Ever feel like no matter how much you achieve, it’s never enough? In this episode, I’m exposing The Achievement Trap—the mindset that keeps you chasing more but never feeling satisfied. If you’ve ever hit a big goal only to feel empty afterward, this one’s for you. Want to learn more about Mindset Mentor+? For nearly nine years, the Mindset Mentor Podcast has guided you through life's ups and downs. Now, you can dive even deeper with Mindset Mentor Plus. Turn every podcast lesson into real-world results with detailed worksheets, journaling prompts, and a supportive community of like-minded people. Enjoy monthly live Q&A sessions with me, and all this for less than a dollar a day. If you’re committed to real, lasting change, this is for you.Join here 👉 www.mindsetmentor.com My first book that I’ve ever written is now available. It’s called LEVEL UP and It’s a step-by-step guide to go from where you are now, to where you want to be as fast as possible.📚If you want to order yours today, you can just head over to robdial.com/bookHere are some useful links for you… If you want access to a multitude of life advice, self development tips, and exclusive content daily that will help you improve your life, then you can follow me around the web at these links here:Instagram TikTokFacebookYoutube
Chapter 1: What is the Achievement Trap?
Today, I'm going to talk to you about how to be miserable for the rest of your life, especially How to make sure that every moment from this moment forward until the day that you die, you are not as happy as you want to be. And then I'm going to talk about how to avoid it. And it has to do with something that I like to call the achievement trap.
Chapter 2: Why do we never feel satisfied with achievements?
We're going to dive into our social and personal problems where we never feel like too much is ever enough. And I'm just curious, before we dive into it, in the past, have you ever wanted something so bad and you worked so hard to get it? And this might have been three or four or five, 10 years ago, whatever it is.
And you have that thing now, or you had it at some point in the past, like you wanted it, you wanted it, you achieved it. And now that you have it, it's just another thing. Maybe it's a house. Maybe it's a car. Maybe it's a relationship. Maybe it's a achievement. It's a job. Or maybe it's a certain amount of money that you're making. Now that you have it, you're just like, ugh, whatever.
But when you were younger, it was like the thing you wanted more than anybody else. You worked so hard for it. You dreamed about it. You prayed about that thing.
and now you're having like ah whatever we all get caught in this trap of wanting the next thing you know maybe you want you want your dream job oh if i could only get this dream job then i'd be set for life and then you get it and then six months later like okay now i want to move up to the next level because my salary isn't quite enough
Or maybe you want a pay raise and you do get that pay raise. Oh, if I could only make $80,000 a year, then I'd be happy. And then you get to $80,000 a year eventually and you're like, you know what? I'm so close. I need to hit six figures and then I'll feel secure. And then you hit six figures. You hit $100,000.
You're like, now I need to make $200,000 so I can be really secure and I can buy some more cool stuff. Or maybe you're living in an apartment and you're just like, I just really want to buy a house. I want my own place. If I could just buy my own place, I'd be so happy. And then you finally get that first home. It's a nice little home.
And then a couple of years later, you're like, ah, it's too small. I need something bigger. And you get something bigger and you're like, I need something with a pool. Or maybe you just, you've been dreaming about finally getting into a perfect relationship. If I could just find the right partner, everything will be amazing. And then you find someone that you love.
And then you're like, well, when are we getting engaged? And then you get engaged and you're like, well, when are we getting married? When's the baby? It's like the next thing, the next thing, the next thing. Maybe you just want to get a car. Oh, if I could only afford a car, then I'd be happy. Then I could feel successful.
And then you get a Honda and you're like, well, yeah, this Honda is nice, but like, look at the BMWs. And then you get a BMW five years down the road and you're like, but it's nice, but it's not like a Lamborghini. Like maybe I should be searching for and trying to get a Lamborghini. Or maybe you start your business and you're like, you know what? I just need to get my business to $10,000 a month.
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Chapter 3: How does cultural programming affect our happiness?
I always say our goals are like the horizon. The closer you get to the edge of it, the further that it gets away. Oh, we got to keep pushing it out and pushing it out. But I want you to know, like, this isn't just a personal struggle. This is more than anything else, a cultural programming that we have. We're conditioned from the time that we're little children. that we need to achieve.
We go to school, we need to work harder, we need to get an A. When you're in first grade, you gotta work really hard so you can get to second grade. And then you gotta work really hard so you can get to third grade. And it's this constant treadmill of having to go for the next thing. And we somehow think that happiness And self-worth is something that we earn through achievement.
