The Arrival Fallacy
“Once you become a doctor, your life will be set.”
I heard my parents say that sentence a lot. It took me years to realize that for them “set” just meant stable, logistically and financially. But it wasn’t just them. For a long time, other figures in society were also telling me that the years I would spend working, hustling, and sacrificing was what was going to set up the trajectory of my life. “Once you get into medical school, you’re set.” “Once you get into residency, you’re set” “Once you get your job, you’ve made it!” So when I reached the mountaintop, which in this case was attendingship, it was only a few months before I felt confused and unable to figure out why I didn’t still feel the thrill of making it. I felt like I wanted “more” already and was deliberating the next goal as quickly as 3 months into my first job.
This idea of the everlasting happiness and satisfaction that attendingship was supposed to provide was the main thing that helped me survive rigorous training. It was the light at the end of the very long tunnel. And I needed that at the time. But now here I was, on the other side, walking straight into the “arrival fallacy.”
“Arrival fallacy” is a term coined by Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar. "Arrival fallacy is this illusion that once we make it, once we attain our goal or reach our destination, we will reach lasting happiness." It is a really common problem that many high achieving professionals, including celebrities, struggle with. We start to believe achieving a certain goal will get us the exact life we always dreamed about. But there’s no way our whole lives will turn out a certain way because of the job we chose. We logically know that, and yet we put so much responsibility and pressure on achieving our career goals.
Success with our career is important, but cannot be the ONLY central focus of our lives. A balanced life needs satisfaction in multiple facets; including career, but also relationships, personal achievements (besides career), health, financial, spiritual. After years of making ourselves believe that life was going to be somehow magical and easy when we finally arrive to the peak is doing ourselves a huge disservice. Life consists of so much more than that because we do. We are made up of multiple passions, and desires and goals. Forgetting this is what led me straight into the path of burnout. Opening my world to all the facets is what’s helping me overcome it.
I’ve had to actively work to push away the idea that my career is my main driver in life. I brought back quality time with my kids. I brought back going to lunches with my girlfriends and date nights with my husband. I started making daily movement as important as going to work everyday. I brought back reading for fun! My career goals are still really important to me. There are certain things I want to achieve. But I am so much more than my job, and so I’m finally making the rest of my interests a priority in my life, too.
