“If one felt successful, there’d be so little incentive to be successful.” — Alain de Botton

People tend to have a pretty myopic view of what their lives would be like if they suddenly discovered great wealth or famed accolades.

I’d travel the world and wake up every morning on a different exotic location.

I’d sip margaritas on a Mexican beach while listening to the waves crash on shore.

I’d never work another day of my life.

These sound like fantastic life-choices on the surface, but dig a bit deeper and you expose the unvarnished truth:

None of these activities would ACTUALLY make you happy.

Now, now, I hear you shouting from the rafters: Chris, you don’t know me!

And while that’s technically true, I do know what drives motivation, life satisfaction, and overall happiness in the vast majority of the population, and none of it has anything to do with relaxation or leisure.

Don’t believe me? Then consider this: Why does Elon Musk work 12 hour days?

The man has more than enough money to never work another day. He could retire to any number of exotic villas the world over. He could pursue leisure with truly hedonic dedication.

But he doesn’t.

Neither does Bill Gates. Or Warren Buffet. Or…most successful people.

Why?

Because you, me, Bill, Warren, and Elon are all stuck on the Hedonic Treadmill.

That is, we’re in a constant state of adaption.

There is nothing to which man cannot adapt, given sufficient incentive.

The Hedonic Treadmill is the reason we’re rarely satisfied for very long having completed a goal. We revel in victory for a hot second, then quickly grow acclimated. Within days, hours, and sometimes even minutes, we are in search of the next great thing.

Get a raise tomorrow and you’ll be on Cloud-9 for a month or two. In about six months, however, that raise will have lost its shine. You’ll have adapted to this new level of being and start considering what comes next.

This is why, despite earning more money over the course of one’s career, people’s net worth remains almost wholly unaffected.

As your income increases, so too does your standard of living.

This is the Hedonic Treadmill in a nutshell.

It is why no matter how much wealth, status, or fame you accrue, you will always desire more.

“Don’t aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it.” — Victor Frankl (Man’s Search for Meaning)

This is predominately the case because we are chasing pleasurable things that we think will make us happy.

Unsurprisingly, once we catch these white-rabbits, we’re disappointed to find that they weren’t actually the secret to happiness at all.

Well, actually, that’s not what happens.

What really happens is far sadder.

It is this: We falsely attribute our lack of happiness to the quantity of the thing obtained.

Now you’re running faster on the Hedonic Treadmill in hot pursuit of more, more, more.

Let me just save you some time, energy, and a whole lot of blisters:

You’re chasing the wrong things.

The things society says will bring you happiness are a lie.

Flat out. End of story.

Disregard them.

Instead, here are the 4 things psychologists tell us you should start chasing.