What if Our Obsession With Goals is Creating Unnecessary Suffering?
- Jun 18
- 8 min read
Written by Carmel Shami, Holistic Time Management Mentor
Carmel is a time management mentor, author, and former social worker who helps overwhelmed professionals and individuals with demanding lives break free from burnout and constant overload. Using a holistic productivity and time management framework, she helps them regain clarity, balance, control, and live intentionally.
We live in a culture that encourages us to set goals, dream bigger, and strive for more. Yet many people achieve things they once desperately wanted and still find themselves wondering why success feels so fleeting. Perhaps the problem is not our ambition. Perhaps it is the way we have learned to define success.
One of my favorite questions to ask clients is, “What does success look like to you?”
The answers usually come quickly. People talk about growing their business, increasing their income, earning a promotion, becoming financially independent, or gaining more recognition in their field. Then I ask a few more questions.
How much income would feel like success? What position would finally feel like enough? How much recognition would be enough? What would tell you that you have actually arrived? That is often where the conversation slows down.
Many people have spent years pursuing success without ever clearly defining it. They know they want more, but they have never stopped to ask how much is enough, or what they are ultimately hoping to experience on the other side of achievement.
When we dig deeper, the answers are rarely about money, titles, or recognition. They are about freedom, peace of mind, meaningful work, health, family, flexibility, and having time for the people they love.
That is when I begin to wonder whether we have become so focused on achieving more that we have forgotten to define what enough looks like.
The race we never signed up for
Many of us are running a race we never consciously chose to enter. We are encouraged to earn more, accomplish more, learn more, look younger, stay energized, build successful careers, grow our businesses, improve our productivity, raise happy and successful children, maintain healthy relationships, stay physically fit, and continually work toward a better version of ourselves.
Growth is not the problem. The problem is that “enough” keeps moving. Even more challenging, many of us expect ourselves to succeed in all of these areas at the same time. We want thriving careers, financial security, healthy relationships, meaningful friendships, organized homes, successful children, good health, personal growth, and time for ourselves, all while managing the demands of everyday life.
Yet many of us have never clearly defined what enough looks like in any of these areas. When success remains undefined, the finish line keeps moving. No matter how much progress we make, there is always another standard to reach, another goal to pursue, and another area of life that seems to need improvement.
The income that once felt life-changing eventually becomes normal. The promotion we worked years to earn becomes part of everyday life. The business milestone we thought would change everything is quickly replaced by another target. The same thing happens with recognition, status, education, and even personal development.
Psychologists call this hedonic adaptation. Research shows that human beings adapt surprisingly quickly to positive changes and achievements. What once felt extraordinary eventually becomes familiar, which means we often find ourselves searching for the next accomplishment that will finally make us feel successful.
It is a little like running on a treadmill believing that if we keep moving long enough, we will eventually arrive somewhere.
The treadmill is not broken. It was never designed to take us anywhere.
Achievement and fulfillment are not the same thing
Tony Robbins often speaks about the difference between achievement and fulfillment, and I believe that distinction is worth exploring. Achievement is reaching a result.
Fulfillment is experiencing meaning, purpose, connection, and alignment. Many people spend years pursuing achievement while assuming fulfillment will automatically follow.
We tell ourselves that once we reach a certain income, build a successful business, lose weight, buy the house, or achieve the next milestone, we will finally feel successful. Sometimes we do. For a while. Then another goal appears. Another milestone. Another version of success.
The issue is not that goals are bad. The issue is that many of us have allowed our goals to become the measure of our worth. When we achieve them, we feel successful. When we do not, we question ourselves.
That is a heavy burden to place on something that was meant to be a tool.
The hidden grief no one talks about
This conversation reminds me of something my mother shared after she retired.
She had spent much of her life working incredibly hard and pursuing professional success. Like many people, she believed that if she stayed focused, sacrificed enough, and achieved enough, there would eventually be a sense of arrival waiting for her.
One day she reflected on her career and said something I have never forgotten: “I wish someone had told me there was no reward waiting at the end.” She was not saying her work lacked meaning. She was proud of what she had accomplished.
What she was grieving was the assumption that life would somehow begin after the goals had been achieved. Instead, she found herself reflecting on the moments she had missed while she was busy reaching the next milestone: the relationships, the ordinary experiences, and the family moments that never appear on a résumé but often become the memories we treasure most.
Her words stayed with me because I see a similar pattern in many people today. We postpone joy until the promotion. We postpone rest until the business grows. We postpone calling a friend until things settle down. We postpone making time for the people we love because we believe there will be a better moment later.
