Why Negative Visualization Is the Antidote to Hedonic Adaptation

Have you ever bought something you really wanted?

How do you feel about it now?

In many cases, joy has faded away quickly…

I remember the remote controlled monster truck I once wanted at all costs. I used it maybe four times. It got boring. I didn’t appreciate it anymore after a while. Finally, I was happy to get rid of it. My younger cousin happily took it.

This was not a unique case. It’s happened to me hundreds of times. And it’s happening to most people. Chances are high you’ve experienced it, too. Actually, it’s a phenomenon called hedonic adaptation and we all fall prey to it.

We adapt quickly to what’s new. And even if things seem so shiny when we desire them, once we have them, we take them for granted, get bored with them, and want something else. Something better, bigger, or shinier.

The sad truth is, we won’t get happy this way. We’ll always adapt and want something new or some change with the belief it’ll elevate our happiness state.

It won’t. Luckily, the Stoic exercise negative visualization can help.

Let’s start from the beginning.

Our Happiness Formula Is Completely Wrong

Sorry to tell you, but we’ve grown up with the wrong happiness formula burned in our minds.

Our idea of happiness has long been like this: If I do great work, then I’ll become more successful, and then I’ll be happier.

• Study hard --> Straight A’s (or just pass) --> Be happy!
• Work overtime --> Get promoted --> Be happy!

Well, it does not work like this.

The model is broken.

We do great work, have bigger successes, but instead of becoming happier, we just set new goals. With this formula, we’ll never get to happiness, as it keeps getting pushed further away.

I bet you’ve observed this in your own life. I remember when I studied for my university exams. The goal wasn’t to get straight A’s, my goal was to pass all the exams with a minimum of learning time invested.

So I had 10 exams within two weeks. And I thought that once I’m done, I’ll feel great, I’ll be happy.

But I wasn’t. I entered some form of emptiness. The exams had been written, and I’ve had pretty good feelings over the results, but I felt empty instead of happy.

Sure, I was glad it was over, but I missed the great happy feelings. So I sat there, without the expected feelings, and didn’t know what to do.

Long story short, I should have known long ago that reaching goals alone won’t make you happy. There will be new goals, as I said to myself, “This is nothing. You’ve achieved nothing. First, you need to finish your degree and then you can be happy.”

Point is: The whole formula is broken.

So is there a formula that works?

Yes. The science of happiness tells us that it looks something like this: Be happy first, then you’ll do great work, and become more successful.

We need to be happy first.

The reason for this is that a happy brain is a more positive brain and a more positive brain has a ton of advantages such as higher intelligence, increased creativity, and fuller energy tanks.

Happiness fuels success, not the other way around.

Hear it yourself from happiness researcher Shawn Achor in this short video:

So we need to be happier first with what we have right now, and only then will we be more successful (and happier of course).

Before we look at a smart way to get there, we look at why we won’t get happier just by achieving our goals and getting what we want.

(If you want to learn more about the happiness formula and the science of happiness, check out our article How to Be Happy.)

Hedonic Adaptation – Why We Don’t Get Happy by Getting What We Want

What is hedonic adaptation?

It’s the phenomenon that when we fulfill some of our desires, we won’t be happier for a long time.

When we get the promotion – something we want – we won’t be happier than before for a long time. After a few weeks we’ll have adapted to the new situation and our happiness level will be where it was before the promotion. Our joy will fade away quickly.

Look around yourself, do you see anything you once bought/earned/won and thought this would make you happier? That wide-screen TV, your Bachelor’s degree, or the employee of the month medal? Chances are high that you have adapted. You take those things for granted now and probably long for a wider-and-curved-screen TV, the Master’s degree, or another job.

What about winning the lottery? Will that make you happier for a long time?

Or becoming paraplegic? Will that make you less happy for a long time?

Nope, as author Marci Shimoff explains in her book Happy for No Reason:

“There was a famous study conducted that tracked people who’d won the lottery—what many people think of as the ticket to the magic kingdom of joy. Within a year, these lucky winners returned to approximately the same level of happiness they’d experienced before their windfall. Surprisingly, the same was true for people who became paraplegic. Within a year or so of being disabled, they also returned to their original happiness level.”

Even such extreme events do not change our state of happiness for more than a year.

You see, no matter what happens to us, we’re likely to adapt to it pretty quickly.

Because of that adaptation process, we find ourselves in a vicious cycle:

We desire something, work hard to earn it, and once we have it we’ll adapt and be as dissatisfied as before. And then we’ll desire something else, or simply more of it, work hard to get it, and again, once we have it we’ll adapt quickly, our joy will fade away and we’ll start at zero all over again.