You know the feeling. You discover a new neighborhood gem -- a restaurant run by actual Italians, perhaps -- and have an amazing meal. So you go back again, expecting a repeat thrill, but the food tastes a bit more ordinary the second time around.

Can you repeat the thrill?

Or perhaps you buy a stylish suit on sale and love it the first time you wear it but then start finding small flaws and become disappointed.

You're not alone. The first time we buy or experience something, we may enjoy it fully. All of our senses are activated, and we're unburdened by prior expectations. But after that, our enjoyment fades, and we may up the ante by going to a newer, fancier restaurant, for instance, or shopping for another outfit.

We asked: What do you buy to feel good?

The satisfaction we get from these strategies is short-lived, and this type of behavior can have disastrous consequences on our checkbooks. To keep from spending yourself into the poorhouse in the vain pursuit of an ideal, you'll need to retrain your mind for a more sensible pursuit of happiness.

So why is the second time never as good?

From a scientific perspective, when we engage in an enjoyable activity -- anything from eating a decadent dessert to watching a great movie -- the brain releases the hormone dopamine, which is commonly associated with the brain's pleasure system. It provides us with feelings of enjoyment and motivates us to repeat the pleasant experience.

Some researchers have found that dopamine levels are higher when we're anticipating a pleasurable experience than after we've enjoyed it. In fact, these anticipatory moments are actually the peak of what we call pleasure. Not only are we flooded with dopamine, but we are content with what we have. For a short time, we escape our usual flurry of incessant craving.

Why your brain wants more

If someone asked us why we feel so good in a moment like this, we'd point to the object of desire -- a great meal or an enjoyable trip -- and not to the fact that our desire has subsided.

But as the dopamine levels subside, our normal mood returns, as does our craving. We desperately want to feel good again, so our minds latch onto the same experiences or purchases that worked in the past. The better they worked in the past, the more certain we are that they can create future happiness. The mind lures us into this behavioral pattern by telling us that the more we want, the more we'll get, and the more we get, the happier we'll be.

Talk back: Are you struggling with too much stuff?

The truth is that the more we want now, the more we'll want in the future. Human beings are creatures of habit. So we head out to the same electronics store

where we got a great deal on a flat-screen TV or to the lakeside lodge we enjoyed so much a couple of seasons ago, or down to Starbucks for (my personal favorite) those grande mint mocha chip Frappuccinos.

Guided meditation: The wanting mind

To break this pattern, we need to trick our minds, increasing our enjoyment by achieving what the Buddhists call the beginner's mind. If we can boost our pleasure in the moment, we can fight the temptation to chase other past experiences.

Try these three simple tips:

1. Be honest. Know what shopping can and can't give you before you enter the store.

2. Empty your mind. Try eating with your non-dominant hand or sitting in a different part of the restaurant. The fewer expectations you come in with, the more likely you are to enjoy your experience.

3. Be here now. When we're trying too hard to repeat a pleasurable experience, we're focusing on the past, which means we're not really present, not available to be surprised by this moment.

We seem to know that it's the wanting that's better than the getting. In his book "Stumbling on Happiness," Daniel Gilbert writes: "In one study, volunteers were told that they had won a free dinner at a fabulous French restaurant and were then asked when they would like to eat it. Now? Tonight? Tomorrow? Although the delights of the meal were obvious and tempting, most of the volunteers chose to put their restaurant visit off a bit, generally until the following week."

The mind wants to repeat a pleasurable experience to get another dopamine hit. And generally we don't just want to eat some more great Italian food or buy another pair of pants; we want to go back to the same store and buy the very same brand.

Addicted to your brand?

There's been a growing body of research into consumers' brand behaviors, and some of it is telling. One such study found that the more hedonistic a product is (the more pleasure it brings) the less flexible we are about switching brands and the more likely we are to leave the store we're in and go find our favorite fix somewhere else.

Coca-Cola, considered one of the strongest and most valuable brands in the world, is a prime example: 34% of buyers will go to another store to find Coke if the store they're in is out of it. That's three times as high a percentage as that for more utilitarian products such as milk, butter and socks.

With these hedonic products, as they're called, people are not only less likely to switch brands, but they're even less likely to accept another product within the same brand (a six-pack of Coke, for instance, instead of the two-liter bottle) than they would be if they were buying a more utilitarian product.

To avoid being lured by this desire to constantly repeat past experiences, try these three exercises and strategies, adapted from my new book, "It's Not About the Money":

1. Simplify before you buy. Give or throw away something you already own, or even volunteer some of your time. As you let go, you're effectively telling yourself that you already have enough. This way, when you go shopping for some new kitchen gadget or book a massage, you're not hoping it will bring you that ever elusive sense of "enough" -- which, of course, it can't actually provide for very long.

Talk back: Trying to simplify and stop spending?

2. Prepare for the worst. Imagine everything going just about as badly as it possibly could. The waiter will trip and spill merlot all over your brand-new shirt. The valet guy will back your car into a Bentley owned by the city's top litigator. And your date will catch you eyeing the attractive server, causing a horrendous fight during the meal. Though somewhat artificial, this method of dashing all hopes and expectations will allow you to show up and be available to enjoy each moment, whatever it brings.

3. Get your dopamine for free. Find ways to experience pleasure that don't cost money. Take a walk in a park. Go to a museum or a free concert. Check out a great novel from the library. As you train your brain to derive pleasure in all these other ways, you're much less likely to believe that you can be happy only with things that cost money.

Return to more stories in the series

Produced by Peggy Collins / Graphics by Sean Enzweiler

Published Aug. 8, 2008