LEADERS GUARD AGAINST THE ARRIVAL FALLACY
Last week we wife and I were driving up to New Jersey to visit our son and his family. On the way up the New Jersey Turnpike, we listened to a thought-provoking podcast. It is called “Making Space” and is hosted by Hoda Kotb of the “Today” show.
On this particular episode, Hoda interviewed Arthur Brooks, the professor from Harvard Business School who has written several books and many academic papers. Perhaps his most widely-read book is “From Strength to Strength.” Brooks teaches a popular class at Harvard addressing the subject of happiness. You can find his talks on this subject easily on YouTube.
During his conversation with Hoda, Brooks discussed the manner in which many leaders find themselves falling into a trap. He termed that trap “The Arrival Fallacy.” In fact, Brooks said that this is a very well-known and well-accepted aspect of social psychology. People think – and assume – they will be happy when they arrive at a particular destination.
What might that destination look like? It can come in many shapes and sizes:
-A specific title at work like Director or Chief
-A large corner office with a fantastic view
-A salary increase that takes one past an imagined financial goal
-A promotion that comes with supervisory authority over x number of employees
-Entry into a hoped-for long-term romantic relationship
-Giving birth to or adopting children
-Accumulating generational wealth for oneself and one’s family
-Taking that lifelong dream bucket list vacation
These may all be worthy goals. However, as Brooks pointed out, their “arrival” never guarantees happiness. Those people who define happiness as a destination are usually disappointed. So frequently, they arrive at that destination, revel in the excitement and achievement, but them ask themselves the age-old question: “Now what?”
Brooks posited that multiple empirical research studies reveal that true happiness is a direction and not a destination. The key to this happiness journey is making progress over time. What span of time? Our entire lifetime.
We can help this process along by adopting habits that move us along the happiness path. In order to do that successfully, we must cultivate meaningful self-awareness. With self-awareness we can focus on cultivating habits that bring us joy, fulfillment and meaning. Moreover, we can refrain from tricky habits that engender dissatisfaction, frustration and disappointment.
If you are unsure about which habits bring you the most satisfaction, you can consider creating a habits inventory. Catalogue your daily, weekly and monthly habits. Write them down in a journal or on your cell phone. Study them over a period of time.
-Which habits bring you the joy and meaning that you truly value?
-Which friends or relatives bring you that feeling?
-Which hobbies?
-Which volunteer work?
Once you have identified those habits and enhanced your self-awareness, you can be intentional about repeating these habits or activities as frequently as possible. This will help you construct a self-perpetuating process. Those happiness habits will reinforce each other.
One way to get started on this happiness path is to literally act the way you want to feel. Brooks termed this the “as if” principle. If you act happy, gradually you will find yourself being happy. Multiple scientific studies have proven the validity of this concept.
Unfortunately, many leaders buy into the concept of busyness validation rather than seeking happiness in their jobs.. They think: “If I am busy all day long at work, I am proving my importance in this job – to my teammates, to my boss and to myself.” Actually, most perpetual busyness is self-imposed because we fear idleness. If we are between important projects at work rather than making time to relax of engage in self-reflection, we dive down the rabbit hole of social media and fritter away valuable time. That may lead to a sense of false happiness.
Many years ago when I facilitated “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” workshop at Georgetown University, I learned about the arrival fallacy under a different name” “The Great Western Disease of I Will Be Happy When.” Please do not fall victim to this unfortunate malady. Even if you have suffered from it for much of your life you can intentionally decide to change – you can say “I have fallen victim to the arrival fallacy – up until now.”
You can vow that starting tomorrow morning, things will change – because you will adopt a revised attitude about happiness – and about yourself!
If you believe this content would resonate with a friend or colleague, please feel free to forward it along!
-Larry