Enhancing happiness through goal achievement

Enhancing happiness through Goal achievement

The happiness formula


6/13/2011



Having a goal induces happiness, this article investigates on this idea, and it explains how to maximize the happiness obtained from goals.




Introduction
Happiness is a goal chased by all people, it is the prime mover for people actions and interactions, giving them reason to do things that they may not like, one will guess that such a universal target people will have clear idea what it is and what will lead to it, yet everyone has his/her different vision for how happiness can be achieved, can all of those visions be correct? It is thought that happiness can be achieved from different sources, in which obtaining what they want, need or dream will make them happy.
Yet, it has been found that the fact having a goal "working toward that goal" will make a person happy, this definition has dual interpretations; what if we are not working toward the goal? The answer is misery, so if someone wants to keep being happy; moving away from that goal should be avoided.
Goal is synonyms to project, project has phases, plans and resources, applying these elements to goals will insure goal achievement, so there is a need to understand goal life cycle, how it is achieved and its related resources that will insure happiness all the way of the journey.
Therotical
Goals and happiness
People goal is to achieve happiness, yet people are confused with the source for happiness, they think getting what they want will make them happy, but after achieving it for some time they become unhappy, they have not had that feeling as they were trying to achieve it, therefore working on a goal on its own will make you happy, as using your time on what you want will make happiness flow through your heart.
Happiness and having a goal are related to each other, this can be clarified through the following definition of "happiness": Happiness could be defined as the emotion of progress toward desirable goals. Although achieving a desirable goal would make you happy, working to achieve that goal would make you even happier. The formula of "progress toward desirable goals" will create feelings of happiness.
Goals psychology and physiology
There is a strong relation between having goals and physiology that is reflected on the psychology of people. Psychology identifies three theories that try to explain happiness, each theory approaches happiness from different angle that if combined together will give the maximum happiness, "engagement theory" is more related with the process to happiness, "affiliation theory" associates happiness with meaning and finally; "enjoyment theory" which is more about the feeling itself.

Engagement theory; when a person is engaged in an activity he/she become under the state of –flow, immersion and absorption-, in which he/she is intensely concentrating in the activity, forgetting him/her self and feeling completely challenged, the brain becomes focused on the activity in which it makes use of the emotion through controlling it and direct it to be more positive toward accomplishing the activity. In order to reach the state of "flow"; certain conditions have to be met: being involved in an activity with clear set of goals, there is a balance between the skills and the challenge of the activity and the task must have clear and immediate feedback. One should seek what he/she is curious about, always thinking about it, forgetting one's self with it, and it has to be intrinsic, that leads to the state of mindfulness; in which the person mind is busy 100% with the activity, such mood induces happiness, being engaged in an activity whether you enjoy it or not will add to happiness.

Affiliation theory; the larger the goal, the greater reward we get from it, but involving love, having loving relationships and contributing back to the community will make a person more happier. We are part of a system, believing so, the system values, beliefs and basis become our intrinsic values in which setting those values as goals will result in higher level of happiness, we are part of tripe, nation, humanity, nature and Islam; recognizing this; we shall know what type of goals will boost our happiness.

Enjoyment theory; we can reach happiness through shortcuts, as this theory discusses, in which happiness is directly related to the five senses and little thinking, it is following the easy come easy go principle in which happiness is only for short period, as watching a movie, surfing the net, going shopping, having sex, etc., are related to small activity. In this theory people are adopting engagement theory but on very small scale with very short duration that is using smallest subsystem in the affiliation theory; that’s associating only the body and/or small group of people. The enjoyment theory can be used as a basis to explain happiness on large scale that is deep long lasting happiness.

