Do you know what you’re actually chasing in life? If it ever feels like something’s missing, even though you’re doing everything ‘right’, that isn’t random; it’s a sign that you need to take a proper look at your ‘why’. Episode 349 will help you do that. So, Let’s Talk About Mental Health!

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Episode Overview:

Do you know what you’re actually chasing in life, and why? Are you clear on what actually matters to you? Because those are essential ingredients for better mental health.

This episode is about understanding your why, as well as the real difference between what you want and what actually matters and how that shapes whether you’re living with purpose or just running on autopilot. I get into why so many of us end up chasing the wrong things, especially in a culture that’s much better at telling you what to want than helping you ask why, and I talk about why finding purpose and meaning starts with being really honest about your own reasons for pursuing things rather than the results. You’ll walk away from this episode with a genuine way to check whether your goals are actually aligned with what matters to you, so that your next move comes from something real rather than someone else’s idea of ‘a life well lived’. If you’ve ever felt like you’re doing everything right and yet still can’t shake the sense that something’s missing, then this episode is for you. 

👉 Ready to work out what you’re actually chasing, and why? Then let’s talk!

💡 TL;DR: What are you actually chasing in life? Because achieving everything on your list doesn’t mean much if you’ve never actually stopped to ask yourself why you wanted any of it… and that’s what this episode will help you do. 🙂

New here? Hi! Let’s Talk About Mental Health is your weekly dose of practical mental health advice for real life. I’m Jeremy Godwin (hello! 👋) and I keep things simple, honest, and doable so you can feel more in control of your life and your mental wellbeing. If you’re not already a free subscriber, sign up below to have episodes and transcripts land in your inbox every Sunday:

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Episode Transcript:

What are you really chasing in life?

What are you actually chasing in life?

It can be easy to lose track of, because you can be ticking all the boxes in life of what you’re ‘supposed’ to focus on and yet still feel like something’s missing… even if you aren’t able to say exactly what that is.

And that’s what happens sometimes when you spend years chasing something without ever stopping to consider why you wanted it in the first place.

And that’s exactly what we’re going to work through together today: what you’re actually chasing and why, and more importantly, what to do next once you’ve got the answer.

So let’s talk about… understanding what you’re chasing in life.

Hello and welcome! I’m Jeremy Godwin and this is the Let’s Talk About Mental Health podcast, where every week I help you understand and improve your mental wellbeing.

This week, we’re talking about how to figure out what you’re actually chasing in life. And this is something I keep coming back to time and again in this show: actually working out, and understanding, how to live well instead of just barely managing to get through the week, since it really does have an enormous influence on the state of your mental wellbeing. So prepare yourself for an equal dose today of both philosophy and psychology, because this is some big stuff that we’re talking through… and it’s some important stuff!

Let’s start by being clear about the difference between what you want and why you want it… because they’re not the same thing. ‘What’ and ‘why’ are really two very different questions when it comes to whatever it is that you’re chasing in life. ‘What’ is the goal that you’re focused on, but ‘why’ is the actual thing that you’re hoping that that goal will give you.

When you don’t know your ‘why’, it defaults to whatever’s loudest.

That’s when it’s easy to fall into the trap of doing what you think you’re supposed to do; the trap of proving yourself to others, of trying to keep up with everyone else, and the trap of trying not to fall behind of where you think you’re supposed to be in life. Because when you’re focused on all of those external factors, no amount of achieving things will ever satisfy you… you’ll keep chasing and chasing and chasing, wondering why you never feel fulfilled.

In order to feel fulfilled, you have to understand what you need out of life… not just what you want.

We’ll come back to that idea in a bit, because once you can actually name your own ‘why’ everything else gets so much clearer.

But before we get there, I just want you to sit with what it is that you’re actually chasing right now and do that honestly… because none of what we talk about next is going to really resonate with you until you can name that piece properly. So just take a few moments; pause me if you need to. Don’t worry, I’ll wait!

So… so, once you have it clear in your mind what it is that you’re chasing, keep it there throughout this episode.

OK. So, now let’s dig a bit deeper and let’s talk about…

What are you really chasing?

So, most of us could probably rattle off an entire list of ‘whats’ without even thinking about it too much. It’s often things like a bigger bank balance, a better job or career, maybe more followers, or a better or healthier relationship. Ask most people what they’re chasing in life, and they’ll usually give you an answer in about two seconds flat… because that part’s relatively easy; that’s the stuff that we say out loud, not just to ourselves but also to everyone else. But the question that almost none of us ever ask ourselves is this:

If you got what you want, what would it actually give you? And what would you want next?

