to most of life’s challenges) and forcing myself to chip away at things to get back into it. It seems that it is the small consistent changes overtime that eventually have a meaningful impact.

So that’s why I’ve started this blog, I can almost guarantee it won’t be successful and so there is a good chance I might just be able to keep doing it forever. Lucky you.