Human body and especially the brain go through reactions in order to make us experience different states, happiness has been investigated; it is related to two locations in the brain; prime locus of happiness "pre-frontal cortex" & other part "sub-cortex" and two chemicals one of them is identified as neurotransmitter mainly "dopamine" & the other chemical is "opioid" those inducing positive states in the emotion centers in the brain.
Knowing the happiness system and understanding how physiology works in this area shall make us understand how having a goal and happiness are related, in order to achieve a goal our body and brain should be in co-operation with us for our desire, otherwise it will be impossible to achieve anything, this can be seen in the following scenario: dopamine is related to desire and goal achievement, when having a goal; moving toward that goal will increase dopamine in the blood, thus making us happier, this fact will make us motivated just to work on goals, so this is an important fact that deep real happiness is largely related to having goals, another positive effect of dopamine is that it makes us maintain attention; thus helping us focus with working on goals.
A form of addiction is formed that when dopamine disappears the brain triggers anxiety related responses, that will put us back on track to work on the goal, this shall make us recognize the fact that setting unrealistic goal or so many goals will put the brain under anxiety and stress around non-achievement of that goal. A fact worth of mentioning is the bigger the goal the larger flow of dopamine is there; this can tell why having meaningful goal "affiliation theory" produces high level happiness as these goals are large by themselves.
Effective goals
Not all goals can make a person happy even if it could; still more happiness can be extracted from it; hence we have the idea of effective goal. The effectiveness of goals is defined by the benefits it posses and the character of the goal, having a goal by itself will improve person abilities and enhance his/her life, but having the goal with best characters will ensure goal achievement and also saving of resources "time, money and efforts" as not managing those resources will slow down the process of goal achievement and it may divert the purpose of the goal. An effective goal will give the following benefits:
Make you focus on what you really want.
Increase your self-confidence
You are clear about your actions and decisions
Increase the efficiency of the time
You have a say in your fate
Enhance your thinking level and it makes you see opportunities and possibilities
It will give you experience in dealing with goals and become motivated to accomplish more goals
Use your resources more efficiently
You can predict your future
You become enthusiastic about life
Dreaming and wishing are waste of time
Better health

Effective goal shall have the following characteristics:
Demanding goal: requiring more than someone can think of or do.
Specific
Achievable: if the goal seems impossible; break it into smaller simpler goals
Measurable
relevant
Timed: having deadline for each step
Written
Flexible to adopt changes
Challenging
Best goals
In general to stay happy a person will need to keep pursuing goal after goal, but there are goals that are more beneficial to a person than any other goals as it serves his/her prime needs leading them to satisfaction, such goals worth pursuing, the issue is that there are no specific defined goals for that purpose, rather those goals share common values that can be used to create an abstract for an ideal goal.
The best goals should share the following values:
Intrinsic goals
It is what the person wants, not imposed by others opinions or beliefs, coincides with his/her values, some goals like fame, money or beauty are generally designed by society, values on the other side are designed by one's own beliefs that touches his/her heart, both working on values- orientated goals and achieving them shall make the person deeply happy and excite him/her all the way and after, such as; something you are passion of, helping others, finding the truth or finding one of life secrets.

Goals that help you Grow as individual, having loving relationship and contributing to the community
Goals have side effects, there are positive-effects, a goal that helps you improve your abilities, knowledge and skills vs. the goals that does not, which one will make you happier, gaining one goal will make you happy but gaining more with one goal shall make you even happier.
Growing as individual will push you forward in life, moving to advanced goals requiring higher level of skills, as challenging goals contributes directly to happiness.
Having loving relationship, love and care are important needs that also require to pursue them, and if they were to be combined with goals; it will make us reach higher level of satisfaction.
Contributing to the community; the bigger the goal the higher the satisfaction will be, again; combining this with a goal will add more to the happiness.
The above three factors are parts of the intrinsic goals, as they reflect pure values.

