Growth is usually painful to some degree. That’s because growth requires loss—a loss of your old values, your old behaviors, your old loves, your old identity.
Therefore, growth often has a component of grief to it.
A reminder from The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel:
“The highest form of wealth is the ability to wake up every morning and say, ‘I can do whatever I want today.’ People want to become wealthier to make them happier. Happiness is a complicated subject because everyone’s different. But if there’s a common denominator in happiness—a universal fuel of joy—it’s that people want to control their lives. The ability to do what you want, when you want, with who you want, for as long as you want, is priceless. It is the highest dividend money pays.
Use money to gain control over your time, because not having control of your time is such a powerful and universal drag on happiness. The ability to do what you want, when you want, with who you want, for as long as you want to, pays the highest dividend that exists in finance.”