When Achievement Feels Empty

How should it feel to finally complete something you've planned for a long time or otherwise worked hard for?

The letter that follows was originally planned to be the final section of my previous post here on Substack. However, once I started putting together my notes I thought it had the guts to be formed into its very own piece. So here it is! Please enjoy and share with anyone who you think may enjoy it.

Unexpected Challenges

Day one of my three-day, 105 mile (170km), cycle tour was coming to an end. The sun had been beating down on me all day, and I had just climbed yet another steep hill in the countryside of Southeast England on a bike that seemed to be getting heavier by the second. My legs burned, my lungs heaved, and the only thing the odometer on my handlebars was good for was making me feel bad about how many miles there were still to go.

This was supposed to be a journey of self-discovery — inspired greatly by my friend Will's mammoth cycle ride around the islands of New Zealand, and prep for a much longer future trip in Japan. Instead, it was quickly becoming a comedy of errors. A punctured tyre lay behind me, I almost left my brand new glasses in the grass, the panniers kept rubbing on the wheels, I'd suffered many impromptu detours that added unexpected miles, and the "scenic route" I chose turned out to be more of a painful obstacle course than a picturesque path.

As I navigated a particularly difficult stretch of road, my city tyres slipping on the loose gravel, I couldn't help but prematurely dream of the feeling that awaited me at the finish line. In that moment I wanted nothing more than the deep feeling of accomplishment that must come after such an achievement. I longed for that feeling of walking on cloud 9.

The sense of accomplishment at the finish line would make all of this physical and emotional pain worth it. Right?

Little did I know, the answer to that question would surprise me a lot.

Anticlimax: when normalcy kicks in

This journey really took a lot from me. There were moments I had to push through the pain of climbing yet another steep incline or reassure myself that it was all going to be okay when the inevitable puncture happened. Or when I searched, and failed, to find a bike shop to buy a replacement inner tube. I had used the one and only spare that I brought with me and could only think of the mantra "Two is one, one is none" that gives quite clear instructions on how many spares to pack! I also had the pleasure of rushing a 26 mile stretch of the journey to visit a bakery that I was desperately looking forward to trying, to find it closed...

So when the trip finished and there was a surprising lack of elation, I must admit I was a bit confused. As I cycled home through the streets of London, it felt disturbingly similar to the feeling of simply returning home after a day at work. There was little to no sense of achievement. Something I thought would be washing over me by this point. It all felt very, very normal. Yet, when I told people about what I did, they were all surprised I had the determination to pull off a ride like this.

I desperately wanted to know why this was. How can something simultaneously be a major accomplishment and feel utterly ordinary?

Unraveling the Achievement Paradox

After a lot of thought, I realised there were possibly a few things going on here. The first, is setting impossibly high personal standards for myself. Whilst it’s true that high standards help us strive for continuous improvement, they can — and often do — lead to self-criticism. Like when our focus becomes targeted on reaching even higher levels of success, for example. I realised, through completing this ride, that I won’t be able to be satisfied if I'm quickly moving on to the next challenge without taking time to feel pride in completing this one!

Or, it could be that I'm stuck in a loop of comparing my successes to the successes of others. "My ride can't be that special because Will rode around New Zealand on a 3000km ride. Now THAT'S a bike ride!"

I should note that I never even realised I was doing this, by the way!

Both of these phenomena explain why achievements can end up feeling somewhat insignificant and "not good enough". Ouch. It hurts to even type that out.

As a related side note here, I think this also goes some way towards explaining why it feels terribly pedestrian and normal that I spent a great deal of my adult life — 10 years — living in distant countries. Learning new cultures, languages, and ways of living and thinking. In South Korea, Malaysia, Australia, and Japan, I faced the new and exciting every day but haven't had time (or made the time, I guess) to reflect on how fortunate I was to have such opportunities. Those kind of experiences shouldn't feel normal, and yet in some odd way they do. This letter is me addressing those feelings as well.

Also at play here is the old trickster hedonic adaptation; something the Stoics were trying to warn us about two millennia ago. Hedonic adaptation is the psychological phenomenon where we quickly return to a relatively stable level of happiness despite major positive or negative events in our lives.

It was found that lottery winners who won the jackpot and people who suffer a catastrophic accident that leaves them paralysed will often return to the same baseline level of happiness that they were at before their respective life-changing event happened to them.

Apparently hedonic adaptation is a trait that helped our distant ancestors on the plains stay alert and vigilant after significant events; it's something that helped us to conserve mental and emotional resources, be flexible, adaptive, and resilient to negative events.

But here, in the 21st century, it just helps to rob us of the excitement of achieving something great! Thanks a lot evolutionary traits...

Amongst all these heady thoughts we might as well throw in imposter syndrome as well. I found a lovely article here on Substack about this topic from Natalie Carrasco whilst researching this letter and wanted to share this question the author asked of themselves:

Do I feel proud of my achievements, or am I just crossing off to-do lists?

Oof, this is deeply relatable and I thank Natalie for drawing my attention to this! I think this hits the nail squarely on the head. If we don't actively pause to take stock and be proud of our achievements — and that pride doesn't always come naturally — if we don't stop, reflect and tell ourselves how well we've done, then we are simply crossing off our to-do list for the sake of crossing off to-do lists instead of enjoying the journey. Hurrying onto the next thing and barely giving an ounce of through to what it is we've just achieved. By writing this letter, and thinking these thoughts, I’m making sure that my big ride doesn’t just became a checkbox to tick.

Reframing Achievement

So what does all of this mean for future challenges? I feel like I need to slow down and acknowledge my achievements. I've found that it can help to think of these wins from an outsider's perspective. Thinking about it from the point of view of someone who hasn't gone through the training and preparation that I did to pull off a ride like this helps an awful lot.

This is an honest letter to remind myself (and hopefully someone else) to give myself the room to feel proud of my achievements without the need to downplay them. And don't for a second feel like acknowledging your wins makes you arrogant, because it certainly doesn't.

So, fellow adventurers and doers, I challenge you: Is it possible to think about reshaping what achievement means to us? Because it's not only about crossing finish lines or ticking boxes. Can we embrace those unexpected moments on the journey? Like when you're stuck in the middle of a field with a punctured tyre, wondering if this counts as your 'hero's journey'.

And you know what? Maybe we can find more joy in the simple act of pushing our limits, even when those limits push back. Hard.

So the next time you complete something monumental - whether that's a big life goal or finally learning to fold fitted sheets - please give yourself the space to pause, reflect, and celebrate. And know that sometimes the most profound achievements are the ones that change us on the inside, even if the outside world doesn't quite notice.

Please share this with anyone you think might enjoy it and if you'd like to support my work and this newsletter please consider becoming a paid subscriber here on Substack or purchase one of my albums over on Bandcamp. Any support is greatly appreciated.

SJF