Love the Journey

There is a quote from Creating Money - Keys to Abundance by Sanaya Roman and Duane Packer that says “Love getting there as much as being there”. This is also backed up by what James Clear said in Atomic Habits. The concept is that if you love the journey of getting something you want as much as getting it you will get more satisfaction. There is scientific proof that dopamine, the chemical that gives you pleasure, is released when you anticipate getting something as much as when you get it. This should be an indicator that you should enjoy the pursuit of your goals. However, sometimes getting to that goal is hard. Remember it’s the anticipation not the work that releases the dopamine. So with the understanding that getting to our goals can be hard we should learn to enjoy the journey to our goals. It really can be fun! Let’s say that you are trying to lose weight. There may be a lot of exercise involved which is really hard. However, with time we start to enjoy working out because it feels good. Our bodies start to respond, our heart rate gets better, our pace starts to increase, and we see a change in our shape. In the book Atomic Habits, James Clear asked a professional coach what the secret is to becoming an athlete. He said that athletes have the ability to overcome the boredom of training. We have all been there. The boredom of doing the same thing over and over again such as the stationary bike. This too is another area where we need to love the journey. If you are on a diet you need to overcome the boredom of eating the same healthy foods over and over again. You need to know how to shake things up a bit. Whether it be listening to podcasts, or looking for new recipes. We need to overcome that boredom. Finally when we start to love the journey we develop positive habits that get us to our goal. If you don’t like the journey you will not want to do it. It will never become a good habit. We have to remember that the end goal is not the end of our journey. It is just the beginning of the use of our new habits.