Reaching a long-sought-after career milestone, like a specific promotion, can unexpectedly lead to depression and a sense of aimlessness. The "chase" provides direction, and without a new goal to replace it, you can feel lost, like a dog that has finally caught the car it was chasing.
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If you believe a material object like a Lamborghini will solve your problems, achieving it can be crushing. When you're poor and sad, you still have hope. When you're rich and sad, that hope is gone, forcing you to confront deeper issues.
We believe reaching a major goal (like a weight target or financial milestone) will bring lasting joy. However, due to brain homeostasis, we quickly return to our baseline. This "arrival fallacy" reveals that fulfillment is found in the progress and journey, not the often-hollow destination.
High-achievers often get stuck in a cycle of setting and conquering goals. This relentless pursuit of achievement is a dangerous trap, using the temporary validation of success and busyness as a way to avoid confronting deeper questions about purpose and fulfillment.
Many successful people maintain their drive by constantly focusing on what's missing or the next goal. While effective for achievement, this creates a permanent state of scarcity and lack, making sustained fulfillment and happiness impossible. It traps them on a 'hamster wheel of achievement'.
When elite performers retire, the subsequent identity crisis often stems less from the loss of a singular goal (e.g., winning Mr. Olympia) and more from the dissolution of the highly structured daily routine that supported it. Reintroducing discipline and structure, even without the grand objective, is key to rebuilding a sense of self.
A major struggle for accomplished professionals is the internal conflict between their identity as a "stone cold high achiever" and their current lack of motivation. This cognitive dissonance—knowing you should be achieving but not feeling the "juice"—is a key psychological hurdle when past success eliminates original drivers.
After selling his company, the founder experienced six months of bliss followed by a period of feeling useless and lacking purpose. This 'valley of shadows' is a common but rarely discussed phenomenon where accomplished founders struggle with a loss of identity and intensity, ultimately driving them to build again.
When a defining career ends, the biggest struggle is often existential, not financial. Our culture fuses identity with profession ('what you do is who you are'), creating a vacuum when the job is gone. This leads to profound questions of self-worth, value, and purpose that transcend money.
Ambitious people operate under the illusion that intense work now will lead to rest and contentment later. In reality, success is an ever-receding horizon; achieving one goal only reveals the next, more ambitious one. This mindset, while driving achievement, creates a dangerous loop where one can end up missing their entire life while chasing a finish line that perpetually moves further away.
When all immediate career goals are met, the next step isn't another small target but a larger visioning exercise: "What will my life and impact look like in 20 years?" This long-term re-framing creates a new, more profound sense of purpose that drives the next chapter of a career.