Positive goals
Positive goals are to obtain something, while negative goals are to avoid something, the positive one will focus your attention and resources on something that you really need, not like the negative goals as it makes you sacrifice important resources not on something you want, clearly that positive ones are more profitable.
Multiple goals
The more goals we have the bigger the happiness can be achieved, though everything has limitation, then the question raises how many goals at a time should we have, limitations of the goal on the basis of the person ability shall be carried.
When selecting multiple goals we should focus on the quality of the goal achieved, the efficiency of the project, and distribution of the resources, we shall also consider the stress and feelings of the person. If we have one goal we might not use the resources efficiently to produce more happiness we might even have miserable moments in between, if we have so many goals the resources might run out affecting the quality, some goals don’t work together while others might work together else have no direct effect as its not effecting the resources. A goal will go though different phases, that will require different resources, it will be more efficient if we can run many goals that uses different resources at time. Resources can be (time, money, effort, heart, concentration), the output is assessed through the quality of the goal, and the overall situation is assessed through the efficiency.

Happiness and satisfaction
Happiness and satisfaction do not equal, rather they lead to one another indirectly, being unsatisfied about something will urge the person to take some steps and change some aspects so that he/she will reach satisfaction, the shifting between these two states "being unsatisfied to being satisfied" induces happiness.
Knowing your needs and wants; shall give you clear idea about what will lead you to satisfaction, the good reasoning you have for the goal the better the satisfaction will be reached; it can be understood that for one goal different levels of satisfaction can be reached, higher level of satisfaction can be achieved when the goal interacts with intrinsic values.
Other sources of happiness
Wikipedia shows main five sources for happiness, engagement; as discussed earlier is related to goals,, while pleasure, relationship, meaning and accomplishments are the state in which we make use of what was achieved. Overall; It seems that happiness can be reached only through goals.
Goal planning
Any step in life a person should take; he/she should think about it, probably study it and plan it, so that they have justification, they know from where they begin and to where they will end, and what obstacle will meet them. As of taking a journey across places you are not familiar with, without a road map there will be high possibility you get lost. The situation is similar with having a goal, to start from where you are now to where you want to be you should have a plan for what activities you should be doing and their arrangements to get you to the end point, this will give you an idea for the obstacles that might meet you and make you prepare to avoid it or overcome it.
Virtually, all goals are possible provided they should have the following features; 1. Clearly defined aim, 2. Linked steps, 3. Relevant and achievable proportions and timings for the steps. Generally a goal will go through the following phases; initiation, planning, execution, monitoring & control and closing in the stated order, to start planning we should meet the initiation criteria beforehand, during the planning we decide on  activities, their arrangements and the obstacles that will meet us, the activities will be executed in the execution phase, in the execution phase the activities will be monitored as if they are following the plan so that we keep focused on the track else we might need to adjust the plan to adopt any changes.



Practical
List of Values
In order to help people choose their values, there are 377 values identified:

