Shameless plug, I wrote an article recently on how the hedonic treadmill affects development culture [1].
In my opinion, good approach to avoiding the hedonic treadmill is to think in “processes” rather than “goals.” If you achieve some goal, you get back to the equilibrium and get used to it. But if you’re on a journey, there’s nothing to adapt to as every day is a journey and brings something new. So it's like smaller pendulum swings every day instead of big ones every few months.
Nonetheless, I like the ideas proposed in this article and think they also are quite effective.
Some of us say if you aren’t embarrassed by code you wrote 18 months ago that you aren’t learning fast enough. I think people who feel that way would in general agree that we should be constantly improving, not looking for status quo.
If the cost of maintaining your code grows logarithmically - and many projects do worse than this - then you have to constantly be finding ways to go faster just to keep getting the same amount of new logic into the system. This is something sometimes lost on people fixated on story points. They don’t notice that story points three years ago were “worth” more than story points today. Or maybe they do but they can’t prove it or even really name it. That would explain some of the friction I sometimes see with management.
In my opinion, good approach to avoiding the hedonic treadmill is to think in “processes” rather than “goals.” If you achieve some goal, you get back to the equilibrium and get used to it. But if you’re on a journey, there’s nothing to adapt to as every day is a journey and brings something new. So it's like smaller pendulum swings every day instead of big ones every few months.
Nonetheless, I like the ideas proposed in this article and think they also are quite effective.
[1] https://vadimkravcenko.com/shorts/hedonic-treadmill/