What if the chase is holding you back?
What if the thing keeping you from your goal is how intensely you’re chasing the reward?
Research tells us that when we fixate too tightly on a payoff, we can drain the joy and energy from the very thing we want.
What We Know: Rewards Can Reduce Joy
In one well-known study, children were offered a reward for their drawings. They drew less and with less enthusiasm than kids who received no reward at all. Psychologists call this the “overjustification effect.”
Here’s the punchline (particularly for parents and leaders): the more you do something for the reward, the less you do it for the joy.
What I’ve Learned: Fall in Love with the Run
During most of high school, I was overweight. The summer after junior year, my friend Gene, a high school wrestler, convinced me to start jogging with him at 6 a.m. After our first morning, I vomited into the bushes. Gene placed a hand on my shoulder and said, “See you tomorrow at six.”
After a couple of weeks, something shifted. I started looking forward to those mornings. The crisp air, the conversations with Gene. I all but forgot about losing weight. By the end of the summer, I was down nearly 15 pounds. I hit my goal, but only after I stopped clutching it so tightly.
What You Can Try: A Simple Question Each Day
Some leaders I know end each day by asking, “What’s one thing I achieved today?” I encourage you to try a different question:
What’s one moment that lit me up today, even for a brief moment?
You might be surprised by your answers. And you might discover that while goals are giving you direction, joy is what keeps you going.
Let’s keep playing the Game of Now.