Moving goalposts is the tactic of changing the criteria for success or approval precisely when you meet them. You satisfy the stated requirement, and a new one appears; you clear that, and the definition shifts again — often with a “that’s not what I meant” that recasts what was originally agreed. Kept vague from the start, the standard can always be redefined after the fact, so the game is unwinnable by construction. Its slow effect is learned helplessness: enough rounds of striving-then-failing can teach you to stop trusting that effort leads anywhere.
If you feel like you’re constantly falling short despite genuinely trying, consider that the shortfall may be manufactured. When success is met not with acknowledgment but with a fresh hurdle, the problem is the receding target, not your adequacy. That reframe matters, because the tactic’s real damage is to your confidence — it convinces you the failure is in you rather than in a standard designed never to be reached.
The counter is to make the target hold still. Concrete, written criteria give “done” a fixed meaning that can’t be quietly revised, and naming a shift when it happens — “we agreed on X; adding a new condition now changes the deal” — declines the endless-revision game without needing the other person’s cooperation. An outside perspective helps you gauge whether expectations are actually reasonable, and when moving goalposts is one thread in a broader pattern of control, support is available to help you see the whole and protect yourself.