Joy can be categorized by the time in which it is experienced, relative to its source. Joy comes from the receipt of an outcome, on anticipation of the outcome, and on the path to the outcome. Each kind of joy has differences in how intense, enduring, and motivating it is. Joy that comes after you obtain an outcome is often what is sought by those who set and work toward goals. Goals are important motivators, but as many have correctly pointed out, exclusively focusing on completing them will lead to an uneven experience of motivation, where your drive for progress usually dips considerably as the work wears on, and especially once it is completed. While it is better to focus on the joy experienced due to the anticipation of an outcome, this will also end with the outcome, and can quickly vanish during the journey as you face obstacles that exceed what you expected in the path towards what you had hoped for. This raises the question: how do we experience joy that occurs during the path to the expected outcome?
Joy that occurs during the path to expected outcomes holds the prospect of equalizing the experience over time, maintaining the same level of value during the pursuit of a worthwhile outcome as you had when you first started, and holding onto it even after attaining it. This might seem like joy alchemy, but it’s completely possible if you have a strong enough link between the eventual goal and the daily effort needed to progress toward it. That link is precisely what your beliefs provide.
Your beliefs tie together the cause and effect in a way that your confidence in them can allow you to pull forward at least some of the joy you will feel as you complete your goals into the time during which you are working toward them.
Accurate beliefs will mitigate both main causes of diminished joy during the pursuit of hoped for outcomes. Normal excitement at the start of a path comes mostly because of unrealistically easy expectations, and the pleasure of accomplishments fades as the revealed cost grows relative to the expected benefit, but accurately described relationships of cause and effect provide a constant expectation before, during, and after attainment of outcomes.
The more confident you are in your beliefs, and the more consistently you live up to them, the more fully you will distribute your joy across the entire journey.