Why Setting And Achieving Goals Won't Make You Happy (Without These 3 Essential Ingredients)

Written By: Brad Pedersen

Have you ever had a hard time celebrating your success? 

After achieving a significant milestone, do you find that the next day you're already over it and searching for more?

You're not alone. This inability to savor success is something I have struggled with for most of my life.

My wife and I spent New Year's Day putting away our Christmas decorations and purging closets and drawers. I often find that clutter in our spaces creates clutter in our thoughts. In the middle of that process, buried in a box I hadn't opened in years, I found my journal from 2009.

I sat down and started flipping through the pages. 2009 was a hard year. I had just bankrupted my first company (for the second time) and was starting over again. The entries were raw, filled with scarcity, fear, and uncertainty. What surprised me most was that even in the middle of that struggle, there was hope. Naive hope, perhaps, but hope nonetheless as I had written out a bold set of personal and business goals.

As I read through that list, I realized that Kelly and I had accomplished (and in some cases surpassed) almost everything I had written down. From the lens of that season, I had arrived and was living the very life my younger self could only dream about.  And yet as I pondered what we had accomplished I suddenly realized I didn't feel as I thought I would.

Why, after achieving so much, did I still feel this need to be chasing “more” and “next”? Why was I still running a race that my former self would have said I had already won?

Flawed Beliefs

Much of my understanding of value and worth was modeled for me by my dad. Through his work and ability to support us, he communicated that contribution and productivity equaled value. That message took root early as achievement became the language through which I experienced my dad's love and approval. 

It led me to adopt ( as I’ve written about before) a perfectionist identity, where recognition became conditional on my performance. My inner narrative became: ‘If I can just perform well enough, then I will be worthy.” 

But there was a cost. 

Hard work was expected, not celebrated. Excellence was the baseline, not the exception. I lived with a quiet sense of being behind, as if yesterday's effort never counted. 

As my career progressed, that internal pressure never left. I found myself waking up with a tightness in my chest and a voice that whispered, "You're already behind." The sense of falling short was always waiting at the start of each new day.

I had internalized a belief that my worth was earned through output. I adopted a simple equation: work hard enough, accomplish enough and then happiness would follow. 

Rest, joy, or contentment felt like luxuries reserved for a future version of myself who had done just a little more. Happiness wasn't something to experience in the present, it was something to chase for the future.

The problem was, the finish line kept moving and every win immediately gave way to the next goal.

The Arrival Fallacy

Over more than thirty years of building alongside other entrepreneurs, I've noticed a common pattern. Most founders have a self worth disorder that becomes fuel for productivity. It is a functional response to a flawed belief system, one where personal value is tightly tethered to output and performance.

This is what drives so many of us to keep chasing goals we believe will finally validate our worth.  But when our value is tied to productivity, it becomes a never-ending pursuit. It is like chasing a rainbow; the closer we think we are, the further it seems to drift.

Psychologists call this the “arrival fallacy,” the mistaken belief that reaching a specific milestone will deliver lasting happiness. The problem is, we arrive, only to find the feeling is fleeting, gone in days, and then we are back on the treadmill, pushing harder towards the next goal.

The Darker Edge

This pattern can also have a darker side. While some of us respond by simply accelerating the pace, others arrive at a far more dangerous place: disillusionment and depression. When the finish line finally comes into view and the promise of fulfillment does not materialize, the emotional crash can be catastrophic.

Michael Phelps, the most decorated Olympian of all time, is a sobering example. After winning a record eight gold medals at the Beijing Olympics, he spiraled into a deep depression and later admitted that there were moments when he did not want to be alive. Phelps had reached the highest summit of human performance, having done everything he was told would bring satisfaction, identity, and happiness, yet the medals did not deliver what he expected.

Like so many high achievers, he had spent his life chasing a singular moment of arrival, only to discover that arrival is not the same as fulfillment. The gold could validate his performance, but it could not deliver a sense of worth. 

