The best career advice I ever received is that “success is filled with MSG”. It comes from American comedian Amy Poehler’s book Yes Please. Just like the notorious food additive monosodium glutamate (MSG) that leaves you craving more, achieving career goals rarely satisfies for long. The ego is an unsatiated beast that needs constant feeding.

That’s why I don’t set careers-related New Year resolutions—and I suggest you don’t either.

To explain, let me describe the context in which I read Poehler’s words. I was on a beach holiday, in the midst of a (rather cliched) quarter-life crisis, feeling burned-out and overworked. I had spent much of my early 20s focused on getting ahead and less on living life and having fun.

Each year I would set myself unachievable goals: write X number of articles each month, stay later at work, go to talks, try to learn a new language. That day on the beach I realised I had been stuffing my face with MSG and I needed a fresh approach.

I followed Poehler’s advice. She advises anyone to treat their career like a bad boyfriend, it will never call you back if you chase it. Instead, play it cool. Act like other aspects of your life—such as hobbies, relationships and passions—are more important (which they are). That’s when you’ll start enjoying your job.

I changed the way I viewed work. I put my career a little further down my list of priorities and stopped caring so much. I focused on the aspects of the job I loved and spent more time on them. I stopped chasing success and tried to focus on doing well for myself, following my passions. I tried to be as creative as possible. I ignored arbitrary targets and if I didn’t get everything done, I didn’t worry about it.

It worked for me and I started to feel more positive. Then good things came my way; when you stop looking at the phone it finally rings.

I’m not advising people stop working hard or let standards slip. I’m talking about cutting yourself some slack and learning to appreciate the world around you a bit more. After all, studies show that happy people do better at work and are more productive. 

If you need any more convincing that New Year resolutions, career focused or otherwise, are a waste of time then look at the evidence. A study shows that while half of all Americans make New Year’s resolutions, only eight percent of them succeed in keeping them. In Britain, it’s a similar picture. According to a ComRes poll for Bupa last year, almost two thirds of respondents admitted to having broken a resolution in the past—and the majority of these (66 percent) did so within just one month. This is because the goals we set ourselves are usually unachievable. It can be argued that setting realistic goals means success is more likely, but this is still a rather joyless way to approach life. These resolutions are not usually about what you want to be doing, but rather what you think you should be doing. The promises we make around our careers often are based on what other people are doing, or their expectations of us.

Perhaps the most convincing argument in favour of career resolutions is the need to focus and make progress. But this is a fallacy that presumes that we have control over the circumstances we are making resolutions about—and we don’t.

And if you’re still on the fence, maybe it’s worth remembering these other words from Poehler: “Depending on your career is like eating cake for breakfast and wondering why you start crying an hour later.”

—©2016 The Guardian