Goals.

Goal setting can be a barrier to happiness in the same way that anything else can be. When we look at our lives and say, "I'll be happy once I get this," we put our happiness outside ourselves. We're looking at the things that will make us happy and waiting for them to happen before we feel good about ourselves and our lives. We're putting all of our eggs in one basket, so to speak, which is never a great strategy for feeling good about yourself. This also creates pressure on when we will feel joy and happiness (time-stamped happiness). 
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But what if we flipped it around? What if instead of waiting for something outside of ourselves for happiness, we looked inside ourselves and asked, "What would make me feel happy right now?" And then did it? That's a whole different story. Suddenly, when you start looking at things from a place of self-love instead of self-loathing, everything changes—and none of it has anything to do with goals.