Why You Should Give Up On Your Dreams

When Anna* came to me, she was interviewing for jobs after spending the past 18 months writing full-time.

Previously a product manager, some of her early writing had gone viral, and she had decided to quit and throw herself completely into her writing. She had hoped to build an audience, maybe get a book deal, and find a way to make a living doing something she loved… but things didn’t quite pan out that way.

Instead, her early success became a weight so heavy that she barely published any work. With each new piece, she felt like she had to measure up to the standard she had set with her past work or exceed it. She dreaded the thought of putting out something “low quality,” which she feared would lead her audience to turn on her, criticizing the work and leaving her irrelevant.

As a result, her creative output shrank to only a few published pieces in the year and a half she wrote full-time—and the whole process was fraught with stress, procrastination, and anxiety. Even though the writing she put out was well received, she came to hate the process and the craft she’d previously loved.

When we began to work together, what felt to her like a “failure” weighed heavy on her heart. She had decided to get a job back in product to take the pressure off her writing, but she still carried the weight of her unfulfilled dreams. The artistic medium that had once brought her so much joy continued to be a source of stress.

Goal fusion: stuck on dreams

While Anna’s dream was about becoming a writer, her story is not unique. I’ve met numerous founders and creators whose work has suffered under the weight of their aspirations.

In Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), we call this “goal fusion.” In lay terms, goal fusion is when we get stuck on a certain dream for our future and become fixated on closing the gap between our dreams and reality. When this happens, we become disconnected from the work we’re doing in the present and may not realize when our dreams are leading us off course. 

Here are a few examples of how goal fusion shows up in other places:

• The bootstrapped founder who keeps grinding on an idea long after it fails to gain traction, burning through savings and putting himself in debt
• The starving artist who refuses to find part-time work because they believe they have to go all-in in order to be successful
• The CEO of a Series A/B/C company who steers the company off a cliff, unwilling to see evidence that their vision is flawed

In each of the examples above, the person has become so attached to their dream that they fail to adapt, even when reality provides evidence that the dream isn’t workable.

On some level, we need hopes and dreams for the future to motivate ourselves to take action. If we don’t expect our actions to have a positive result, we feel demotivated. Dreams, at their best, are winds in our sail, supporting us as we move forward into the future.

However, dreams can calcify, turning into ghosts of their most useful selves. Instead of inspiring us to take action, they become a source of pain and stagnation. At our worst, we can become so attached to our dreams that we fail to recognize when it's time to let go and move on.

Spotting unworkable dreams

How do we know if a dream is helping us or hurting us?

When looking at dreams through an ACT lens, we care less about the content of a dream (what one desires) and instead focus on its function—the impact a dream has on our day-to-day behavior.

As an example, in Anna’s case, there was nothing inherently wrong with her wanting to make a living as a writer. What made her dream unworkable was how it functioned in her life, leading to procrastination, perfectionism, and the loss of meaning in her work. 

Here are a few signs that you may be suffering from goal fusion and the dream you hold may no longer be workable:

• Narrowing of identity—you feel like you are your project and you would not be OK in your life or career if your project failed
• Avoiding contact with reality—you stop publishing your work, avoid talking to customers, or delay releasing a product for fear of piercing your fantasies around a project
• Loss of meaning in the present—you are so focused on the extrinsic outcome of your work that you lose touch with day-to-day opportunities for meaning
• Tunnel vision—you become so consumed by your project that you miss out on other things you care about (family, health, etc.)

If you’re noticing some (or all) of these signs, your attachment to your dreams may be getting in the way of moving forward in your life and work—and acknowledging that a dream is no longer workable is the first step toward freedom.