Happiness Goals for New Year resolutions
Your New Year resolutions present an opportunity to add more joy and generosity to your life. In fact, it’s not too ambitious to claim that your choice will even add to the happiness of the world! The happiness of others begins with your happiness. And you can achieve this when you set a happiness-building goal for your New Year’s resolution.
Strategic goal setting is a real way to increase your personal happiness. Before we get into the most beneficial types of goals, understand that goals are good for you. Regardless of what your resolution is, simply having a goal is linked to happier feelings! A 2005 article published in the Review of General Psychology by S. Lyubomirsky and colleagues reported that 50 percent genetics, 10 percent life circumstances, and 40 percent intentional choices determine people’s happiness. This means your choices have a big impact on personal happiness.
Once you set new goals, hope is injected into your feelings and attitude. You’ve gained a new purpose and have something to get excited about.
Why have goals not just New Year Resolutions?
You’ll feel more empowered and in control as you pursue a goal. Wrosch and Scheier reported in Quality of Life Research that goals increase your interest and engagement with life. Your actions have more meaning, and your sense of accomplishment goes up.
Niven author of 100 Simple Secrets of the Best Half of Life showed that having a goal lifts your self esteem. People with goals were 26 percent more likely to feel positive about themselves.
Better self esteem also helps you be more optimistic. And consider this: Having a goal reduces the attention you give to negative things. Researcher J. Barnard explained that stress and depression go down among people pursuing goals. Their focus shifts onto something more fulfilling.
That makes sense. If you had less stress, making healthier choices would be easier. Also with lower stress you would feel more positive and happier.
Essentially, working toward goals makes you:
- More satisfied
- More optimistic
- More focused
These results set in motion positive energy in your life. Optimistic people enjoy more success in health, relationships, and careers according to a 2005 article in Psychological Bulletin by S. Lyubomirsky and others.
The clear benefits of goals can be doubled when you choose happiness-building goals. Why? Because some goals bring more happiness than others.
How to Choose Happiness-Building Goals
Researcher B. Headey explained in Social Indicators Research in 2007 that goals can be separated into non-competitive and competitive types. Goals unrelated to competition revolve around family, friends, and community. Meeting such goals produces winners and no losers. This type of goal promotes happiness. Your personal development rewards both you and those around you.
Competitive goals, however, create winners and losers. This situation reduces happiness.
As you decide on your New Year resolutions there’s still more to think about. Consider if your goal is motivated by personal desire or the influence of society. This is known as intrinsic goals versus extrinsic goals. C.P. Niemiec and others wrote in the Journal of Research in Personality that intrinsic goals include personal growth, community involvement, and health improvement. Goals that support those things bring you more happiness.
Extrinsic goals like the pursuit of wealth and fame can lower self esteem. They cause anxiety and depression. Goals like that put your energy into what you think society values instead of what you really want.
Another way to evaluate goals is to decide if they are sustaining or draining. Similar to non-competitive goals, sustaining ones focus on:
- Building relationships
- Showing appreciation
- Seeking renewal
On the other hand, goals drain you when you’re going after more possessions and approval. Even when you succeed, you’re left wanting more.
The evidence that goals boost your happiness has even more to reveal. The total happiness of the world can indeed be raised! This happens because your happiness is contagious, creating an upward spiral. Your good feelings really do rub off on people around you.
We naturally respond to facial expressions, posture, and tone of voice. This instinctive sharing of emotions results from mirror neurons. We detect social cues and are hardwired to mimic what we see in others. This exchange of emotions can produce a positive feedback loop when we project happiness. D. Goleman explained this phenomenon in 2006 in the publication Educational Leadership. With this inborn system, the kindness and generosity we show to others makes us feel good too.
You don’t even have to be directly involved to catch the contagion of happiness. Research conducted by S. Schnall in 2010 and reported in Psychological Science showed that people became twice as helpful after simply seeing someone do a kind act.
New Year Resolutions- add to happiness, spread happiness
What if happiness went viral like a cute cat video or celebrity scandal?
The evidence strongly suggests that more people would feel happier. They would become more satisfied. A sense of purpose would inspire their actions. Our natural reaction to happiness is happiness. Knowing this, you should think of a goal that will truly add to your happiness. It’s what you should pursue in the New Year.
Because there’s so much to gain from happiness-building goals, we at Life Coach Hub are backing a new cause: the Happiness Goals Countdown. Every other day leading up to New Year’s, we’ll publish a research-backed goal proven to increase happiness that you can add to your New Years Resolutions this year.
This year set your sights on happiness.
Add goals that will really make you feel more enthusiastic about life! Great success will follow.
The Happiness Goals Countdown is here to change our thinking about New Year resolutions, and make the world a happier place. Join our cause, add happiness goals to your list this year, and become a Happiness Ambassador!
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To get set for happiness in the 2015 - watch out for Lorane Gordon’s new Happiness First system- launching soon. Register for her FREE master class, video course below.
Awesome post, great info
Thanks for the post and the challenge to be happy!