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Paul Millerd explores what it means to achieve your goals and why the simple goals stop working and you either have to keep raising the stakes or change your orientation.

In 2015, Kevin Durant left his team of nine years to join the best basketball team in the world. In the NBA, great players like Durant are judged based on whether or not they win championships. This undoubtedly influenced his decision to join the team with the best chance to achieve that goal.

Except when he ended up winning a title, he didn’t find what he expected. His friend Steve Nash reflected on Durant’s confusing emotions that summer:

‘He didn’t have a great summer,’ Nash told me last year. ‘He was searching for what it all meant. He thought a championship would change everything and found out it doesn’t. He was not fulfilled.’

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The realization that achieving a goal will often not fundamentally improve your overall well-being can be a challenging moment for people.

It is also a moment where people can choose to orient in a new direction or double down on the same path. This seems like an easy decision to make, but over and over again, people continue back down the same path.

Points explored in this article are:

• Reaching a WTF?! Moment
• A Brief Detour To Grapple With Happiness
• What About Work?
• Have A Little Faith

Read the full article, The 2nd Chapter Of Success, on the Boundless website.