 1. Abundance
2. Acceptance
3. Accessibility
4. Accomplishment
5. Accuracy
6. Achievement
7. Acknowledgement
8. Activeness
9. Adaptability
10. Adoration
11. Adroitness
12. Adventure
13. Affection
14. Affluence
15. Aggressiveness
16. Agility
17. Alertness
18. Altruism
19. Ambition
20. Amusement
21. Anticipation
22. Appreciation
23. Approachability
24. Articulacy
25. Assertiveness
26. Assurance
27. Attentiveness
28. Attractiveness
29. Audacity
30. Availability
31. Awareness
32. Awe
33. Balance
34. Beauty
35. Being the best
36. Belonging
37. Benevolence
38. Bliss
39. Boldness
40. Bravery
41. Brilliance
42. Buoyancy
43. Calmness
44. Camaraderie
45. Candor
46. Capability
47. Care
48. Carefulness
49. Celebrity
50. Certainty
51. Challenge
52. Charity
53. Charm
54. Chastity
55. Cheerfulness
56. Clarity
57. Cleanliness
58. Clear-mindedness
59. Cleverness
60. Closeness
61. Comfort
62. Commitment
63. Compassion
64. Completion
65. Composure
66. Concentration
67. Confidence
68. Conformity
69. Congruency
70. Connection
71. Consciousness
72. Consistency
73. Contentment
74. Continuity
75. Contribution
76. Control
77. Conviction
78. Conviviality
79. Coolness
80. Cooperation
81. Cordiality
82. Correctness
83. Courage
84. Courtesy
85. Craftiness
86. Creativity
87. Credibility
88. Cunning
89. Curiosity
90. Daring
91. Decisiveness
92. Decorum
93. Deference
94. Delight
95. Dependability
96. Depth
97. Desire
98. Determination
99. Devotion
100. Devoutness
101. Dexterity
102. Dignity
103. Diligence
104. Direction
105. Directness
106. Discipline
107. Discovery
108. Discretion
109. Diversity
110. Dominance
111. Dreaming
112. Drive
113. Duty
114. Dynamism
115. Eagerness
116. Economy
117. Ecstasy
118. Education
119. Effectiveness
120. Efficiency
121. Elation
122. Elegance
123. Empathy
124. Encouragement
125. Endurance
126. Energy
127. Enjoyment
128. Entertainment
129. Enthusiasm
130. Excellence
131. Excitement
132. Exhilaration
133. Expectancy
134. Expediency
135. Experience
136. Expertise
137. Exploration
138. Expressiveness
139. Extravagance
140. Extroversion
141. Exuberance
142. Fairness
143. Faith
144. Fame
145. Family
146. Fascination
147. Fashion
148. Fearlessness
149. Ferocity
150. Fidelity
151. Fierceness
152. Financial
independence
153. Firmness
154. Fitness
155. Flexibility
156. Flow
157. Fluency
158. Focus
159. Fortitude
160. Frankness
161. Freedom
162. Friendliness
163. Frugality
164. Fun
165. Gallantry
166. Generosity
167. Gentility
168. Giving
169. Grace
170. Gratitude
171. Gregariousness
172. Growth
173. Guidance
174. Happiness
175. Harmony
176. Health
177. Heart
178. Helpfulness
179. Heroism
180. Holiness
181. Honesty
182. Honor
183. Hopefulness
184. Hospitality
185. Humility
186. Humor
187. Hygiene
188. Imagination
189. Impact
190. Impartiality
191. Independence
192. Industry
193. Ingenuity
194. Inquisitiveness
195. Insightfulness
196. Inspiration
197. Integrity
198. Intelligence
199. Intensity

200. Intimacy
201. Intrepidness
202. Introversion
203. Intuition
204. Intuitiveness
205. Inventiveness
206. Investing
207. Joy
208. Judiciousness
209. Justice
210. Keenness
211. Kindness
212. Knowledge
213. Leadership
214. Learning
215. Liberation
216. Liberty
217. Liveliness
218. Logic
219. Longevity
220. Looking good
221. Love
222. Loyalty
223. Majesty
224. Making a difference
225. Mastery
226. Maturity
227. Meekness
228. Mellowness
229. Meticulousness
230. Mindfulness
231. Modesty
232. Motivation
233. Mysteriousness
234. Nature
235. Neatness
236. Nerve
237. Obedience
238. Open-mindedness
239. Openness
240. Optimism
241. Order
242. Organization
243. Originality
244. Outlandishness
245. Outrageousness
246. Passion
247. Peace
248. Perceptiveness
249. Perfection
250. Perkiness
251. Perseverance
252. Persistence
253. Persuasiveness
254. Philanthropy
255. Piety
256. Playfulness
257. Pleasantness
258. Pleasure
259. Poise
260. Polish
261. Popularity
262. Potency
263. Power
264. Practicality
265. Pragmatism
266. Precision
267. Preparedness
268. Presence
269. Privacy
270. Proactivity
271. Professionalism
272. Prosperity
273. Prudence
274. Punctuality
275. Purity
276. Realism
277. Reason
278. Reasonableness
279. Recognition
280. Recreation
281. Refinement
282. Reflection
283. Relaxation
284. Reliability
285. Religiousness
286. Resilience
287. Resolution
288. Resolve
289. Resourcefulness
290. Respect
291. Rest
292. Restraint
293. Reverence
294. Richness
295. Rigor
296. Ritual
297. Sacredness
298. Sacrifice
299. Sagacity
300. Saintliness
301. Sanguinity
302. Satisfaction
303. Security
304. Self-control
305. Selflessness
306. Self-reliance
307. Sensitivity
308. Sensuality
309. Serenity
310. Service
311. Sexuality
312. Sharing
313. Shrewdness
314. Significance
315. Silence
316. Silliness
317. Simplicity
318. Sincerity
319. Skillfulness
320. Solidarity
321. Solitude
322. Soundness
323. Speed
324. Spirit
325. Spirituality
326. Spontaneity
327. Spunk
328. Stability
329. Stealth
330. Stillness
331. Strength
332. Structure
333. Success
334. Support
335. Supremacy
336. Surprise
337. Sympathy
338. Synergy
339. Teamwork
340. Temperance
341. Thankfulness
342. Thoroughness
343. Thoughtfulness
344. Thrift
345. Tidiness
346. Timeliness
347. Traditionalism
348. Tranquility
349. Transcendence
350. Trust
351. Trustworthiness
352. Truth
353. Understanding
354. Unflappability
355. Uniqueness
356. Unity
357. Usefulness
358. Utility
359. Valor
360. Variety
361. Victory
362. Vigor
363. Virtue
364. Vision
365. Vitality
366. Vivacity
367. Warmth
368. Watchfulness
369. Wealth
370. Willfulness
371. Willingness
372. Winning
373. Wisdom
374. Wittiness
375. Wonder
376. Youthfulness
377. Zeal


