Q. Isn’t it just logical to think you’d feel empty when you have done everything and have what you need?A. I don’t think most people’s goals are so limited that, once they achieve them, they necessarily feel empty. We can always do better at our jobs or deepen our relationships. When people do feel empty, I think it’s because their jobs or their relationships no longer feel meaningful to them. In that situation, people often do need help to either recover the meaning their lives used to have or to find new meaning in their lives. For example, I’ve worked with people who have been in their jobs for a long time and no longer find their work as challenging as it once was. Their jobs were not going to change enough to satisfy their need for intellectual stimulation, but their employers were willing to pay for them to go back to school for advanced degrees in their field or in a related field. Going back to school gave them new energy because they were excited to be learning again.Q. How good are we at setting our goals and recognizing when we’ve accomplished them?A. Some people set very specific goals – “I need to make this amount of money by the time I’m this age,” “I need to be at this point in my career by this age,” etc. – and, if they’re lucky, they achieve them. But even these kinds of very specific goals can often be moving targets. Once the person has achieved their goal, they simply move the goal posts and aim for more money or more advancement in their career. Our ability to meet our emotional needs, on the other hand, is usually more elusive. Emotional needs change over time. Jobs, relationships, life situations that felt satisfying at one time in our lives can come to feel unsatisfying at others. I don’t know that we can ever be confident that we’ve achieved our emotional goals, at least not permanently.Q. Is it smart to set goals?A. Some people are very happy when they set specific goals and achieve them. For other people, that process doesn’t really capture what they’re looking for in their lives. We can’t always know in advance where satisfaction and meaning in our lives is going to come from. Some people are sure they don’t want to have children. Then, when they do, being a parent becomes the most meaningful thing in their lives. Other people can’t wait to have kids and then are surprised at how overwhelming it is to be a new parent. Often, when we formulate goals, we’re very good at imagining what will be satisfying about achieving them and not very good at imagining what will be difficult.Q. What does it mean to feel empty?A. People often use that word with me. Usually what they mean is that they don’t feel that anything really matters to them and that it’s hard for them to feel engaged in life. People who are more self-critical tend to blame themselves. Other people blame the external situation — the job, the relationship, the state of the world. But they all describe feeling flat and worrying that they can’t find the motivation to make changes in their lives. Often, of course, a person feels empty because they’re depressed. Depression can drain the meaning out of everything. And people can be depressed without knowing they’re depressed. When depression is the source of the feeling of emptiness, we need to address it directly through therapy, and sometimes medication, before thinking about what kinds of changes someone may or may not need to make in their life.Q. How can a person combat that feeling of emptiness?A. It depends on the person. For some people, combatting it involves rediscovering things that once gave their lives meaning. For example, after we experience a significant loss in our lives, we can often feel that our lives have become empty and meaningless. Can we rediscover things that gave our lives meaning before the loss? Or do we need to find new sources of meaning now that what or who we loved has passed?Click to learn more about finding your life path with Jane Rubin, Ph.D.