How to Feel 1,000X More Gratitude
The Amplified Impact Podcast
June 17th, 2023
In this episode, I’ve got something on my mind that I want to share with you all. It’s about this thing called the Hedonic treadmill.
As high achievers, we’re always looking ahead, moving that goalpost, and reaching for the next big thing. It’s what keeps us motivated and helps us achieve greatness.
The thing is….that mountaintop we’re aiming for? It never seems to get any closer.
We reach one peak, and guess what? Another one pops up in the distance, teasing us with its allure.
It’s like playing a never-ending game of chase. It’s not a bad thing at all….it’s what keeps us on our toes and striving for more.
Every now and then, it’s important to turn around and take a look back at how far we’ve come.
Let me share a bit of my own journey as an entrepreneur and creator.
Recently, our YouTube channel blew up like fireworks on the Fourth of July. From 200 subscribers to a whopping 135,000 in just eight or nine months.
It’s mind-blowing.
But…it wasn’t always rainbows and unicorns. I remember the days when a post would get five likes. Ten if I was lucky.
The point is, success isn’t always a straight line. And if you’re just starting out, it can be frustrating, wondering why your content isn’t getting the attention it deserves.
So, here’s what I want you to do: take a moment to pat yourself on the back.
Even those little wins, the baby steps, they matter.
We’re all on this crazy Hedonic treadmill, constantly adapting to our surroundings and setting new norms.
But don’t forget to appreciate the journey, my friend.
TWEETABLE QUOTE:
“So take a moment for yourself. Look back on where you were, where you started this journey and how far you’ve come and bask in that for a moment and then use that as the fuel to get back at it and go crush the day.”- Anthony Vicino
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Episode Transcript:
Anthony Vicino [00:00:00]:
What’s up, everybody? Welcome back to the podcast. Today I want to talk a little bit about the Hedonic treadmill. I want to take a moment to look back down memory lane and just reflect on where we’ve come from to get to this place. Because as high achievers, which I know you are, because you’re listening to a podcast, it’s all about personal development, entrepreneurship, and just, you know, living in alignment with your greatness. I know that you are a peak performer and so I know you are probably prone to do the same thing that I am, which is you move the goalpost on yourself constantly. We’re always looking forward at the peak of the mountain to where we’re going and we’re striving towards that. And when we do this, this is good because this is what allows us to chase our ambition and actually achieve great things. That’s not a bad thing.
Anthony Vicino [00:00:48]:
But when you only ever focus on the top of the mountain, you come to realize, like, that mountaintop never actually gets any closer. You might get to these little mini summits, these mini peaks, but as you get to one, you now have a higher vantage point from which to look and you see, oh, this new peak has been revealed in the clouds that you just couldn’t see from where you were below. And so now we set off in pursuit of that new peak and that’s not a bad thing. But knowing that we will never actually reach that peak, that that gap between where we are and where we want to go is never actually shortening. It’s never getting smaller because we continually just push the goalpost back a little bit, knowing that we can prepare ourselves for the inevitable frustration, disappointment, burnout that comes with always fixating on that gap between where you are and where you want to be. And instead, if we just take time every now and then to turn around and look back at the gap that is ever increasing between where we started and where we are in that gap, there’s a lot of gratitude, there’s a lot of enjoyment, a lot of fulfillment and purpose to be had. And so all it takes is every now and then taking a moment to look back and reflect, where did we start and where are we? And this I find to be very, very helpful and impactful in my own journey as an entrepreneur, as a creator. We’re constantly trying to build bigger, better businesses, bigger, better brands or whatever, like bigger, better things.
Anthony Vicino [00:02:16]:
And we become so acclimatized acclimated, those are weird words. We become so acclimated to where we are at the moment that sometimes we just lose perspective on how far we’ve truly come. And I was thinking about this this morning because in the last eight months, you guys are probably aware that the YouTube channel really blew up. We’ve been putting out content for a long time, but finally we unlocked the formula or whatever. For whatever reason, in this beautiful moment in time, the content just started resonating with the audience. And the channel went from 200 subscribers to 135,000 in the span of like eight, nine months, which is truly incredible. And we’re starting to see similar growth on the LinkedIn, where we post a lot over there. And in the last month we’ve doubled in size there, so we maybe had like 9000 followers there.
Anthony Vicino [00:03:14]:
And now we’re at like 18, 19,000, which is crazy. And those posts, they’re getting a ton of engagement. We’re talking like the posts that we made yesterday had 2000 likes. The post that we made a couple of weeks ago had 3000. And I share this, not to brag, but just to reflect that it wasn’t so long ago that I would make a post on LinkedIn and it would get maybe five likes, ten likes. And that was the norm for a really, really long time. And I remember how excited I would be to get like 20 likes. I’m like, yeah, that’s awesome.