And so we find that our value in this world is based off of how much money we make or how successful we are in our careers or how impressive our accomplishments sound to other people. And I really believe that this belief system runs deep within us. It's why high achievers can look wildly successful on the outside, but feel completely empty on the inside.
And I want you to think about this, like what's the point of always wanting the next thing? if we're never fully in this moment to appreciate the thing that we just got. So like we can say, when I buy that house and we buy the house and you appreciate it for a couple minutes and you're like, well, what about the next thing?
If we do that, we're always living in a future moment without ever fully being present in this moment. And if you're always trying to go for the next thing, you will be miserable for the rest of your life. I want to tell you a story of a friend who works for a guy who's worth billions of dollars. He's got more things than you could possibly imagine. It's insane. He's got a massive fleet of planes.
He's got a ton of mansions and ranches all over the world. He's got every car you can think of. He's got every animal you can think of in his ranches. These weird, obscure animals that he pulls from Africa and India and they're from all over the world and some of them are rare and endangered and, you know, giraffes. And, you know, he's even started collecting dinosaur bones.
So he's got fossils all over the place. He's got everything you could possibly think of. And my friend was at a dinner with him and they were eating dinner, as they do quite often, because she's been working with him for a while. And it was the beginning of the year a couple of years ago. And she said, hey, I got an idea.
Let's go around the dinner table and let's just talk about what our number one goal is for the year. And so everyone's going around and there's like five or six of them. Everyone says their number one goal for the year. Do you know what he said his number one goal for the year was? Make more money. His number one goal is to make more money.
This guy has already, quote unquote, won the game that so many people are playing. And I know we can argue he hasn't won the game at all. And I get that. That's what I'm trying to get across here. But most people think that becoming a millionaire, becoming a billionaire is, quote unquote, winning the game of life. He's already, quote unquote, won that game.
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Chapter 4: Can wealth and success lead to fulfillment?
I don't care if you want any of these things. You can want all of them, in fact. None of them are wrong, but have you ever asked yourself, what do you actually think achievement is going to give you? Because if we're trying to go for something, it's because we unconsciously think there's something that we're going to get from it. Like if somebody wants more money, they don't just want money.
They want something behind it. You know, most people aren't chasing money. They are chasing security or they're chasing maybe love from other people or they're chasing the feeling of finally being worthy because they are worth $10 million or they're chasing the feeling of if I make this amount of money, then I can show it off and then maybe people will appreciate me more.
Most people are not chasing status. They're chasing validation. And not even validation from themselves, validation from other people. They're wanting to prove to themselves that they're not a loser. They're hoping that people will look at them differently if they're successful. You know, they're not chasing success. They're chasing this feeling of maybe I'll finally be enough.
Most people's biggest fear, their biggest thing that holds them back is a different flavor for everybody else. But it's usually this core feeling of not being enough. And that could be good enough, that could be smart enough, pretty enough, loved, accepted, not being a failure, whatever it might be. And the problem isn't the goal itself. You can do and go for whatever you want to in this life.
And I think that you should. And I think that that's amazing. But the problem is believing that your happiness exists on the other side of what you want. Because if you're not happy now, you won't be happy when you get the thing that you want. I promise you that. I can tell you 100% from many people I've met that are extremely successful and miserable.
And so the problem isn't believing that the problem is believing that your happiness is on the other side of this thing that you want. But here's a secret. if you can't feel fulfilled now, you won't feel fulfilled then. So why don't I just try to make myself feel happy now, regardless of what I have?
And I can still want to achieve just for the fun of it, play it like a game, success and money and all of these things can be like a game, but why can't I just be happy now? Why can't I just feel fulfilled now? There's people with less money than I have that are way happier than I have. So it doesn't mean that I have to make money in order to be happy.
It means that I could be happy at any moment while I'm on my road of achievement or success, whatever it might be. And I was running a call yesterday for my weekly group that I run. It's called Mindset University. And I was on the call yesterday. And I I was on a call and one of the ladies that was there asked me a question. She's like, hey, I want to achieve. I want to have success.
She's like, but I don't feel like I have enough time and I don't know what to do. That's always like what's happening on the surface, right? And I'm like, okay, what's happening on the surface is fine, but I want to know the deep thing that's actually going under it. And I was like, okay, what does that look like to you?
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Chapter 5: What are we actually chasing in life?
And it sounds like more than anything else, if I'm translating what you're saying, you just want to be happy in the moment. Is that correct? And she's like, yeah, that would be great. I was like, you can achieve at any moment. When your child is 18 years old, you can decide, hey, I'm going to go achieve and grow a massive business or be successful.