Just sit with those questions for a moment, properly. It’s not, “What would I get?”, but, “What would it give me?” What would finally be true, or finally feel different, once you had it? Because that answer, the real one that sits underneath your first answer, is almost never the goal itself.

That’s the difference between what you want and what you actually need or what you’re drawn to. And most of us have spent our entire lives getting really good at chasing goals without ever properly checking in with ourselves to think about why we’re actually chasing those things.

What we’re really talking about here is honestly just so much bigger than a house or a car or whatever… it’s something much more basic, and something that is absolutely fundamental to better mental health. It’s about you. It’s about feeling like you matter, feeling safe, feeling like you’re finally finally enough. That’s the ‘really’ piece, right? That’s what you’re actually chasing every single time underneath whatever it is that you think you’re chasing.

There’s always a reason why we go after the goals that we pursue, and yet all too often we don’t stop to think about what those reasons are… because usually those reasons involve a lot more than just ticking the box or having the thing.

And what tends to trip up a lot of us is that it’s easy to think that we picked the wrong goal to focus on: wrong job, wrong relationship, wrong house, wrong car… and so then we go and swap that goal for a different one, thinking that that will fix the empty feeling. But it won’t. Because the problem was never the goal. It’s that you never once stopped to properly name what it is that you’re really chasing.

A car is just a car, but it has things that sit underneath it for us: meaning, purpose, status, fulfilment, maybe security, belonging, identity… all of this stuff that sits underneath all of our goals. And we don’t just randomly pick our goals for the fun of it. Sometimes those things that we’re chasing are subconscious, we’re not really aware of them, but we choose our goals because we want something from achieving them… whether that’s a conscious want or a subconscious one.

Now… this is where things might get a bit uncomfortable, so bear with me and brace yourself if you need to! Once you actually identify the real thing that you’re chasing, whether it’s, you know, feeling like I matter, or feeling safe, or finally being enough, whatever it is, and once you then sit with that answer for a while, you start to realise something: the goal was never really about the relationship or the promotion or the number on the scale or the figure in your bank account, right?

Your goals are just the vehicle to get what you really want.

And most of us spend years, maybe even decades, pouring every bit of energy that we’ve got into those vehicles while the actual destination that we want to get to just sits there completely unexamined, often unacknowledged.

Now, look, I know that this is all a bit existential, and so sorry if I’ve made your head explode a bit! But this stuff plays such a huge role in why we end up in a life where it feels like we’re just going through the motions or ticking the boxes.

It’s hard to feel fulfilled in a life that isn’t actually focused on fulfilment.

Now, none of that makes you shallow or silly or somehow ‘doing life wrong’. This is just what happens when nobody ever teaches you to ask the right question. We get taught from a very early age to set goals, but nobody ever sits us down and teaches us to ask what we’re actually hoping those goals will give us. So of course, most of us have never done it. Hell, I talk about this stuff for a living and I’ve only started doing it in the last few years! It’s not a personal failure, it’s just simply a gap that nobody filled.

But once you can name your real ‘why’ that sits underneath your goals in a proper and honest way, it completely changes how you see absolutely everything you’ve been chasing. You start being able to tell the difference between a goal that’s actually going to get you closer to what you need versus a goal that’s just another version of the same thing, you know, another thing that’s focused on external validation or whatever the case might be, but just dressed up in a different outfit.

Understanding all of that has a huge impact on the way you navigate the world… and most importantly, it also has a huge effect on your mental wellbeing. So with that in mind, now let’s talk about…

Why understanding your ‘why’ matters.

Alright, so here’s why the ‘why’ actually matters… and it’s not just some ‘nice to know’ theoretical thing. When you spend your energy chasing the ‘what’ without ever identifying what really sits underneath it, you’re not just wasting your time on those goals… you’re also building your whole sense of wellbeing on something that was never going to actually deliver what you really need.

I hate to break it to you, but the latest iPhone isn’t going to help you find a sense of fulfilment in life. I know. Shocking!

Because your nervous system, your sense of self, all of it, it reads achievement completely differently depending on what’s actually driving it underneath. Chase something because you genuinely feel it, and achieving it feels like you’ve arrived… but chase the exact same thing because you’re simply trying to prove something to yourself, or to others, or keep up with other people, or stop yourself from falling behind, and when you hit that goal, it barely even registers in the long term. Same goal, same effort, same outcome on paper… but a completely different experience of getting there and a different impact on your life.

That’s not a mindset thing, that’s just what the research on this shows consistently: people whose goals are genuinely their own report meaningfully better wellbeing than people who are chasing the same kind of goals for external reasons like approval or status or keeping up with everyone else, even when both groups actually achieve what they set out to do.

