026 | Why You Won’t Be Happier When You Make Partner or Reach Financial Independence

We often think we’ll be happier when we reach certain goals in life. But when you’re constantly waiting for some magical point in the future to finally live the life you want, you’ll never be happy.

In this episode, we talk about why we do this and what to do instead.

Lightly edited transcript appears after the show notes.

Topics Discussed

• what the arrival fallacy is
• examples of how the arrival fallacy shows up
• what to do to combat the arrival fallacy

Listen to the Episode

Resources mentioned

Lifestyle Freedom Starter Guide: https://www.rhothomas.com/start

Wealthyesque, Episode 14: https://www.rhothomas.com/the-danger-of-later/

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Email: hello@rhothomas.com

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Lightly Edited Transcript

Hey friend. How’s it going? Happy Friday.

I hope you’re well. Thank you so much for being with me today, and welcome back to the show.

I am super excited for our episode today. We are going to talk about why you won’t be happier once you’ve reached whatever goal you have for yourself.

But before we jump in, I want to remind you that if you are struggling with your student loans, with making a budget, with managing your money, I am a coach, and I can help you. So head to rhothomas.com/coaching, and let’s set up a call to see if coaching might be right for you.

Okay, so, jumping into our episode today, a lot of times we think that we’ll be happier, or things will be better, once we reach a particular goal or a particular point in our lives.

I’ll be happier once I make partner.

I’ll be happier when I reach X income.

Oh, I can’t wait until I pay off my student loans. I’ll be so happy.

Oh, when I reach financial independence, life is going to be so much better.

Maybe it’s buying a bigger house or getting a nicer car or losing weight or whatever the thing is for you.

But when you’re constantly waiting for some magical point in the future to live the life that you want, you’re never going to feel happy.

And if you have thought any of the thoughts that I mentioned, or anything similar, you’re not alone. Right, we all do it, and it’s something called the arrival fallacy.

So you might be thinking what’s the arrival fallacy. Well psychologist Tal Ben-Shahar coined the term arrival fallacy, and he defines it as “the false belief that reaching a value destination can sustain happiness.”

You’ve probably already experienced this at some point like think back to when you were in law school, and maybe you thought everything would be better once you pass the bar and finally became a lawyer.

When you’re finally making some money, and you’re in your legal profession, you might have been happier for, you know, a little while but eventually you settle into life as a lawyer. Then you realize that maybe it wasn’t all you dreamed it would be.

And it happens, you know, at some point or another to everyone, as I mentioned, and I’ve been there for sure, multiple times. Like when I was in law school, I couldn’t wait to be a lawyer. I’ve mentioned before that I’ve wanted to be a lawyer since I was seven, and so coming to that point where I was almost there. It was like, oh, if I could just get there like come on.

And then I get there, and I’ve also mentioned how I got to the point where I was burned out. I felt like I was super overwhelmed. You know all of this, so it wasn’t this fairytale dream that I had built it up to be over all those years.

You also know about my husband’s and my debt journey. We’ve been paying off over $670,000 of debt, actually crept up to like $725,000, with all the interest and a car loan that we took out, but we’ve been on this debt journey for four years and when everything started, I was looking at how it was going to be so difficult trying to balance the parent that I wanted to be to my kid with the hours that I was putting in at work.

And I was so miserable, when I’m looking at how my life is now versus how I perceived it would be once we got out of debt. And we’re not out of debt yet, but I had to come to terms with the fact that I have to be happy now because I’m in this life now, and I’ve got years to go before we pay off our debt.

I even, you know, still have thoughts, sometimes about my kids like “oh when the kids are older, things will be better.” But things won’t necessarily be better; they’ll be different, right?

There will be other issues that come up with older kids. Things that I don’t have to deal with now having a four-year-old and almost two-year-old.

And when we keep focusing on the next thing, and putting off happiness until we get there, then the result is we’re miserable in that in-between. We feel like we are slogging along, you know, waiting until we reach this goal that we’ve set for ourselves, and we’re not paying attention to all the good things that are happening in the interim.

Then, you reach the goal, and it’s not all you thought it would be. Sure you’re, you know, excited maybe happy for a moment, the first six months, maybe even a year, but then that fades, right, you settle into this new existence and then you’re on to the next thing. It’s no longer this exciting thing. It just becomes your life.

And we’re going to talk next week about how this year went and what we want to change next year. But even as we look forward toward the future, I don’t want you to miss the rest of this year.

We still have a few weeks left that we can enjoy, that we can make memories in. Life is not going to magically get better when the clock strikes midnight on January 1 right?

So we’ve got to make sure that we are enjoying what’s happening now and not always putting off the happiness for that point in the future when we reach that goal. We think that that thing is going to make us happy, but it’s not.

Sure the goal that you’re working toward is nice, but there’s a lot of good in your life right now. And even in this year, with all that’s happened, think about something that you can be thankful for.

Focusing on the good things in your life, helps to shift your brain, and it helps you to notice more of the good things that are going on in your life. The things that you focus on are the things that you notice so when you’re focusing on good, you’re going to notice all the good.

And you can incorporate this into your journaling practice if you’ve started that. Just take some time and write out things that you’re thankful for.

We often take things for granted in our lives when we’re just going through the day to day running from this thing to that thing. So just take a few minutes and write down three things each day that you can be grateful for.

It’s really all about being happy with what you already have and enjoying the journey to your goal. Notice what’s going on right now, and be content with that.

And that brings me to the next thing, which is to make an effort to be more present in your life now. Nourish the relationships you have with your friends and family. Set boundaries. Keep work in its place, even as we navigate working from home. Enjoy all of the great things that are already happening.

We talked a little bit about this back in Episode 14, and in that episode we talked about all the important things that we tend to put off until later while we chase our goals, and those goals end up really being things that don’t matter as much, like they tend not to be as important as the things that really matter in life.

So just take a minute and think about things that you may be taking for granted, as you are continually pursuing whatever goal it is that you’re chasing after right now.

I heard a great quote by Marjorie Pay Hinckley, and it says, “The trick is to enjoy life. Don’t wish away your days waiting for better ones ahead.” And I think that perfectly sums up everything that we’re talking about.

Just keep that in mind, the next time you’re tempted to ignore what’s going on in your life now and you’re wishing for this better future. You’ve got a lot of great things going on in your life now, so enjoy it while you can. Don’t keep putting things off waiting until you get to this arbitrary goal: the, you know, promotion the income the, whatever that thing is. Enjoy your life now.

So let’s recap.

1. The arrival fallacy is the false belief that reaching a valued destination can sustain happiness.

2. When you’re constantly waiting for a particular goal before you can live the life you want to live, you’ll never be happy.

3. Your life won’t magically be better when you reach your goal. You may be happier for a short while, but then you’ll settle in and go back to the way you were before you reached it.

4. To combat the arrival fallacy, practice gratitude and contentment and make an effort to be more present in your life.

Okay, that’s it for this week’s episode. Join me over in our private Facebook community, The Wealthyesque Community, and share your thoughts on the arrival fallacy and this notion of putting off your happiness until you reach your goals. You can head to rhothomas.com/community to find it.

If you got value out of today’s episode, please share it with a friend who you think would also enjoy it. And if you want to share on social media, or just to connect with me, I am most present on Instagram, and my handle there is @iamrhothomas.

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Okay, friend, as we close out, I pray that you will stop putting off your happiness until you reach some point in the future.

I pray that you will show up for your life now, and be grateful for all the good things you have going on.

And as always, I pray that you will continue to take steps to regain control of your time, build wealth, and live the life of freedom and choice you deserve.

Talk to you later.