But what you're telling me is your life is pretty good right now. You're paying the bills. Everything seems pretty great. I was like, why don't you just enjoy the present moment with your one-year-old? I was like, I know from the people that I speak to by having a child and a baby, people keep coming up and talking to us. And they're like, man, I miss when our kids are that old.
I miss my children at that age. I just wish that I could have my children be babies again. So many people are telling this to me. And I was like, why don't you just appreciate the moment of being with your child? Because I guarantee you, when your baby is 20 years old and moved out of the house, you're going to, you would trade everything that you have
20 years from today to be right back in this moment that you're in. And she just started crying. And then like 15 other people on the call started crying as well because they started thinking about their children and how they miss their babies and how their children are older, they're moved out. And it's about being present in this moment and really appreciating what we have.
You can appreciate this moment, be present in this moment, be happy and fulfilled in this moment and still want to achieve more, but not from a place of I have to, to be worthy, but I just want to because it's fun. I want you to understand, imagine yourself 90 years old. You've accomplished everything you've ever wanted. You've had the career. You have the money. You had the success.
You've traveled the world. You have $100 million in all of your bank accounts and your investments, and you're 90 years old. Do you want to know what? I guarantee you, at 90 years old, worth $100 million, no matter how old you are, no matter where you are in life, you would trade every single dollar every single achievement to rewind time back to this moment right now.
Even if you're 30 years old and your life is complete shit right now and you're rebuilding your entire life, I promise you, you would trade all $100 million at 90 years old to be 30 years old and struggling again. So money is not the goal. It's time, it's experiences, and it's being present in this moment. That's the real goal. How are you missing it?
What's the point of always wanting the next thing when once we get that thing, we want the next thing? You're never fully present. You're always living in this future of the next thing versus appreciating wherever it is that you currently are. You know, what if you're living in the years right now that you'll miss in the future? One day in the future, you're going to miss these moments.
If you have a one-year-old right now screaming and keeping you up at night while you're holding them and trying to put them back to sleep, one day, You will wish you could just hold your baby like you did this morning at three o'clock when they were screaming and crying and awake. When they're 30 years old, you'd be like, man, I just wish I could hold my baby the same way I used to.
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Chapter 6: Why do we seek validation through achievements?
And so how do we stop chasing and actually start living? We need to figure out a way to break through this. This is not about not achieving. I want you to understand that. This is about learning when to turn it off so that you don't miss your own life. Because so many people miss their own lives. The first thing I want you to do is I want you to stop measuring your life by productivity.
Success is not about what you achieve. I think success is about how much you actually experience, how present you are in your life, how present you are with the people that you love, how much fun and joy and meaning you create. If you're winning in those areas, you're winning in life. So that's the first thing I want you to understand.
The second thing, I want you to try to start scheduling joy like you schedule work and everything else. If you don't put it in your calendar, it probably won't happen. So block out time for your joy, whatever your joy is. Unplug time to be with your family. Hobbies that bring you joy. Not for productivity, but literally hobbies just for fun. Simple, slow moments. Watching the sunset. Feeling...
you know, a warm cup of coffee on a quiet morning, hanging out and laughing with your friends. Schedule those things out in your life. Experience the joy. And then I want you to really start to rewire your brain for contentment versus having to always be going for the next thing. Start training your mind to recognize what is already good in your life. There's a lot that's good in your life.
If you're listening to this podcast, if you have the means to be able to listen to this podcast, you have a lot more than the average person in the world does. Every morning, write down three things that you're grateful for, but make them specific. Don't just say, I'm grateful for my family.
You can say something like, I'm grateful for my kids' laugh and the sounds that they make when they're excited. At night, ask yourself the question, did I actually experience joy today? If you can't experience this moment and appreciate this moment, you won't appreciate the next one either.
And then the last thing I want you to do, and I want to challenge everybody to do this today, is to make a reverse bucket list. Like we've all heard about a bucket list, which are the things that we want to do before we die. But what if you made a list of the things that you've already done that your past self once dreamed about?
Moments that if you lost these things tomorrow, you'd miss them desperately. What would that look like? What if you wrote them down and let them sink in and realize that you're already living a a life that you probably wished for in the past. And so I'm going to challenge you to be here and be now. I'm not saying don't achieve. Hell yeah, go for it. Have fun. Make this life amazing.
But I'm saying don't let achievement steal the actual point of life. And that's what I really want to challenge you for. This is your life. It's happening right now in this moment that you're in. The real question is, are you actually living it? So that's what I got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode, please share it on your Instagram stories. Tag me in it. Rob Dial Jr.
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