When Success Feels Empty: The Hidden Psychology of Achievement
Author: John McGuirk, BACP-Accredited Psychotherapist in Bristol. More About Me.
Midnight. Craig’s lying in bed, staring into the dark, thinking about of his life. It looks great: successful career, financial comfort, big house, nice car, wife, kids…
Top tier.
But right now, in the middle of the night, it doesn’t feel great. It feels like something’s missing. He can’t name it – he just knows he’s not happy without it.
Why is it so hard to feel happy? he asks, facing another sleepless night. Is it me? Do I need to try harder? Maybe I should go for that next big challenge. Maybe then I’ll feel better…
“Is that it?”
We know the story: get the degrees, land the job, rise through the promotions, gain financial success, earn the respect of your peers, and while you’re doing that, find a partner, buy the house, get married, have kids – then you’ll be happy.
Right?
Thing is, again and again, people are logging into my online therapy sessions saying: “But I’ve done all that and I don’t feel it. Maybe I should feel happy, but I just don’t. If anything I feel empty, lost!”
We keep going, though. Despite the evidence before us, we persevere. This next bigger and better achievement will bring that feeling I’m looking for, that sense of meaning or fulfilment, or… what was that word we used to use? Joy? I just have to work better, harder, faster, meaner….
We push for that next goal.
And we get it.
And sure, there’s that familiar feeling, that buzz of success, that reassuring thought: “I did it!”
Only the buzz fades quick.
And there it is again - that dissatisfaction, that emptiness. We’re still not happy.
Why Achievement Stops Feeling Good - The Dopamine Cycle
To see why we keep doubling down on achievement in this way, despite evidence that it’s just not entirely working, we need to understand what exactly is going on. This achievement drive has been with us for a very long time, longer than we’ve been human (it’s in mice too!). It’s there to help us survive. It wants us to learn and repeat the things that work for us. And it’s driven by a neurotransmitter: dopamine.
Dopamine & Reinforcement Learning
Dopamine does a lot of things, but today we’re going to mainly focus on dopamine’s role in achievement and reward cycles.
In the beginning, dopamine is released when we do something and experience a primary reward (Source): I did this and felt something good! Do that again! (learning)
When actions are repeated, habits start to form. Here, dopamine moves from being released at the action’s completion stage, to being released at the action’s cue stage (thinking about doing it). This is dopamine acting as reward-anticipation or a reward-predicting stimuli (Source): oh yeah, I remember that activity. Last time I did that it felt good, so let’s do it again! (craving).
Things that can release dopamine include novelty and new information, reading, doom-scrolling, video games, completing a task, eating food, a sense of accomplishment or progress.
Here is some exquisite experimental research that confirms how dopamine is working:
Schultz’s Monkey Experiment, 1993 (Source)
A thirsty monkey is seated before two levers. When a light turns on, the monkey gets apple juice if he presses the left lever, but not the right lever. During the experiment, the activity of monkey’s midbrain dopamine neurons are measured.
During the early phases of this process, the monkeys behave somewhat erratically. Also, the neurons are silent when the light goes off but respond strongly whenever the monkey receives a juice reward.
As the monkey continues to perform the task, however, the monkey begins to focus on the lever that yields the reward. As this happens, the response of the neurons to the juice reward dies out. Instead, the neurons begin to respond whenever the light is turned on.
Dopamine & Achievement:
The thing with dopamine is that it doesn’t last. Soon, the reward we get that originally motivated us (when the monkey got apple juice) fades and instead we become motivated by the anticipation of the reward (when the light comes on for the monkey). When we remember the reward before (a cue) and the action connected to it, we want to do that action again (desire, craving, motivation). Yet, every time we do the same thing and get the same result, we get a little less dopamine in return.
Think of that acutely awesome feeling when you achieve a new thing for the first time. With repetition, succeeding again and again at the same action inevitably becomes just a new baseline. We no longer feel great about do it. It’s normal. Maybe last year I felt great finally finishing a 5km run in under 7 minutes (a new personal best!!!). Now? That’s old news. I do that every week now. The same run in the same time doesn’t give me the same reward. Still though, whenever I think of going for a run I remember that original, awesome feeling and feel motivated, even though when I achieve the same run in the same time, it no longer feels that great.
So, what do I do? Do I keep running 5km in 7 minutes? What if I want that big feeling of accomplishment again, like that first time I beat 7 minutes?
High-Achievers, Dopamine, and Emptiness
By now, the high-achievers among us might already be nodding their heads. They see the pattern.
Let’s call it The Achievement Escalation Loop:
Reward: Our achievements release dopamine after a task in the form of an acute feeling of success: “I did it!”
I pulled the lever and got the juice! Awesome!
I beat my personal best. Awesome!Craving: Then, we start to anticipate that good feeling when we do this task, in the form of craving: “I want that great feeling again, so let’s do that thing again!”
Last time I pulled this lever when the light came on, I got juice. Quick, do that again!
Remember that great feeling I get from running? Let’s go for a run!!Disappointment: Sadly, if we just keep doing the same thing, we get less dopamine than we expect, and this leads to disappointment: “Is that it? What an anti-climax. That wasn’t very rewarding.”
Get juice when I pull this lever is pretty standard now. Whatever.
Oh, I got the same time as my run last week. Whatever.More: In the face of this disappointment, high-achievers can push for more. Now, every new achievement needs to be bigger and better or more novel than the last. Old successes are just a new baseline - a lifestyle. Now we need more! We think: “Keep going!”
Is there anything else I can do to get more juice, or even a banana?
Maybe we can crack 6 mins? Or, maybe we can move on to 10km runs?
Dopamine, Achievement, and Sustainability
We can see how this escalation process might become unsustainable. The risk of burnout from having to do more and more is high. Or, even if we don’t burn out, we start to wonder why we’re doing any of this at all. It doesn’t bring lasting satisfaction, only the highs and lows of the dopamine-reward system.
Some people bail on activities at that point. Maybe they stop running. High-achievers escalate. Both people might intuitively wonder if there’s not something else, something more than just this endless series of temporary successes…
But with a high-achiever or highly successful person, they might feel locked in to the pattern.
A highly successful lifestyle does often produce lots of material success, even if the feeling of satisfaction and well-being is elusive. This material success reinforces the lifestyle of achievement focus. Our lifelong focus on achievement is cemented by dopamine. It’s hard to stop! What else is there?
We struggle to see anything else: “Is this it? Is this all there is to life?”
In the 90s we called it The Rat Race. Buddhists call it The Wheel of Suffering.
It's like an addict thinking “one more hit might get me that feeling I’m missing”.
One more promotion.
One more zero.
One more something…
What now? Conclusion & Invitation
This feeling of emptiness after achievement is not a failure. It’s a normal psychological process, rooted in how our brains work. Hard-wired.
That questioning though. That gut feeling that something is missing is a signal from your self. Something’s not working out for you. Something is missing.
So, let’s look for it.
Maybe you can be ambitious and successful without sacrificing so much joy? Imagine keeping your ambition and finding your joy!
And yes, maybe that means leaping into the unknown: new thoughts, new paradigms, new ways of being.
If you’d like to explore this more deeply, I offer online psychotherapy for people seeking meaningful change. You’re welcome to book a short consultation call to see whether we might work together.
I also plan to continue this article series on high achievers, achievement-focus and well-being, because there’s a lot in there to unpack. So, if you want to follow this series, please fill in the Newsletter Sign Up at the bottom of this page, or you can subscribe here.
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