Alysa Liu beat the arrival fallacy - and then she won Olympic gold

When Alysa Liu threw her arms into the air in Milan, gold medal secured, the joy on her face didn’t reflect a person who had finally “arrived”, but that of someone who had already found what she was looking for.

The 20-year-old had just become the first American woman since Sarah Hughes in 2002 to win Olympic gold in women’s singles figure skating. It was the kind of crowning achievement athletes spend their entire childhoods chasing.

But in Liu’s case, she had already walked away from it all once. At 16, after becoming a national champion at 13 and one of the brightest prodigies in American skating, she retired. She was burned out. She wanted to be a normal teenager. So she stepped away from elite competition, not because she failed, but because she succeeded too early and too intensely. And that decision may have been the most important one of her career.

The “arrival fallacy” and how Alysa Liu beat it

Psychologists call it the “arrival fallacy”, the belief that happiness lives on the other side of achievement. Win the title, get the promotion, make the Olympic team, whatever it is. Achieve it, and then you’ll be fulfilled.

But research consistently shows something surprising. People often experience a dip in happiness after reaching a long-sought goal. With the pressure gone and the chase over, the “now what?” creeps in.

For many athletes, the climb is intoxicating, but the summit can feel strangely empty. Liu’s first chapter followed that arc. She was a prodigy, expected to win before she was old enough to drive. The spotlight arrived early, and with it, the weight of it. And instead of doubling down, she stepped away.

When Liu returned to competitive skating at 18, she did so on her own terms. She has said repeatedly that she came back not for medals or validation, but because she missed skating.

By 19, she was world champion. At 20, she was an Olympic gold medalist. But watch her free skate in Milan and the defining quality isn’t technical difficulty. It’s joy. She smiled through her program. She skated loose, electric, and unburdened. Afterward, she described feeling “calm, happy, and confident”, and that came through in her performance.

Those are not the words of someone skating to prove something. They are the words of someone skating because she wants to. And paradoxically, that freedom may have made her unbeatable.

The science of happiness and freedom of letting go

There’s a reason so many elite athletes talk about performing their best when they “stop pressing.” Neuroscience backs it up. Pressure narrows focus and tightens muscles. On the other hand, joy widens perception and flow states emerge when the brain isn’t fixated on outcome.

Liu’s comeback wasn’t about chasing gold, but rather reclaiming ownership of her sport. She no longer needed the medal to justify her career. She’d already proven she could walk away. That psychological safety, the knowledge that skating was a choice and not a trap, changed everything. When you don’t need the result, you’re free to perform.

On the podium in Milan, Liu bit her medal, waved the American flag, and soaked it in. But her story resonates beyond figure skating because it challenges a cultural myth. We’re told to grind, to sacrifice, and to delay happiness until the big win. Liu did the opposite. She paused, she lived, and she returned for the love of it. And then she won.

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