Why achieving your goal might make you miserable

I read something recently from Julien Musy, a French creator, that hit me in a way I wasn't expecting.

I ended up talking about it a lot with my girlfriend today...

And when we finished talking?

I felt like I absolutely had to share this idea with you too.

The idea was simple:

For any goal or desire you have, list all the downsides of achieving it.

Not to discourage yourself, but to see clearly.

Because when you look at the full picture, the sacrifices, the lifestyle, the daily tasks required,you can finally separate the goals that are truly yours from the ones that were planted by someone else.

And here's the paradox:

When you're fully aware of both the advantages and disadvantages, when you're okay with all of it and no longer desperate for the outcome, that's when you perform best.

Because fantasizing about future benefits creates, by contrast, the nightmare of not having them.

You start fearing the absence of something you don't even have yet.

That fear puts you in a scarcity mindset.

And from that place, your actions come from the wrong posture.

Everything you try to build from scarcity doesn't fit you.

You end up submitting to "I have to," "I must," "I should", instead of moving from genuine desire.

This landed hard because I lived it for years without realizing it.

When I started in online business at 17, my goal was clear:

Hit €10,000 per month with my agency.

What I didn't understand at the time was that this goal wasn't mine.

I was obsessed with Iman Gadzhi back then.

Not the massive creator he is now, I followed him when he was 16, documenting his journey building his agency.

I saw myself in him.

He inspired me more than anyone.

So I did what he did.

I launched an SMMA agency.

I prospected. I made sales calls.

I started a YouTube channel documenting my agency journey.

When I got results, I started teaching SMMA.

His blueprint became my blueprint.

And it worked.

I pushed past €10,000 per month.

I achieved the goal I had set.

But I was miserable.

I was constantly working against my own nature.

Prospecting drained me.

Sales calls felt like torture.

I was teaching SMMA when what actually excited me was writing about ideas, systems, philosophy, psychology.

I forced myself through discipline.

I told myself this was just what success required.

What I didn't see was that Iman succeeded because his path was perfectly aligned with who he is.

I was trying to copy his path while being a completely different person.

You can get results working against your nature.

I'm proof of that.

But you can't sustain it.

After a few years, my soul was exhausted.

I had no energy left.

I developed a serious smoking addiction, a compulsion that, looking back, was directly tied to hating my daily life.

My body was screaming what my mind refused to admit:

This isn't the life you want.

Everything collapsed.

And in that collapse, I finally understood.

The goal was never mine.

I had put someone else on a pedestal and adopted their objectives as my own.

I confused admiration with direction.

Now when I set a goal, I ask different questions:

• What does achieving this actually require day to day?

• Do I want that lifestyle, or just the imagined outcome?

• Am I chasing this because it genuinely resonates, or because someone I admire made it look appealing?

When you list the downsides honestly, conditioned goals reveal themselves.

They're the ones where you want the destination but hate everything about the journey.

Real goals are different.

You're okay with the sacrifices because they don't feel like sacrifices.

The work itself fits who you are.

That's how Noah's Ark was born.

A business built around what I actually love:

Writing, ideas, systems, helping people build something aligned with who they are.

So here's what I want you to sit with today.

That goal you're chasing right now:

• Where did it come from?

• Did it emerge from within, or did you absorb it from someone you admire?

• If you listed every downside of achieving it, the daily tasks, the lifestyle, the sacrifices, would you still want it?

• Or do you just want the fantasy of the outcome without everything that comes with it?

• And if you stripped away every influencer you've watched, every mentor whose path you've studied, every voice telling you what success should look like, what would you actually want to build?

The answer might surprise you.

Thanks for reading,

And welcome back to the Ark.

Noah