Why Chasing Goals Makes You Unhappy (And How To Fix It)

We've all been sold the same idea: sacrifice your happiness today for a richer, better "someday" once you finally achieve your big goals. But what if that entire mindset is a trap that guarantees you never actually learn how to live well? In this episode, we're dismantling why this chase so often fails and uncovering the practical secret to finding fulfillment and happiness right now, in the middle of the journey. (Music by Aonescape from Pixabay)

Transcript

Welcome to the Happiness Podcast.

I'm Dr.

Robert Puff.

We can accomplish some amazing things when we put our minds to it.

Maybe take a moment and think about a goal you may have had that you've worked really hard at in your life.

Don't we all know someone who came from modest backgrounds,

Studied really hard at school,

Got into college,

Kept studying hard,

Got into medical school,

And became a surgeon,

And now is extremely successful financially?

Or how about some entrepreneurial uncle who worked really hard for years building his business,

Working perhaps 100 to 120 hours a week,

And then finally made it and is extremely financially successful?

Or what about the musicians,

The athletes,

The movie stars that we all know that worked so hard on their careers to get where they're at,

And they've made it,

And they're successful?

But if we do a little research,

And if we're honest,

I think we'll admit that a lot of these people who make a lot of success in their lives,

That reach their goals that they worked so hard for,

Aren't necessarily happier.

They have nice things.

They have wonderful thrills that sometimes only money can buy.

But at the same time,

They seem to be struggling.

Why is that?

And you may at this point not completely agree with me because their lives,

Particularly on social media,

Seem so thrilling.

But I think if you do a little bit of investigative research,

I think you'll find that they have the same problems that you and I do.

And sometimes it seems like they have a lot more problems than we do.

But why would this be?

I mean,

They made it.

They're successful.

They're doing exactly what their goals told them they needed to do.

They worked towards it.

They got there.

All should be well,

Correct?

After all,

Haven't we all been taught at some point in our lives,

If we really wanna be successful,

We have to sacrifice our happiness a day for a better someday.

I mean,

The successful entrepreneur can't be the coach of his kid's soccer league or go on too many dates with his wife because he has to work so that someday he can really provide well for them and spend lots of time with them.

But why does this fail?

At least some of the time,

It does fail.

Sometimes the kids won't talk to their parents.

Sometimes the kids end up on drugs.

Sometimes the parents get divorced and with a lot of acrimony going through and after the divorce.

Yet when we make it,

When we reach our goals,

Shouldn't everything be well even if we did have to sacrifice?

What's wrong with that?

I want us to think about young children.

We've all been one.

We may have some right now or we may have raised some.

How do young children relate to successful people who have achieved their goals?

I know right now I am emphasizing financial success but you could put in career success too and it would be the same analogy.

So every year a child has a birthday and often if the parents are able to,

They have a gift that they're really looking forward to getting.

Sometimes it's a surprise but sometime they know it's coming.

And on their birthday,

When they get their present,

Let's say a new bicycle,

They're very excited and they can't wait to get on it,

Start riding and really enjoying life on their new bicycle.

And they do at first.

But with all toys that we received growing up through our lives,

We know that with time,

Sometimes very quickly,

The enjoyment,

The great pleasure of that toy wears out.

It's called hedonic adaptation.

We get used to things and they're not that thrilling anymore.

But with children,

It doesn't cause them to be depressed or sad because though they didn't work very hard for it,

They also,

While they're waiting for their toy,

Their new birthday present,

They had lots of things that they were enjoying until that present came.

And when the bike came,

They enjoyed the bike.

But again,

They had lots of things that they enjoyed.

So it wasn't that it made them happier.

It was just a pleasant experience that they really liked for a while.

And then they go back to enjoying other things in their life.

Could you imagine if a child had to work really hard,

Say like the old days when they made children work,

And then after months and months of work,

They finally got the new bicycle?

Would they really be that happy about it?

