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Achievable Challenge

Techniques > Happiness > Achievable Challenge

Description

Take on challenges. Set yourself goals, including short- medium- and long-term objectives. Think about what you want to achieve in life and then plan your way there in steps you can tick off a list.

Make sure the challenges you take on are achievable, so do not try to jump over the moon. Also make sure your challenges challenge you and are not too easy.

Dive into your challenges and always do your best. Get lost in the action, focusing on the doing and not just 'being happy'.

Believe in yourself and your goals. Enjoy the journey as well as the achievement at the end.

Discussion

One of the basic ways we get happy is by meeting our goals, as opposed to the frustration and anger we feel when we do not. Setting goals and meeting them might hence seem an easy route to happiness. The problem is that goals which are too easy are not that rewarding. Our brains want us to improve and grow and make us happy only when we deserve it.

Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi uses the term 'flow' for the state we get into when we are engaged in something enjoyable, where time seems to fly by. He also describes an 'autotelic personality' (auto=self, telos=goal) as someone who sets themselves challenging, but achievable, goals.

An important part of finding flow is letting go of the self. When you are immersed in doing something, you lose track of your sense of identity. This can be particularly scary for those who are very self-focused and, paradoxically, the selfish often have difficulty finding happiness.

There is also a curious 'work-play' paradox, where people at work are dreaming of holidays, yet sitting on the beach is quickly boring. Asked about when they were happiest, many people will describe times at work when they achieved significant goals.

Achievable Challenge

Description

Discussion

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