Courtney Dauwalter’s Secret to Success Is Joy

In 2023, Courtney Dauwalter made history by becoming the first person to win ultrarunning’s triple crown in a single season: the Western States 100, Hardrock 100, and Ultra-Trail du Mont Blanc (UTMB). That’s three grueling mountain races, each 100 miles or more, with a ridiculous amount of elevation, in a span of just ten weeks.

It firmly planted her as one of, if not the, best ultrarunners in history. The running community believed such a feat was impossible until Dauwalter proved them wrong. Yet Dauwalter wasn’t out to prove anything to anyone. She wasn’t even planning on running the third race. She essentially entered it on a whim, after surprising herself with how quickly she recovered following the second.

When my colleague Clay Skipper interviewed Dauwalter for our podcast, Excellence, Actually, he asked her what motivates her. She didn’t hesitate: “Joy.” Dauwalter has always loved running, even before she became good enough to make a career out of it.

“When I started running professionally, I wondered if that would take the joy out of it. But it hasn’t. I love it even more probably. And I guess for me, I keep joy in the front seat of the car,” she says. “Joy and intensity can coexist. But joy is driving the car. And if that’s ever not true, then it will be a full reassessment of what’s going on. Because I want it to stay fun, and I want it to be something I do my entire life. And if joy is driving, then the things I’m doing along the route are going to be because I love them, because they’re fun, because they bring me that joy.”

Does Dauwalter face pain and discomfort during races? Absolutely. There are times when she is cramping up alone on a ridgeline in the Rocky Mountains in the middle of the night at mile 73 of a race, knowing she has 27 more to go. But it’s because she experiences so much joy that she is able to endure and push through. It’s her ultimate source of fuel. “No matter how bad I’m hurting or how much of a zombie I look like in the tough moments, I remind myself how lucky I am to be out there doing this thing I love,” she says.

People love to romanticize the elite performer who has a chip on his shoulder, the person who is fueled by anger and who lives to prove naysayers wrong. Popular culture is full of individuals who exude an attitude of unwavering hardness for everything life throws their way. Though this approach plays well on the internet and can be genuinely effective in the short-term, it is not a viable strategy over the long haul. If you are always angry, you won’t have much fun. And if you don’t have much fun, you probably won’t last long in whatever it is you do.

There are a few glaring exceptions, the most famous being Michael Jordan. But it’s worth pointing out that Jordan excelled most (and won all his championships) when being coached by Phil Jackson, the Zen devotee who was known for his calm and joyful approach to the game. Without Jackson to balance him out, it’s easy to imagine Jordan would have self-destructed, like so many other athletes who fit his mold.

And for all his ferocious intensity, even Jordan stuck his tongue out during dunks—a primal and perhaps involuntary expression of joy, freedom, and love for the game. Relying predominantly on negative emotions for energy is akin to burning dirty fuel: It’s destructive for the long-term health of the engine, and it’s not sustainable. Joy, on the other hand, is a clean and renewable source of energy. It builds upon itself and doesn’t leave toxic pollutants, such as resentment and isolation, in its wake.

Choosing a Harmonious Passion Over Obsession

When Dauwalter left her job as a schoolteacher in 2017 to try running full time, she was an unknown entity. Just a few years later, she found herself on the cover of every major running magazine. Throughout it all, she’s managed to keep joy in the driver’s seat—not just during races but in everything else her meteoric rise in the sport has entailed. It’s easy to get caught up in hype, fame, and followers; in sponsorship deals, awards, and money.

Chasing bright and shiny objects and external validation is seductive at first, but eventually it becomes exhausting. For one, this stuff is outside of our control. And no matter how much of it we get, it is never enough. It’s like trying to quench our thirst with salt water—it only makes us thirstier. Intrinsic sources of drive, such as joy and mastery, are far more enduring.

“When you’re younger and racing, for example, when you’re running the mile in high school track, people ask you your time and your place immediately afterwards. And so you’re taught and told that those are the things that you should value because those are the things that you’re asked about right away,” recalls Dauwalter. Yet, over time, she says that she’s learned those aren’t the real reasons for running. “It’s about the shared moments and memories, not about all the other things and not about results and none of that,” she explains.

Psychologists distinguish between two types of passion: harmonious and obsessive. With harmonious passion, you are absorbed in an activity because you love how the activity makes you feel. A harmoniously passionate artist creates because she finds joy in the craft. With obsessive passion, you get hooked on an activity because of external rewards and recognition. An obsessively passionate artist creates because she wants to boast about prestigious gallery shows and other accolades.

Decades of research show that people whose passion is predominantly obsessive lose touch with the joy intrinsic to their work. They become impatient, angry, and resentful, especially when things don’t go well. Studies repeatedly find that obsessive passion is linked to burnout, anxiety, depression, and unethical conduct. Just think about any prominent story of fraud in business or doping in sport. Nearly all the main characters became addicted to the spotlight and driven by a combination of insecurity and anger. Harmonious passion, on the other hand, is undergirded by joy, curiosity, and a process mindset. It is associated with health, happiness, overall life satisfaction, and yes, performance, too.

Obsessive passion is a trap. Hardly anyone starts out with it, but as we develop an affinity for an activity and do it more often, we begin to experience positive results and receive praise, recognition, and rewards. Subtly, perhaps without even realizing it, we become more attached to the external validation we get from doing an activity than to the joy of doing the activity itself. This trajectory is every bit as common as it is precarious. Even if we achieve legitimate success, if it is fed by a longing for external results, recognition, and rewards, then trouble lies ahead. That’s because we’ll always crave more. More money. More fame. More medals. More attention. More status. We get sucked into a vicious cycle of empty striving, and joy disappears.