Finding Fulfillment

So if setting and achieving goals does not ultimately lead to lasting happiness, how do we find real fulfillment? 

There are a few things I've come to learn.

First, we must stop tying our personal worth to performance. We are "human beings" not "human doings." Our value isn't found in what we “do” or what we “have,” it's found in who we are, who we are becoming, and who we ultimately aspire to become (on the inside in our character, and on the outside in how we treat other people.)

It doesn’t mean we stop doing the work or simply rely on feel good affirmations that say “I am enough. Of course we were created to pursue our full potential, and that only happens as we explore and discover all that’s possible within us. 

However the key is this: our doing must be driven by our becoming. That might sound like semantics, but it’s not. When we take action without clarity on who we want to be or who we are becoming, we will confuse activity for true accomplishment

One of the most powerful ways to gain clarity is by reflecting on our future celebration of life. How would we want to be remembered? What would we want our most important people to say about how we lived, how we loved, and what we stood for? Then ask: Are my daily actions aligned with supporting the character that I want to be remembered by?

Second, we must distinguish between goals and purpose. Purpose is the reason behind the goals. Goals are mile markers, temporary achievements along a larger journey. True purpose lives at the intersection of what we love, what we are good at, the value we can create, and with that who we can serve. It is something that should evolve with us over the many seasons of our lives. 

To see the difference between being driven by goals versus being inspired by purpose, consider the contrast between Michael Phelps and Andre Agassi. Phelps dedicated his life to a singular goal:to be the greatest Olympian.  Agassi, also a world champion and record-breaking tennis icon, reached the pinnacle of success in his sport, and was very open about the emptiness he felt even at the height of his career. After retiring, he redirected his energy toward a broader purpose, founding schools, investing in education reform  and using his platform to serve communities beyond the tennis court. His sense of identity and fulfillment was no longer tied to winning tennis titles but to evolve throughout every chapter of his life.

Finally, fulfillment deepens when we learn to celebrate our progress. Dan Sullivan’s concept of The Gap and the Gain is helpful in understanding the importance of this. He suggests that we all start from somewhere with a vision of an ideal future, and start working towards it. Along the way, we assess our progress, with most of us choosing to focus on the gap; measuring ourselves against where we wish we were instead of recognizing how far we’ve come. When we live in the gap, it creates a quiet undercurrent of scarcity and frustration that actually gets worse the more we achieve.

The other option is to live in the gain, which is to acknowledge the progress made, the lessons learned, and the ground already covered. When we live in the gain, we ground ourselves in gratitude and from that place, we experience peace and fulfillment rooted in the abundance already present in our lives. Ironically, it’s often in that posture of appreciation that we begin to attract even more of what we’ve been chasing.

Final Thoughts: Reflect and Realign

As I reflect back on my journal from 2009, I realize something profound. That younger version of me, struggling through bankruptcy and uncertainty, wasn't wrong to set those goals. He just didn't understand that the goals themselves were never the point.  The point was who I would become in pursuit of them:

The relationships I would build. 

The character I would develop. 

The gratitude I would learn to cultivate. 

The person I would grow into along the way.

I am not against ambition and building towards big goals, as I believe it is important to plan and to build.  However, our goals can never be the sole focus of how we define the value of our lives. 

The truth is, in the context of living a fulfilled life, purpose will always matter more than performance. Progress will always matter more than perfection. And who we are becoming will always matter more than what we are doing.

In the words of Greg McKeown: "If we focus on what we lack we will lose what we have. When we focus on what we have we will gain what we lack."

So this week ask yourself:

What would I want to be remembered for at my celebration of life?

Am I measuring my life by the gap or the gain?

Where could I shift my focus from what I'm achieving to who I'm becoming?

If you or someone you know is struggling with the ability to celebrate achievement and finding true fulfillment, then send me a note. Perhaps now is the time to make that change.

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