The Arrival Fallacy: Why We Should Decouple Our Happiness From Our Goals

The enjoyment of arrival is usually short-lived; the happiness envisioned and rehearsed for years is unlikely to last. Why? Because it does not arrive quite as satisfyingly as suspected; because we quickly get used to it; above all, because when one arrives one is still oneself, with whatever tendency towards dissatisfaction or restlessness that ma

This is what Harvard professor Dr. Ben‑Shahar calls the arrival fallacy, the idea that when we reach a certain milestone we will reach a state of lasting happiness.⁠5 When we realize that this isn’t the case, we find ourselves feeling empty, and the easiest way to deal with this is to ignore the feeling and ratchet up the goal.

the arrival fallacy, the idea that when we reach a certain milestone we will reach a state of lasting happiness.

For years, happiness was always something for my future self to enjoy. I promised myself that once I gained twenty pounds of muscle or after my business was featured in the New York Times, then I could finally relax. Furthermore, goals create an “either-or” conflict: either you achieve your goal and are successful or you fail and you are a disappoi

Problem #3: Goals restrict your happiness. The implicit assumption behind any goal is this: “Once I reach my goal, then I’ll be happy.” The problem with a goals-first mentality is that you’re continually putting happiness off until the next milestone. I’ve slipped into this trap so many times I’ve lost count. For years, happiness was always somethi

Maybe Scott Adams said it best:

To put it bluntly, goals are for losers. That’s literally true most of the time. For example, if your goal is to lose ten pounds, you will spend every moment until you reach the goal—if you reach it at all—feeling as if you were short of your goal. In other words, goal-oriented people exist in a state of nearly con