Goal Setting
Working toward goals can significantly increase your happiness in a variety of ways: it gives you direction, adds structure to your life, empowers you, builds confidence, helps you master your time, and often encourages you to engage with others in the pursuit of your goal. People who break down goals into small, actionable steps are more likely to achieve them.
Following your dreams can have a huge impact on your happiness, but does it matter what the dream is? Evidence shows that, actually, it does! The goals that will bring you the most significant happiness are as follows:
Goal Information
Goals that you set for yourself, as opposed to goals that others set for you.
Example: Doing a community service project because you want to instead of because it is required for a class.
Goals that you truly "own," as opposed to those that are favored by your parents, spouse, or other people in your life.
Example: Being a biology major because you love the subject instead of studying biology because your family wants you to become a doctor.
Goals that you set that involve approaching a desirable outcome, as opposed to those that involve avoiding an undesirable outcome.
Example: Exercising to improve health instead of exercising to avoid feeling guilty.
Goals that make room for unexpected life changes or fluctuations in time. These goals might be considered "right tasks at the right time," as opposed to goals that are rigid.
Example: Setting a reasonable debt-elimination goal after you start your first job and know your salary instead of setting a goal before you have a job to eliminate school debt in two years.