35. The Misery of Achievement

I can imagine that at some point in our lives, we’ve probably all asked ourselves some variation of the (ever-cheerful) question “what on earth is wrong with me?”

When we deliberate on said question, it’s fairly safe to say that we don’t tend to be in the greatest frames of mind. Though by asking this, we’re basically making it all about ourselves (“wrong with me”... me me me) and can fall into the trap of thinking that whatever’s wrong with us, is a thing unique to us. Which can be quite an alienating, lonely and generally depressing thought.

And, at the risk of stating the obvious, the older I get, the more I realise that whatever I think is wrong with or happening to me, some iteration of it has naturally happened to millions of other people.

As such, I imagine that a better question to ask in these situations is something like “What on earth is wrong with humans?”. This is far less self-centred, and can be far more reassuring.

Having said this, the “what on earth is wrong with me?” question is one that has sprung to mind pretty regularly over the years, across a whole host of areas of life.

One of the areas that it seems to come up repeatedly in, is when I manage to achieve something that I’ve been hoping to for a while.

The general process often goes something like:

• Step 1) Achieve something

• Step 2) Have a momentary mood boost

• Step 3) Shortly after, be hit with an emotional drop far below the levels that I was feeling prior to said achievement.

I’ve found that this is a particularly prominent feeling after thinking the 4 and a half dreaded words “I’ll be happy when…”.

You know, “I’ll be happy when I… [insert relevant pay rise/promotion/gym PB etc etc.]”

And in the ongoing search to reassure my overly sensitive brain, this is an idea that I’ve come across a couple of times recently. Which has made me realise that the broader “What on earth is wrong with humans?” question is a far more appropriate one.

I was recently listening to 5x World’s Fittest Man Mat Fraser on James Smith’s podcast, who had both experienced this.

Mat Fraser, when he won his first Crossfit Games reflected that “The celebrations weren’t fake, but they were definitely forced”, with James Smith opening up on how hollow he felt after finally reaching 1 million Insta followers, despite that being an aim for years.

On paper, both solid efforts, but despite being big life goals, left them feeling strangely empty once achieved.

This is something that reminds me of a point that I heard illusionist Derren Brown talk about years ago. After finishing and publishing his Sunday Times best selling book ‘Happy’ (highly recommend btw), he was (rather ironically) hit with a bout of feeling down. A similar principle: Achieve a big goal, then be hit with an emotional crash.

This seems to be pretty common, and something that’s often seen amongst Olympic Games athletes. The phrase ‘Gold Medal Depression’ was even coined on the back of it.

As written in the following Atlantic article, Allison Schmitt talks about the post 2012 Olympics depression she felt, despite winning 3 gold medals and setting a world record. And to make matters worse, she spoke about the reluctance to seek help because of the negative connotations around counselling in the athletic world, admitting that “we’re taught we can push through anything… and we’re always told to not ask for help.”

Side note, I imagine this is something that applies wider than athletics. I know men in particular tend to struggle with this, and often see asking for help or discussing their issues to be a sign of weakness, as opposed to something that could be beneficial for their overall mental health. Let’s open up, chaps.

One of the main contributors to this feeling down post big achievement is possibly the sudden lack of goal (and the relevant direction it can provide) in life.

This is something I’m sure we’ve all experienced, if we’re working towards some sort of goal - whatever that may be; a promotion at work, building up to a 10km run, working on launching a side hustle, an upcoming an exam, etc. - I’ve found this can provide our lives with a bit of focus, and resultantly, a bit of purpose.

This can be hugely beneficial. It gives us something to centre our days around, work towards, occupy some mental space, and in more severe cases, even give us a reason to get out of bed in the morning.

Though suddenly, once we’ve completed whatever goal it is, after the initial celebrations, we can find ourselves a bit purposeless, directionless and generally lost.

Going back to the Olympics, this is exactly what happened with Mark Spitz after he won 7 gold medals and set 7 world records in the 1972 Games in Munich.

After this outrageous success, he retired. Only, shortly after, to be met with a sense of meaninglessness.

He then spent years trying to find his ‘thing’ outside of swimming, trying dentistry, real estate, and even acting. After all this failed, 20 years later at the age of 42, he tried to make a comeback to the Olympics, but sadly failed to qualify.

Although an extreme version, I do think this is a similar principle to what can happen after achieving a more mild goal or milestone. We can go from having the focus of something in our lives to work towards, to suddenly not, and the relevant feelings of emptiness that can come with it.

I suppose this is just natural really. When we achieve something that we’ve been aiming for for a while, we reach this incredible, but unsustainable, peak of happiness. After this, even a return to our ‘baseline’ mood is a comparatively massive drop.

The whole ‘love the journey’ chat can be seen as a bit cliche and a bit cringe, but in this context totally makes sense. Clearly, a lot of the enjoyment, satisfaction and reward comes from the grind of working towards something, as opposed to the more fleeting sense of happiness that comes with achieving said thing.

And on that rather apt point, let me just post this, then I’ll be happy…