Climbing the Dopamine Hill

I have a bad habit of acquiring a new hobby/interest, spending just enough effort to produce mediocre results, and dropping it altogether because getting to the "next" level just feels like too much work. It has already manifested itself many ways in my life, a fleeting interest in music production during high school to even finishing out my personal website/blog (which I actually started last year) right now. I think I have always struggled partly because I know what good looks like, yet when my initial results don't meet my personal expectations, I often feel like reiterating is not the worth the effort. I then just give up and go back to mindless consumption because it is the less painful path. However, I have been experiencing a personal shift in this behavior, one that has directly coordinated with my fitness activity and finally getting over what I call the Dopamine Hill.

In essence, the Dopamine Hill describes the pain, monotony, and lack of dopamine that comes with climbing a figurative hill, upon which lies your ultimate goal. In running, it is the cramps and aches you get while your body tries to get you to stop. In lifting, it can be the days where you don't feel like going, or the times where you get frustrated from a perceived lack of progress. Getting past this "suck" so that your brain can actually derive joy from your effort, is the key to building a positive feedback loop for improvement. The only way to change the outcomes is through controlling the incentives, and there is no greater incentive for human behavior than dopamine. When you are actually able to climb that initial hill and relish in the joy of your achievements, your brain will naturally crave for more. The way I see it, there are only 2 ways to reduce the time it takes to derive joy.

1. Reduce the size of the hill
2. Increase your ascent velocity

Reducing the size of the hill

The gist of this is just expectation management, but the application of it can be very difficult, especially if you consider yourself an ambitious individual that doesn't believe in training wheels. Your initial goal, in some ways, is more important than your final goal because it begins your journey. To me, this was most evident when I was getting into running. I've always been a poor runner, and it was difficult for me to run with others. An initial plan to run 3 miles would result in me not even being able to run 1, then getting lapped cause I just couldn't keep up. My problem was thinking that I would, through sheer willpower and ability, be able to run 3 miles off the bat. Having this unrealistic expectation can actually hurt you because when once you don't meet it, you feel like you've gotten no enjoyment out of your effort. Tempering my expectations and starting off at 1, then working my way up while allowing myself to enjoy the feeling of accomplishment has made a big difference in my running. The other day I was able to run 5 miles, a feat that was imaginable to me the day I first got lapped trying to run 3.

Increasing your ascent velocity AKA feel good faster

The longer you take to feel good from your accomplishments, the likelier you will be to give up and/or be distracted by something else. That's why it is crucial to start getting your dopamine from the hobby/interest you want to pursue faster or your brain will sabotage you and look elsewhere. Sadly there is no way getting around the fact that you just have to put your reps in consistently. That means holding yourself accountable to your process and avoiding procrastination. I've found that surrounding yourself with people that share a similar goal can pay dividends in your personal gain. Often times, I can be pretty easy on myself, justifying why I can slack off or ignore something that I need to get done. It's a lot more difficult trying to explain this to others.

Conquering dopamine hills will continue to be a life-long challenge for me, but I believe that investing in a self-sustaining cycle of growth is the only way to stay consistent long-term.