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How I Reclaimed My Life by Falling in Love With the Process

3 min readJun 20, 2025

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We’re taught to live from one accomplishment to the next.

It’s part of our conditioning.

I love a good “To-Do” list, but it’s a reinforcement of a belief that limits our potential and reduces our sense of happiness and joy to intermittent bursts of dopamine.

The belief is that accomplishment is the singular path to joy; essentially, for an endeavor to be worth our time, it must yield a result.

This is how I lived before prison. I was chasing outcomes, disliking the effort, and feeling disillusioned that fulfillment never followed.

I mean, I did all the right things; why is something missing?

And if you’ve checked all the boxes you believed would make you happy, but something’s still missing, I’m guessing it looks the same for you.

We’re conditioned to do “Y” (the work) to achieve “X” (the result), believing that only then we will feel “Z” (happiness/fulfillment).

So, we endure the process of “Y” because we believe when we accomplish “X,” we will experience “Z.”

It’s the epitome of superficial living and experiencing life from the:

Outside -> In.

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Craig Stanland
Craig Stanland

Written by Craig Stanland

I'm a keynote speaker and author exploring how identity, pressure, and rationalization influence our decision-making and the lives we ultimately create.