Finding Inspiration Through Awe

To be sure, every athlete gets a jolt from winning, every craftsperson feels good when their work finds commercial success, and every salesperson loves closing a deal. It is also completely normal to feel angry when we are slighted or doubted. There’s nothing wrong with experiencing these emotions. We just want to prevent them from becoming the predominant forces underlying our motivation. They can be in the backseat, or even in the passenger seat for short periods of time, but we must work to keep joy in the driver’s seat.

Regularly reflecting on our overarching purpose can help. The more we remember why we got into our activity to begin with, the better. If that feels inaccessible, take a few days off and try again later. Something that may aid in the process is going on a hike, watching a sunset, or participating in another activity in nature. The research of University of California, Berkeley professor Dacher Keltner shows that experiencing natural awe helps us gain perspective and transition out of a narrow, frustrated, self-obsessed state and into a more expansive one.

Whenever I catch myself spending too much time harping on book sales, getting frustrated by the politics of publishing, or comparing myself to other authors, I’ve found disconnecting and spending time in nature, reading my favorite books, or listening to my favorite songwriters to be some of the best medicine. I almost always return to the work with a renewed sense of perspective and internal motivation. I am reminded that the foremost goal is to do good work for its own sake and to grow as a person.

This kind of perspective is enormously helpful. (The result of which is that we produce better, more imaginative work.) Intensity and drive are double-edged swords. They can be beautiful and enlarging when they are pointed toward growth and fueled by a love of craft. But they can become diminishing and destructive when they are pointed toward winning at all costs and fueled by anger or the need for approval.

After being pushed to expound upon her greatness, Dauwalter, who possesses the charismatic mixture of confidence and humility we discussed earlier, replied, “What I know is it’s all really fun for me—like this pain cave exploration and running and trails and exploring with my feet. I’m always reminding myself how lucky I am to be doing this thing I love… When I decided to sign up for the third race of the triple crown, my attitude was Let’s have some fun and find out if it’s possible to finish it.” She ended up winning by over 40 minutes.

A Focus on Process and Not Outcome

Imagine there are two climbers who equally desire to reach the peak of a mountain. The first climber is constantly thinking ahead to what it will feel like when he gets to the top. He’s envisioning the pictures he’ll take, the praise he’ll receive from his peers, and how he’ll finally attain self-worth. As such, he’s in a rush to get where he’s going.

The second climber is more present for the journey. He’s paying close attention to the experience along the way and remembering to stop and savor the views. Which climber do you think is going to have a longer and more fulfilling career? Which climber do you think is more likely to feel restless and quit when he comes upon hard times? Sustaining greatness requires the drive to keep pushing, but it also requires releasing from our tunnel vision on what lies ahead and learning to slow down and find joy where we are. It is not either-or. We need both of these qualities.

A large study found that athletes who focus on process rather than outcomes are more successful. It’s why so many elite coaches, from Bill Walsh to Dawn Staley to Steve Kerr, embrace some variation of the same mentality: Do the work, let the outcome take care of itself, and find joy in the process. Research shows that an excessive focus on outcomes pushes us toward insecure striving (which makes people more susceptible to stress and anxiety), whereas those who find joy in the process perform from a place of security and freedom (and as a result, do better).

I told myself I’d celebrate once I wrote a bestseller. When I hit a major list, it wasn’t nearly as fulfilling or joyful as I thought it would be. I thought I’d experience contentment when I made a 500-pound deadlift. When I did, it took three minutes before I was thinking about what it would take to reach 550.

In both instances, I fell for the arrival fallacy: I realized no outward achievement was going to fill whatever hole I had inside. The only thing that fills that hole is doing good work and loving good people—both of which are ongoing processes that must be reaffirmed again and again. So I was happy for a bit, and then I was quickly onto thinking about the next achievement.

“It’s been presumed that when good things happen, people naturally feel joy for it,” says Fred Bryant, a social psychologist whose work focuses on savoring. Yet his research suggests that we don’t automatically respond to “good things” in ways that maximize their positive impact on our lives, something that is increasingly true in the rush and tumult of today’s world. We quickly transition from one thing to the next, worried that if we don’t move fast enough, we’ll fall behind. But what ends up happening is that we miss out on so much joy along the way.

Remembering to Savor Success

Bryant’s work suggests that when something good happens, it is important to deliberately savor it. For example, instead of immediately proceeding to whatever is next, we could pause and take stock of the feelings we are experiencing in our body. Later on, we could share these experiences with our teammates, colleagues, and friends. We could also write about them in a diary or journal. When we relive joyful experiences, we further ingrain them in our memory, and thus have an easier time calling upon them for fortitude during trials and tribulations.

One of the most common regrets you hear from masters of craft toward the end of their careers: I wish I would have stopped and enjoyed the good moments more. Keep this in mind on your own path. When you’re having a good day, give yourself permission to slow down, take a deep breath, and soak it up. Remember that the good days are the ultimate reward. In many ways, they are the point of the entire endeavor.

The best performers in the world are focused, determined, a little bit crazy, at times obsessive, and live mundane lifestyles that most people would find boring. That is all true. But the best performers in the world also experience deep joy in their crafts. What makes for greatness is being intense and joyful. It’s the joy that makes the ferocious dedication, drive, and intensity sustainable. If you find yourself losing joy, don’t assume it has to be this way.

Odds are, you’re either moving too fast or getting too caught up in everything surrounding your craft at the expense of actually doing your craft itself. It’s a common conundrum. Fortunately, it is also highly reversible. You can begin rekindling joy right now. Do everything you can to keep it in the driver’s seat.