Anthony Vicino [00:03:46]:
So cool. I was genuinely jazzed about it. And it’s the same with Instagram, same journey there. We don’t have massive followings, but every now and then we make a piece of content that just hits, and it does really well. But the average of our content is just consistently getting better. We’re improving our craft and as a result, we’re getting more engagement, more likes, those vanity metrics. And it can be sometimes even when you start to find success, it can still be frustrating because you’ll have a piece of content go viral, you do really well, and then the next day, the next post, it just kind of falls flat on its face. And this actually happens far more frequently than you might imagine.
Anthony Vicino [00:04:29]:
For instance, three days ago on Instagram, we had a post that did very well. By our standard, it’s got a couple hundred likes. So on Instagram, a couple of hundred likes is very, very good for us. And usually we get maybe between 61 hundred likes. So a couple hundred is like three to four times better than usual. And that’s awesome. But the very next day, right after a post that did really well, the next video just got 19 likes, which is way below expectations, way below the average. And so there’s this ebb and this flow, this given, this take of like, it’s not just this linear growth.
Anthony Vicino [00:05:00]:
Even when you’re starting to get traction and things are starting to go well, it’s still not a linear growth. And that’s for where we are on our journey right now. If you’re just starting out and putting out content, chances are that you are underachieving your expectations by quite a margin. It feels probably like you’re just shouting into the void that nobody’s listening. And the reason for that is you’re probably looking to accounts like mine or to other people who are further down the journey and you see the engagement and the viewage that they get and it’s frustrating because you know what’s possible, what’s capable, and you think, my content is just as good. Why doesn’t it hit? Why doesn’t it resonate? Why don’t I get all this attention? And so that can be very disheartening, it can be very discouraging. I was in that place for many, many years. And truthfully, on some platforms I still am on Twitter, it’s slow growth.
Anthony Vicino [00:05:44]:
We put out all the same content that we put out on the other channels and it hits so much better on every other platform than it does on Twitter for whatever reason. So we are still on that struggle bus trying to figure out like, well, how do we continue? How do we grow this channel in the same way we’ve grown our others? And this is a fun push and pull and problem to be solved as entrepreneurs. Like, this is the game, right? It’s fun, but it can also be very disheartening. And I realize that a lot of people, if you’re listening to this podcast, you might be a little bit earlier on the journey, you might not have developed that thick skin, that callous yet that says like, hey, this is the norm. And so I share this with you so that you realize it never gets easier, you just get better and you start to adapt. Remember when five to ten likes on a post was amazing? Now if it gets less than 60, I’m like, oh, that really is a bummer. On some channels, YouTube, for instance, if it gets less than a couple thousand likes, I am like, that was a failure. And that’s crazy to think that’s just crazy, but it’s the realization that we’re on the Hedonic treadmill, which is to be human means we are great adapting to our environment and to our making new norms, right? Think about COVID and how quickly we all just kind of adapted to the new norm of social distancing, of masks and all that.
Anthony Vicino [00:06:56]:
We might not have liked it, but it became the normal. And then I remember when we finally started getting rid of the masks, how weird it was to go back to that place, but then quickly, within a couple of months completely forgot, like, I don’t even think about wearing a mask anymore. I don’t remember what it felt like, right? And so we just continually adapt to our surroundings. And I wanted to share that with you because I think it can be very, very motivating to look at the top of the mountain and people who are further on the path and use that as the fuel, but say, I can do this. But also reward yourself every now and then by just turning around and looking at where you came from, how far you’ve come. And I think when you do that, you will find a lifetime worth of gratitude and fuel for where you are in this moment. Which might be hard going because in entrepreneurship land, it’s never as easy as we make it look on social media, is it? It’s never that easy. And the same when the personal development game.
Anthony Vicino [00:07:51]:
It’s never as easy as the gurus make it seem like wake up at 05:00 a.m. And meditate and red light therapy, cold bath and then do a sauna and work out for 3 hours. It’s never that easy. So take a moment for yourself. Look back on where you were, where you started this journey and how far you’ve come and bask in that for a moment and then use that as the fuel to get back at it and go crush the day. So I hope this brings you just a little bit of value. As always, thank you so much for being here, guys. I’ll look forward to seeing you on tomorrow’s episode, but until then, stay hyper focused, my friend.
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