The tragedy is not that we pursue goals. The tragedy is that we sometimes postpone the very things that make life meaningful while we are busy pursuing them.
When goals no longer fit
There is another form of grief that rarely gets discussed. It is the grief of realizing that a goal no longer fits the person you have become.
We celebrate setting goals. We celebrate achieving goals. Yet we rarely talk about what happens when our priorities change. The goals we set at twenty-five may not reflect the realities of forty-five.
A definition of success that made sense before children, caregiving responsibilities, burnout, health challenges, or major life transitions may no longer serve us.
Many people continue chasing goals they no longer want because they are afraid that changing direction means they have failed. I see it differently.
Sometimes letting go of an outdated goal is not failure. It is growth. Just as we periodically clean out our closets, we may need to periodically clean out our goals. Not because they were wrong, but because we have changed.
Why traditional goal setting does not work for everyone
For some people, long-term goals are energizing. For others, they are exhausting. This is particularly true for many people with ADHD tendencies, burnout, chronic stress, or major life transitions.
A goal that sits five years in the future can feel so distant and abstract that it creates pressure instead of momentum. Research suggests that people with ADHD often struggle with delayed rewards and distant outcomes. The issue is not a lack of motivation or ambition. The issue is that the reward feels too far away to create meaningful engagement today.
Even for people without ADHD, long-term goals can sometimes become overwhelming because they focus attention on the gap between where we are and where we think we should be.
Many people do not need a clearer five-year plan. They need a meaningful next step.
A different way to think about success and goals
Perhaps success is less like crossing a finish line and more like navigating a road trip. When we use a GPS, we enter a destination because having direction matters. Most of us would not start driving without some idea of where we want to go.
Goals can serve the same purpose. They provide direction, focus, and a reason to move forward. The difference is that life is rarely a straight road. Traffic happens. Road construction happens. Unexpected detours happen.
Sometimes we discover a place we never planned to stop and realize it is worth exploring. Sometimes we realize the destination we entered years ago no longer reflects where we want to go today.
A healthy GPS recalculates. Yet many of us continue driving toward goals we set years ago, even when our priorities, values, relationships, health, or circumstances have changed.
We treat changing direction as failure when it may actually be wisdom. At the same time, no one wants to spend an entire road trip staring only at the GPS. If we become so focused on arriving that we miss the conversations, the scenery, the unexpected moments, and the people traveling beside us, we risk reaching the destination only to realize we missed the experience.
Perhaps success is not about stubbornly staying on the original route. Perhaps success is about moving in a meaningful direction while staying connected to what matters along the way.
As I reflected on the conversations I have had with clients over the years, I realized that many of us do not need another goal-setting system. We need a different lens through which to view our goals.
One simple way to do that is through my ENOUGH framework:
E – Explore the value behind the goal.
N – Name what enough looks like.
O – Observe your current reality.
U – Understand the trade-offs.
G – Grow intentionally through meaningful next steps.
H – Honor the journey along the way.
For example, if your goal is to earn more money, the ENOUGH framework encourages you to look beyond the number itself. What value are you really seeking? Freedom? Security? More choices?
What does “enough” actually look like for you? What trade-offs are you willing to make? How can you continue moving toward that goal without sacrificing the things that matter most along the way?
Before setting your next goal, I invite you to pause and ask yourself, "What does success mean to me?" Because if success is never clearly defined, “enough” will continue to move, and no achievement will ever feel like enough.
The goal is not to stop growing. The goal is to ensure that the growth you are pursuing is leading you toward a life that feels meaningful, aligned, and successful to you.
If this article resonated with you and you would like to better understand your unique productivity style while designing a life that aligns with your values, current chapter, and priorities, I would love to connect.
You can reach out through my website to schedule a complimentary 30-minute discovery call here.
Follow me on LinkedIn and visit It’s About Time Management for more on values-based time management, energy management, and identity-based time management.
Read more from Carmel Shami
Carmel Shami, Holistic Time Management Mentor
Carmel is a time management expert who helps people rebuild clarity and balance in demanding lives. She is the founder of It’s About Time, a holistic productivity practice rooted in mindset, structure, and energy management. Drawing on her years of work with the elderly and families facing grief, she developed an approach that considers the whole person, not just their schedule. Witnessing how often people reach the end of life with unspoken regrets shaped her mission to help others choose intentionally how they live. As she often reminds her clients, no one dies finished. Choose what matters.
Sources used:
[1] Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. – Self-Determination Theory and Human Motivation Research on Hedonic Adaptation and the Pursuit of Happiness
[2] Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) Research on Values-Based Action Research on ADHD and Delayed Reward Processing
