Striving Versus Arriving

Years ago I listened to a talk by Wayne Dyer in which he talked about how we often strive to achieve a goal, and then don’t even recognize when we’ve achieved it. He talked about how we connect our happiness to the achievement of a goal, then when we do achieve it, we immediately find ourselves unsatisfied and begin increasing the size of the goal, or chasing a new one.

Income goals demonstrate this ideally as we have all probably experienced it. “If I could only earn $xxx a year, I’d be happy.” Then you earn that amount and realize it’s not quite enough. One of Dr. Dyer’s examples was “If I could only find a girlfriend I’d be happy.” Then “If I could only get married, I’d be happy.” And then “If I could only get divorced, I’d be happy.” You get the idea.

It turns out that our brains are wired this way. The chemicals that flood our brain provide a greater reward to searching versus finding. Knowing that, we may not overcome the urge to forever seek more, but we can take more time to be grateful for what we do have and achieve.

The Sprint Review and Retrospective is designed to do that. It is that ceremony every four weeks structures a time to reflect on your achievements and be grateful for all the good that has come to you in the previous 28 days. And you can can practice this gratitude every day during your Daily Scrum.

People who reach mountain tops don’t stay there very long. They climb back down and go find another one to climb up. But you can spend a little more time at the peak each time you reach one and enjoy the feeling of arriving.