The Arrival Fallacy: A Psychologist Explains Why Reaching Your Goals Won't Make You Happy
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The arrival fallacy
It's our false belief that once we make it, once we attain our goal or reach our destination, we will reach lasting happiness.
It’s the strong belief that when you accomplish something great, you’ll finally be happy.
Pursuing goals isn’t a problem
It becomes dangerous when you focus on attaining them for your happiness in life.
Goal attainment is, at most, equally, if not less important than the progress towards the goal.
Achievement doesn’t equal happiness
Achieving a goal usually reveals another, even more, challenging goal. This may bring in much more work because the pursuit of goals never ends.
“Life is a process of replacing one anxiety and one desire with another. No goal spares us renewed goal seeking. The only stable element in our lives is craving: the only destination is the journey.”
Focus on the process
Take pleasure in the progression towards goal achievement.
When you focus on the process and enjoy it, you take pleasure from the atmosphere of growth.