Because the new bicycle,

One,

Won't be that thrilling after a while.

It will break.

And all the joy that they get out of it,

Was it worth the sacrifice they put in to get it?

And two,

They were working so hard as a young child,

They didn't develop play skills,

Things that children learn naturally to enjoy life each and every day.

So how does this apply to us?

When we work really hard at achieving goals,

And particularly when we're working hard at a goal that we don't even like.

Let's say,

For example,

We wanna be a lawyer,

Not because we think law is fascinating,

But because we wanna make a lot of money someday.

And we know a lawyer,

And he or she has so much.

We want their things and their lifestyle.

So we go to school,

We study really hard.

We don't spend time with our friends.

We don't get out much and enjoy the journey of school.

We just work really hard,

Sacrifice,

So that someday we can get into a really good law school.

And then we make it to that law school again,

But we wanna be a corporate lawyer.

To be a corporate lawyer,

We have to be top in our class.

So again,

We work really hard,

Study,

Put lots and lots of time into our academics,

Put everything else on the side for that great sacrifice someday of making it.

And then we finally do make it,

We pass the bar,

We get that corporate job,

And all should be well.

But two things happen that shatter our dream.

Like every little kid knows,

When they finally get their toys,

Say now that corporate lawyer buys a beautiful home and has an extremely expensive car,

He or she will feel like,

This is great,

I love this.

But hedonic adaptation kicks in,

Which means we get used to things and the pleasure they bring us is very short-lived.

All kids know this.

Isn't it sad how often we're so much smarter and more mature and hopefully wiser than children,

And yet we've forgotten this?

So all the work,

All the sacrifice we put into reaching our goal,

Unfortunately,

When it comes to the rewards of those goals are fleeting.

Even fame,

Even success,

Even the admiration of others are fleeting.

And they don't fulfill us because that's giving our happiness away to other people.

And the stuff we buy doesn't fulfill us because of hedonic adaptation.

We get used to anything.

And even though,

Yes,

It may be thrilling for a little while,

It doesn't bring true happiness.

And here's the second mistake people make when they're working towards their goals with so much sacrifice.

We can only do so many things in life.

And the truth of it is,

Creating a happy,

Good life does take work and effort.

I talk about it so often on this podcast.

There's many things we have to do to make our lives better when it comes to being happy and having a good life.

Things like mindfulness,

Meditation,

Exercise,

Good,

Healthy relationships,

Finding things that we enjoy,

Developing a growth mindset,

Developing a positive mindset,

Being present in the here and now,

Throughout the day,

Throughout the week.

The list is long.

That's why I have almost 600 podcasts on how to live a good life.

There's lots we need to develop and do to have a good life.

But when we work really hard at goals,

We often sacrifice so much to achieve these goals.

And it comes with a price.

And when you get there and you make it,

It should seem like you have everything now.

But the truth of it is,

You haven't developed any of the skills for cultivating and creating a good life.

Yes,

You have the admiration of others,

But if that worked,

Everyone who's famous would be incredibly happy.

There's been some really great movies out recently that talk about the super famous people in our world,

Like Elvis Presley and Elton John.

If you've ever seen these movies,

They had a lot of struggles in their life,

Even though in quotes,

They seem to have everything.

In my work as a clinical psychologist,

Probably one of the saddest things I see and have to deal with is working with people that have in quotes,

Made it,

And now they're miserable.

Mind you,

They do have thrills that abate the pain inside of them,

At least briefly,

But the sadness,

The melancholy,

The struggles of life that we all have often overwhelm them because they haven't developed skills of psychological adaptation.

They haven't learned to live in the present moment,

Here and now,

So what they often do is they numb themselves to the pain they feel inside and it can be so sad.

So how do we change this?

Yes,

We all may have goals that we wanna work towards.

There's nothing wrong with that.

We may want to retire someday and live the good life.

