You finally get the promotion you’d been chasing for two years, and by the following week, the excitement has quietly evaporated, replaced by a flat, slightly confusing sense of now what. Nobody really warns you that crossing the finish line can feel more like a letdown than an actual celebration. That gap between the anticipated high and the actual reality tends to have its own reasons. In this edition of ‘The psychology of everyday life,’ HT Lifestyle spoke to Dr Chandni Tugnait, MD, psychotherapist, life alchemist, coach and healer, founder and director of Gateway of Healing, to decode the psychology behind this.
The brain rewards the chase
According to Dr Chandni, motivation is driven largely by anticipation, with the biggest surge of feel-good chemicals arriving while you’re still working toward something, not after you’ve obtained it. The moment the goal is achieved, that internal reward system has nothing left to chase, and the resulting drop can feel almost like withdrawal rather than satisfaction.