How to create values, through looking how others make their values it will help us creating ours, Companies are good in creating their values, and to quote their values it will be easier to give an example of how to develop values. Some of companies' values:
We take responsibility for quality, We deliver customer satisfaction, We provide leadership as company and as individual, We act with integrity in all we do, We value company people, We regard our suppliers as essential team leaders, We will be open, honest and reliable in everything we do, achieving and maintaining the highest levels of professional service to our stakeholders and each other, We will work together to achieve our vision and mission, We will share experiences, knowledge and ideas to foster greater communication, interaction and cohesiveness within the organization, We will treat all people, inside and outside the organization, with dignity and respect, We recognize the role innovation can play in achieving the organization's vision and mission, We will foster a culture that encourages employees to maximize their potential, We will support and encourage employees to be responsible and accountable, and to make decisions within the scope of their role.

Enjoyment & happiness
I want to lead people to happiness, finalizing the plan will make me satisfied that I have finished my duty, but I will enjoy it when I make use of it. People need to desire what is valuable that they can use, desiring what is not valuable will make the enjoyment last for short period, so the more useful goals will last longer. Pleasure, relation, meaning and accomplishment are mental states which are achieved after satisfaction has been reached and they are all enjoyment states, enjoyment maps into the opioid system.

Intrinsic goals examples
Intrinsic goals show that the goal is more valuable and more useful to the person or to a community, in that he will be motivated intrinsically to keep pursuing the goal, you can differentiate intrinsic goals from extrinsic ones through the following examples;

intrinsic:
going to college because you want to learn
getting along with your brother because it's the right thing to do
getting good grades because you want to
practice babysitting because you love kids
learning how to cook because you enjoy cooking

extrinsic:
going to college to get a degree
getting along with your brother so he will lend you money
getting good grades so your parents will buy you a wii
practice babysitting so you will have money
learning how to cook so that you'll earn more money as a chef


Multiple goals essentials
Doing more than one goal at the same time is complicated procedure, depends on the goals' nature, so it's not easy to specify a single procedure that can be applied to integrate different goals, though there are things to consider when doing more than one goal; (as per visitask.com)
Scheduling resources – Since you have to plan for several projects simultaneously, you need to schedule manpower and physical resources to ensure that no one project is given all the attention or neglected totally.
Establish priorities – prioritizing is crucial to managing multiple projects. By assigning higher priority to value-added tasks, you can allocate your time to those specifics that yield higher and better results.
Delegate – In conjunction with establishing priorities, you need to delegate all but the most important tasks. This often means trusting your team a lot more, and for this reason it is important to have people with you that you have worked with before and / or people with experience.
Integrated project scheduling – With multiple projects, you have to schedule different tasks and phases of your projects in simultaneous time slots. Maybe you’re in the final stages of one project and in the development / production phase of another, while you have two projects in the planning phase. Integrating your activities to ensure that different phases of different projects can be executed in harmony at the same time.