The goal is not the problem. It’s what’s sitting underneath it.

It’s about understanding whether the source of your goal is a need or a want, because they are two very, very different things. Most of what we’re encouraged to chase in life is built around want, not need: bigger job titles, bigger milestones, bigger cars, bigger houses, bigger, bigger, bigger. They’re all just wants, not needs.

And the thing is that ‘wants’ are easy to sell to you. They’re specific, they’re visible, and they fit neatly into an ad or a highlight reel so the algorithms know what to do with them. ‘Needs’ do not sell nearly as well, because feeling like you matter or feeling safe or feeling genuinely connected to people… none of those things are easy for someone to package up and sell to you, or hand to you, or that can be flogged to you on repeat every time you open social media.

So an entire world’s worth of noise keeps pointing you towards wants, because wants are profitable and needs are not. And if you’re not deliberately checking in with what you actually need, then you’re going to spend your entire life getting extremely good at chasing after things that are never going to fulfil your needs.

And when it comes to your mental health, specifically, understanding what you’re really chasing and why doesn’t just feel better day to day, but it becomes something that you can actually build a solid foundation for your life on. Because when life gets tough, and it will, a goal that you chose because it’s genuinely yours gives you something to hold onto. But a goal you chased to prove something or to keep up gives you nothing… because the moment the achieving stops, so does the sense that you’re OK.

That’s why ‘purpose’ isn’t just ‘having a nice life’ kind of thing. It’s one of the things that actually protects you when things fall apart, when things get tough. People with a real sense of what they’re chasing and why report lower stress, lower anxiety, and lower levels of depression… and it’s not because their lives are any easier, but because they’re not spending every bit of energy that they’ve got chasing a vehicle with no destination.

Now, something that we don’t tend to talk about enough is this: a lot of us build our entire lives on goals that we borrowed instead of ones that we chose: chasing what our family expected of us, or what success looks like online, or whatever avoids judgement. And often we do that for years, sometimes decades, and it can feel completely fine, stable even… that is, right up until the point where something shakes up your life: a job loss, a breakup, a health scare, losing someone, a birthday that activates a major crisis or a minor one. And suddenly you’re standing there realising that you never actually chose any of this… you just never stopped long enough to check why you were chasing whatever you were chasing.

That’s what happens when the goals are never actually yours to begin with. If you never ask yourself why you’re chasing whatever you’re chasing, you just keep on running the same loop over and over: chase, achieve, brief relief, empty again, and then go looking for the next thing to chase. And that cycle goes on for years, maybe even your whole life, without ever getting you to a place where you feel fulfilled. It’s a hamster wheel that you get stuck on. And bit by bit, life ends up feeling less and less fulfilling and more and more like you’re just going through the motions.

And look, plenty of people who are running this type of loop are doing brilliantly by every outside measure. And if that’s enough for you, then that’s your choice. But if, on the inside, it feels like something’s missing, then the answer is clear: understand why you want what you want, so you can be clear about how that aligns with your needs… with your real needs. And we’re going to talk about how to do that right after this quick break.

[AD BREAK]

And welcome back! Now let’s get into the ‘how to’ part of this episode, and let’s talk about…

How to identify what you’re really chasing.

Right! This episode has been very philosophical so far, so now let’s actually do something practical with all of it. Earlier on, I asked you to sit with the question of what you’re really chasing and to hold onto that throughout the episode. So let’s go back to that now, because everything from here builds on it. First…

Name it properly.

Take whatever you were sitting with and say it in one clear and precise and honest sentence; not the polished version that you might use with someone else, but just the real version. I’m chasing feeling like I matter. I’m chasing not being judged. I’m chasing finally being accepted or finally being enough. Whatever it is, get it out of your head and into words, actual words, even if it’s just something that you say to yourself in the car or in the shower later on.

Because what stays vague stays unexamined, and you can’t work with something that you’ve never actually named out loud.

This is the entire foundation that everything else here is built on, so please don’t skip past it just because it feels a bit confronting and maybe a bit exposing. That’s the point.

Now… once you’ve got it then there’s a harder question waiting for you, which is…

Ask whether it’s actually yours.

Alright… so, honestly, would you still want this if nobody was ever going to know? If there was zero social cost either way, nobody to impress and nobody to disappoint? Or does it only make sense once you factor in who’s watching?

Now, there’s no shame in having an externally focused goal or one that you inherit from somewhere. Almost everyone starts with one, right? It’s just what happens when you grow up around other people’s expectations, before you’re old enough to choose your own. But inherited goals run your life exactly as hard as chosen ones do. You will work just as hard for it, sacrifice just as much sleep and peace of mind. But the difference is that when you finally get there, it won’t really feel like you’ve achieved anything because it was never your destination to arrive at. So consider whether or not the goals that you’re focused on are actually yours. Next…

Stop feeding it with noise.