Again,

There's nothing wrong with that,

But how do we arrive there if we get there and say,

I enjoyed my journey to retirement?

And here's the key factor.

The goal is not the destination.

The goal is to enjoy the journey well.

The true goal of life is to live each day as a precious gift.

So let's conclude with three things we can do as practical steps to reaching our goals but not losing our happiness along the way.

The first one is to find joy in the process.

For example,

Let's say we have a goal of building a business,

A fine goal.

The key of it is to find fulfillment in the daily act of solving a problem,

Not just in the future payoff.

Similarly,

When we have goals,

Let's look at them and say,

Is this something I really wanna do?

We spend so much time on our work.

Is the work we're doing and working towards fulfilling?

Does it bring us joy?

Is it something that we're excited about?

If we're just excited about the end result,

We're going to have problems.

We have to say,

Yes,

I'm excited about fill in the blank,

Becoming a eye surgeon,

But eyes are fascinating to me and I'm so interested in learning about human anatomy.

See the difference?

The second thing that will help us to find happiness along the way is practice daily fulfillment.

What I mean is actively schedule and honor small daily moments of peace and joy.

Like for example,

A 10 minute walk in the morning or playing with your kids for half an hour or meditating in the evening as a way to end your day.

Treat this practice with the same importance as your work tasks.

That's developing your happiness skills instead of just developing your work skills or your goal skills.

To live a happy life,

We have to work on it and that takes time and that takes effort.

We can't sacrifice that for someday to have a lot more time to work on it.

When we get there,

Maybe we'll be able to shift our lifestyle,

But we'll probably spend years undoing all the damage we did to get there.

Far better to just enjoy the journey of life every day.

Little breaks can be magical.

I remember when I was doing my training at the VA hospital,

It was very busy because I was working on the side too and working on my dissertation.

It was busy times,

But every day at lunch,

I would go outside because I live in Southern California and our weather's pretty good.

I would just sit on the grass by myself and sit quietly and enjoy being outside,

Enjoying nature and all my surroundings.

It was magical and it kept my heart well.

I did other things,

But this was one of the big ones,

Buying things to make the day better and then do them.

And then thirdly,

Here's a very important thing we can do.

We measure our day differently.

Instead of saying,

Did I get closer to my five-year goal today,

Ask,

Did I live well today?

In conclusion,

Happiness isn't a reward we get at the end of the day.

It's a skill we practice every day.

If we don't learn how to be happy on the way towards our goals,

We won't know how to be happy when we get there.

And because we're making time to enjoy life along the way,

There won't be such an urgency to actualize our goals.

So if something happens along the way that circumvents us reaching our goals,

It will be okay because we'll say,

Yep,

That did not work out the way I wanted it to,

But I enjoyed the journey to getting there.

May we work towards our goals,

But along the way,

Each and every day,

May our main goal be,

Life is a beautiful journey that I'm actualizing each and every day.

Thank you for joining me on the Happiness Podcast.

Until next time,

Accept what is,

Love what is.

Reviews

I so needed to hear this now because I was going for a goal that brought me no joy along the journey. But it was a way to become more financially successful. I just decided the other day, It was time to let it go, and this was a wonderful confirmation that I did the right thing. On another note, I’ve been blessed to be in a career that I absolutely love and every day is a joy, and I find myself moving more and more towards that. When I’ve had goals of expanding into different areas, and they fell through, I didn’t see it as a failure. I just saw it as a wonderful journey that never came to fruition, but it was OK because I enjoyed myself along the way. It’s taking me into my adult life, to finally realize it. As much as I have known that I’ve been blessed to have chosen a career that brings me daily joy. The money aspect has never been where I want it. But oh, I’ve loved the journey…and it continues. 🙏🏼

Thank you very much. Beautifully explained, soothing and uplifting.

Thank you 🙏🏻

Thank you Dr. Puff!! 🙏🏽🩶🩶♥️✨🤍✨💙💜✨