Better not to have multiple goals, since the idea is to have a time to rest and enjoy our accomplishment, no need to rush and get stressed, plus our life is already full.


Goal planning methodology
The first rule in creating a goal is to write down your goal clearly, and most of the plan should be written down, it shall be in the following structure:
Produce a document that the goal pursuing will be conducted through it.
The document will have the following sections:
The Introduction: state the goal, why was it chosen, what and who will it serve, who are the stakeholders and state how will you make use of what you have achieved, state the purpose of the goal, the scope: the limits of the goal, create leading ideas and questions.
Background: detailed background on the topic and the leading ideas & questions.
Methodology: based on information in the background, state how the goal will be achieved, it should include all the steps and sub-steps, consider plan B.  Planning should be based on causes and effects, that to reach a target certain criteria should be met, state the resources: details on the budget and timelines, Gantt chart is produced, how will it be monitored and controlled: select measurements for feedback and explain how it will be analyzed, it may depend on milestones.
Execution: apply methodology and note down everything you do and observe, follow the Gantt chart, use monitoring and control to keep on track.
Closing: have a break have fun, make notes for next goal, evaluate your achievement, and start to make use of your achievement.

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Simple plan is shown in the following website (http://www.businessballs.com/goal_planning.htm)
Satisfaction levels
Satisfaction level will guide people to what they really need, want and what is important, for the satisfaction levels look at "Maslow's hierarchy of needs". (from Wikipedia)
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Happiness (rate of change)
As an example; we will take profit making to explain the idea, if a guy wants to reach 100 thousands $, in one scenario he is making 10 thousands a month and in the other scenario he is making 20 thousands a month, clearly he will be happier in the second situation provided other satisfaction aspects are not affected. We will need to work little bit harder if we want to enhance our happiness.
Conclusion
Happiness has a formula, that if people apply the basis for it; happiness shall be guaranteed, the main element in this formula is to have a goal and then to work toward achieving the goal, so the fact is; there is only one source of happiness, and obtaining what people want will not make them happy; it will give them a chance for enjoyment.


References
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PJ Germain, expert author, http://ezinearticles.com/?Characteristics-of-Effective-Goals&id=358226
Zorka Hereford , liberal arts degree with studies in philosophy and psychology, http://www.essentiallifeskills.net/effectivegoalsetting.html
Stephen Mills on September 23, 2009, The Rat Race Trap http://www.ratracetrap.com/the-rat-race-trap/how-to-create-happiness-enhancing-goals.html
Elizabeth Scott, M.S. wellness coach, health educator, How To Be Happy: Step By Step Guide To Being Happy, http://stress.about.com/od/lowstresslifestyle/ss/happy_4.htm
Greg Mackie, circle of atonement, http://www.circleofa.org/cmw/WhatGoal.php
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Nate, a writer, mindfulness practitioner, The Link Between Mindfulness and Happiness, http://www.fearlessendeavors.com/link-between-mindfulness-happiness/
Dustin Wax, The Science of Setting Goals, http://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/the-science-of-setting-goals.html
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Thrive Foundation for Youth, Pursuing multiple goals, http://stepitup2thrive.org/downloads/4-goal-management/youth-readings/4.5-pursuing-multiple-goals.pdf
Michaela Riediger , Alexandra M. Freund Interference and Facilitation among Personal Goals, http://psp.sagepub.com/content/30/12/1511.abstract
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http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/satisfaction
http://www.goal4success.com/goals-me/index.html
https://www.wikipeida.com