One of my most vivid memories from our 2023 World Series run was returning to the clubhouse a few days after it ended and cleaning out my office.

Just days earlier, the locker room had been overflowing with energy, but now everything was quiet. Lockers had been emptied out, equipment packed away, and everyone was heading home. Oddly enough, the emptiness of that locker room is still one of the clearest memories I carry from that experience.

For so long, you imagine the World Series as this ultimate pinnacle and one of those experiences that will change everything. But despite an incredible run filled with life-long memories, here I was in an empty locker room still returning home like I would at the conclusion of any other season.

Several months later in the midst of the new Major League season, I remember having lunch with one of our players from that team and we both described a similar realization. You spend your entire life imagining what a moment like that will feel like, but you also discover that your life doesn’t actually change as much as you thought it would.

This realization doesn’t diminish the experience. If anything, it helps me appreciate it even more. It forced me to not just fixate on how much I enjoyed the peak, but to also ensure I didn’t overlook the joys and memories created in pursuit of it.

After all, the achievement of the goal is rarely where we spend most of our time. The championship might last a night. The season lasts months. The wedding is a day. The marriage is a lifetime. Graduation lasts a few hours. The learning takes years.

Today’s newsletter is an invitation to consider the pursuit of our goals with a more expanded perspective. It’s an invitation to ask yourself this question: What happens if I become so focused on the reward that I overlook everything required to reach it?

The irony of most meaningful goals is that we spend years pursuing moments we'll only experience briefly.

One of my all-time favorite books is Chris Hadfield’s An Astronaut’s Guide to Living on Earth. In it, Hadfield shares lessons from a remarkable career that included three trips to space and nearly 166 days spent in orbit.

Hadfield has acknowledged that most people are interested in his career highlights including the launches, missions, spacewalks, and breathtaking views of Earth. But he’s made it clear that he learned to appreciate and value his entire journey because the vast majority of his professional life was spent doing everything that surrounded those experiences.

The vast majority of his career was spent in training, learning, teaching, engaging in service initiatives, preparing with simulations, solving problems for other astronauts on Earth, and performing countless tasks and responsibilities that would never make the headlines.

If we estimate a 21-year astronaut career as roughly 7600 days, the 166 days Hadfield spent in space represented just over 2% of that journey. Yet when people ask him about his story, what do they focus on? The 2%. Not because the other 98% wasn't meaningful, but because it's easier to remember (and celebrate) the peaks than the process.

I’d argue that this can be true for many of us in our own lives.

If we're not careful, we can spend years building a life, a career, a relationship, or a season, only to let a handful of moments determine how we remember it.

Perhaps the real lesson isn't that the 2% matters less. It's that the other 98% matters more than we often realize.

Which raises an interesting question: Why do the peaks seem to occupy such a disproportionate amount of space in our memories?

Part of the answer may come from three well-known principles in psychology.

Researchers have identified several mental tendencies that help explain why we become so focused on the peaks while overlooking much of the journey that surrounds them.

One is what psychologist Daniel Kahneman referred to as duration neglect.

Simply put, duration neglect suggests that when we evaluate an experience, we often fail to give appropriate weight to how much time we actually spent having that experience.

In other words, twenty years of meaningful work can become overshadowed by a few memorable moments. A remarkable season can become defined by how it ended.

Closely related is another concept known as the peak-end rule.

Kahneman's research found that when we look back on experiences, our memories tend to be disproportionately influenced by two things: The emotional peak and the ending.

Think about a season, a vacation, a relationship, or a project at work. When we reflect on those experiences, we often compress months or years of memories into a handful of moments that stand out most vividly.

Our memories become disproportionately shaped by the breakthroughs, the celebrations, the disappointments, and the final outcomes.

The challenge, however, is that these moments can begin to overshadow everything else that happened along the way.

This tendency is closely connected to the third principle which psychologists call the arrival fallacy, which is the belief that reaching a desired destination will create lasting fulfillment.

We convince ourselves that happiness, satisfaction, or significance exists somewhere ahead of us. We presume we’ll find it at the next milestone, the next goalpost, the next achievement, the next promotion, etc.

Just ask Los Angeles Rams’ head coach, Sean McVay. In this clip from the Gamechangers podcast, McVay discusses his own experience with the arrival fallacy and the illusion he lived by.

While meaningful goals can absolutely bring joy, the feeling rarely lasts as long as we imagine. The destination arrives, but so do the realities that come with it.

This is why fulfillment can't come exclusively from the peaks in our lives. There simply aren't enough of them.

This isn’t to say the peaks or accomplishments don’t matter. But If the goal is the only thing you enjoy, you're asking a very small percentage of your life to provide all of your fulfillment.

This week, resist the urge to postpone your fulfillment until the next milestone.

Instead, ask yourself: What part of my current journey am I overlooking because I'm too focused on the destination?

One practice I've found helpful is taking inventory while you're still in it.

Right now, pause and notice the people around you. Notice the opportunity in front of you. Notice the growth that's happening beneath the surface. Notice the season you're currently in, regardless if it’s been one filled with joys or struggles.

Because many of the moments you'll someday miss don't look particularly remarkable while you're experiencing them. They’re often disguised as very ordinary days.

One day, when you look back, you may discover that the moments you spent chasing weren't actually the highlight.

They were simply part of a much larger one.

The journey itself.

For those interested in checking out my podcast, you’ll find a compilation of my most recent episodes below.

Solo Episodes:

Guest Interviews: