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“There’s one simple shift that can erase the “crash” a goal-oriented 9th grader—and any ambitious person—will face”
It’s true that defeating a situation similar to the one described in part 1, associated with the “I’ll feel happy once I accomplish ___” mindset, is relatively simple. However, before I explain how to address the “crash” we all experience after reaching a major milestone, you need to understand what causes it.
Part 2: “I’ll Feel Happy Once I Accomplish ___”
The “I’ll feel happy once I accomplish ___” mindset isn’t just an informal high-achiever myth; it is formally known as the Arrival Fallacy, and it describes the illusion that reaching a major goal will result in a lasting feeling of happiness. This fallacy is so common because it is a belief that most humans either want to have or—due to societal expectations—were conditioned to possess. However, this term recognizes not only that the struggle an “Ivy-League Bound” student would have is real but also that it is irrational. The pursuit of a goal actually often provides more neurological reward (dopamine) than the achievement itself.
To make this myth even more illusory, your brain is literally wired against it.
Through hedonic adaptation, when you use an achievement like an Ivy-League acceptance to draw a “finish line” differentiating the present and the future, your brain returns to a “baseline level” of emotional stability very swiftly after passing the “finish line” relative to the time it can take you to reach the “finish line.”
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Due to these two concepts, when you are continuously disappointed after achieving outcomes you believe will deliver you to the peak of happiness, a buildup of exhaustion inevitably starts to appear, and your motivation and well-being slowly dwindles as you burnout and, possibly, begin to feel learned helplessness towards acquiring the happiness you crave.
So, how can this aftermath be prevented? By equalizing the past and the future. When you dedicate yourself to accomplishing a future goal by neglecting rest and health, you remove any opportunity to view and experience the present in the same way you view the future. However, the more you make the present just as enjoyable as the future, the more you prevent hedonic adaptation and, therefore, inevitable burnout.
In other words, you need to incorporate daily, and maybe even hourly, celebrations and achievements into your current life simply to ground yourself in the present rather than your vision of the future. Instead of laser-focusing on winning a school essay contest, commit to writing 300 words of a rough draft every morning and celebrating every time you achieve your goal. Instead of laser focusing on getting a 100 on your final exam, commit to studying 45 minutes every weekday and celebrating every time you achieve your goal.
And for an achievement like an Ivy-League acceptance, commit to becoming a person capable of doing Ivy-level work or a person who will make an impact, and set minor, everyday goals towards reaching this level.
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Ultimately, the key to overcoming the arrival fallacy myth is realizing both that it is psychologically impossible to experience increased and sustained happiness after reaching a major milestone and that this belief will only exhaust you.
If the future will inevitably become your new normal, why treat it so differently from the present?
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