One of the reasons people set goals is because there’s an underlying assumption that we gain greater happiness when we achieve our goals. That can sometimes lead to entering into a never-ending chase of material things. And as we begin 2018, I’m sure many of us are setting new goals and resolutions. In fact, the first thing I got my Strengths Action Learning Team (SALT) participants to do was to help them set challenging and compelling goals, to be achieved with a strengths-based approach.
As I began 2018, I started by reviewing goals that I’ve set for myself in 2017. One of my goals was in the area of my physical health, and this meme says it all:
Yes, that means that I’m going to be setting a new fitness goal for myself. And as I started my goal setting process, I received an email from Seph Fontane Pennock, Co-founder of the Positive Psychology Program, that made me pause and think. This is what he said:
Hey Alex,
I can sit here and give you the whole spiel about new year’s resolutions, the importance of goal-setting, etc.
But I’m not gonna do that.
Because you don’t need that.
In fact, you’re probably overambitious and overcommitted like me and the last thing you need is someone to tell you to think big, reach your goals and achieve even greater things.
So let’s do things differently this year, together.
Let’s pause for a moment and take a good hard look at our desires and how we relate to them.
I’ll give you an example. My desires usually go like this:
“I want more of [x], so I go out and get it. And then I work until I get more of [x]. And then, before I find the time to actually enjoy what I worked for, my desires kick back in again and tell me I now want more of [y]. So I go out again to make sure to get more of [y].”
This cycle repeats itself. Endlessly. Because I let it.
“[…] every satisfied desire gives rise to a new one. No possible satisfaction in the world could suffice to still its longings, set a goal to its infinite cravings, and fill the bottomless abyss of its heart. Then let one consider what as a rule are the satisfactions of any kind that a man obtains.”
So imagine we were to work as hard on lessening our desires as on satisfying them, what that would do. I think we would all find the breath in life that we seem to be gasping for lately.
And since we would then need less than before, we would get more than we need, even if the getting remains unchanged.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s okay to want more out of life. There’s just great silliness to wanting more by default or expecting more will make you happy once you’ve got enough to live off. It will never stop.
Therefore, learn to love a plain bowl of rice as you would love a Michelin-star dinner.
It is in mastering this skill that true happiness lies.
And with that thought, I will leave you for now.
How true! Schopenhauer described the nature of our desires so well. Happiness in our lives isn’t just a function of achieving or acquiring more. It is a function of being able to appreciate more of what we already have or achieved.
Perhaps today would be a good time to slow down, look around, and appreciate the simple pleasures we have in our lives more. So set some goals, but make sure some of your goals are along the lines of practising more gratitude in your life.
What are your thoughts? And what would change for you as you read this?
