Guest post by Andrea Taylor, LifeCoachHub
Tips to Reach Your Goals and Increase Your Happiness
Happiness depends on many things. Some factors you can’t control. But you can pick your goals. With the right ones you can influence your happiness. Wrosch and Scheier reported in Quality of Life Research that our choices create 40 percent of our happiness. The researchers added that goals boost your happiness because they give your life meaning and a sense accomplishment.
Simply pursuing a goal can make you happier. Time magazine reported in 2013 that among people working toward a goal 35 percent said the pursuit itself made them happier.
For the greatest effect you have to set realistic goals. As humans, we have incredible imaginations. We can envision great things for ourselves. But when our goals are too grandiose, we get frustrated. Long term gain is hard to get when you confront short term realities.
For example, your goal to organize the house excited you until the clutter overwhelmed your motivation. The solution is to plan small short term goals that lead to the big reward. A promise to organize one closet or cabinet a week is easier to keep. By meeting small goals you will eventually achieve something big.
And for people wanting to get in shape, tell yourself to do the exercise for 10 minutes this week, then 15 minutes the next, and build from there. Your rising health and fitness will reward you and motivate you to reach higher goals.
Although long term goals are challenging, it’s still good to dream big. Just remember to plan manageable steps along the way. Then you’ll gain happiness and motivation more often. This will keep you going.
With the right strategy your goals can give you more success and happiness. Need some inspiration? Check out the Happiness Goals Countdown from Life Coach Hub. We were inspired to start this cause because research has shown that people are pretty bad at predicting what will make them happier. So we might set goals and New Years resolutions with the noble intention of a happier, more fulfilling life, but even when we reach them, our ultimate goal falls short.
The Happiness Goals Countdown seeks to provide a much-needed salve to this perennial problem. We present research about the relationship between goals and happiness, and discuss the types of goals that lead to longer term fulfillment as well as those that not only don’t fill up our happiness banks, but actually make withdrawals from it!
To make it even more concrete, we’re publishing a series of articles about goals that research has shown do have lasting impacts on goals. For instance, happiness goal #1 is about making it a resolution this year to set aside 10 minutes of each day to daydream. Sound strange? Well it turns out that the joyful aspiration and hoping we do when daydreaming is strongly linked to happiness. And that’s not the only reason it’s a happy goal. Check out the countdown and get some more inspiration of how to add happiness to your list this year!
Image via LifeCoachHub.com