Take a look at where your attention actually goes: the comparison scroll, the outrage cycle, what someone said or didn’t say. None of that is neutral. Every hour that you spend reacting to external noise is an hour spent letting somebody else’s worldview quietly write your reasons for you. You don’t need to shut the whole world out entirely; I mean, that’s just not realistic. You just need to notice when the loudest and most reactive parts of your day are the ones that are actually shaping what you think you want and what you think you have to focus on. Next…

Sit with the discomfort, instead of rushing past it.

This might sting a bit, but it needs to be said: facing the truth can be really uncomfortable, but ignoring it is what keeps you stuck in the loop that I talked about earlier. So you need to sit with it… even if your instinct is to run for the hills, run back to safety and not question things. Maybe you’re chasing goals for reasons like proving someone wrong, or avoiding a judgement that nobody even said out loud, or to keep pace with a version of success that you don’t even really care about if you’re completely honest about it.

Recognising all of that is going to be uncomfortable, and the instinctive reaction to discomfort is to ignore it, get busy, distract yourself, or just quietly close this whole conversation down and file it away before it goes any further. Don’t. Sitting with that discomfort, actually letting it sting, is what lets it inform what happens next. Avoiding discomfort is how people spend decades chasing after a life that they never once properly thought about. OK, next…

Adjust, don’t demolish.

Once you’ve sat with it for a while, here’s what to actually do about it… and no, you do not need to torch your entire life, or ‘Hulk smash!’, or do a Miley Cyrus and come in like a wrecking ball. That might feel satisfying for about a week, but it rarely ever holds up in the long term… because it skips the actual work and just changes the scenery. What does work, and what actually lasts, is shifting your energy, bit by bit, away from a goal that’s based on fear or social pressure or trying to prove something… and instead investing your energy in a goal that is genuinely yours.

Now, that might mean changing how you approach a goal that you already have, rather than just abandoning it outright. It might mean quietly deprioritising something that was never really yours to begin with, without needing to then announce it to everyone… just bit by bit. So this week I want you to pick one thing that you’re chasing and make one small adjustment to it. Do it today, not ‘someday’. Next…

Build something you can stand on.

The real payoff that you’re going to get through thinking through all of this stuff isn’t just feeling a bit better today… it’s having something solid underneath you when things get tough. Because they will. A set of goals that are genuinely yours gives you something to hold onto that borrowed goals never can.

This stuff is going to take time, right? Half an hour of listening to a podcast isn’t going to magically unpack an entire lifetime of stuff for you. So take some time over the coming days and weeks to reflect on what we’ve talked about today, and make some notes for yourself on how you want to apply it. The transcript is linked in the description as well. And on that note, Episode 306 about focusing on what really matters will also help you to see the ‘what’ more clearly. So I’ll link it below, and I’ll be digging deeper into this stuff again in next week’s episode.

Conclusion

So here’s what I want you to take away from this one. It’s not enough to just know what you’re chasing… you need to know why, because that’s what tells you whether it’s actually yours.

So, ask yourself: if nobody was ever going to know, would you still be chasing after whatever you’re chasing?

Because when you boil it all down, the goal was never really the point. What was sitting underneath it is what really matters.

Each week I like to finish up by sharing a quote about the topic, and I encourage you to take a few moments to really reflect on it and consider what it means to you. This week’s quote is generally attributed to Dale Carnegie, and it is:

Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get.

Dale Carnegie

Let me repeat that.

Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get.

Alright, that’s it for this week. If you found this helpful, please leave a rating or review on your favourite platform because it helps more people discover the show and the advice I share. And come and join me on Patreon to support my work. You’ll find it linked in the description below.

Thank you very much for joining me today. Look after yourself and make a conscious effort to share positivity and kindness out into the world… because you get back what you put out. Take care and talk to you next time!

Join me next week so we can talk about what you’re doing to create the life you want, and check out my episode on why figuring out what you want is so scary next. It’s linked in the description. I release new episodes every Sunday, so follow or subscribe to never miss an episode.

Let’s Talk About Mental Health is an independent program. Discover more at ltamh.com.

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Let’s Talk About Mental Health.
Making Mental Health Simple.

Let’s Talk About Mental Health. © 2026 Jeremy Godwin.

The information provided in this episode is for general awareness on the topic and does not constitute advice. You should consult a doctor and/or mental health professional if you’re struggling with your mental health and wellbeing. You’ll find additional information on the Resources page of this website.