Of course, we’ve all heard people say this before. Usually after they’ve already made it. They’ve achieved success, lived the dream and now, from their comfortable position, they want to tell the rest of us that it’s not the answer. Easy for them to say. It’s hard not to wonder if they’re just trying to sound profound, as if they’ve reached some higher level of wisdom the rest of us haven’t unlocked. But are they really? Or have they just forgotten what it was like to be on the other side, striving, hoping, convinced that success would change everything?

The truth is, success does change things. It gives you options, freedom and opportunities you might not have had otherwise. But what it doesn’t do - what it can’t do - is fix the parts of you that were never about success in the first place. If you were unhappy before, achieving your goals won’t magically erase that. If you thought success would make you feel worthy, secure, or fulfilled, you might be in for a shock. Because once you get there, you’re still you. Just in a different setting, with different problems.

The real question isn’t whether success can make you happy. It’s whether you’re chasing success expecting it to solve something it was never meant to fix.