I recently finished a coursera about the science of well-being, and over the course of those weeks, I learned about a term called “miswanting”. Cognitive psychologists have found that many traditional goals – a good job, high salary, cool stuff, true love, and the perfect body – don’t actually make us happy. I once wrote up a list of life goals, but I’ve learned that those accomplishments might not be as satisfying as we want them to be. Instead, we should have more simple life goals.
Why and What are We Miswanting?
According to research, those traditional goals, including lots of money and lots of stuff, doesn’t actually make us happy. That’s because our brains are really good at getting used to things. This has served as an evolutionary benefit, but these days, it just serves to make us constantly want more.
Instead, we should have more simple life goals. The things that will actually make us happy are: kindness, social connection, time affluence, mindfulness, and healthy habits. I’ve taken some time to brainstorm some good examples of goals for each of those things.
Simple Life Goals to Make You Happy
The five categories I’ll be addressing are: kindness, social connection, time affluence, mindfulness, and healthy habits. I would highly recommend experimenting with including these in your life. Some of them might be more impactful for you than others. But you can create lasting life satisfaction by implementing some of these simple life goals.
Kindness
Turns out, if we do small acts of kindness for others, it makes us happy. In one study, researchers compared the effects of spending money on others with spending money on ourselves. As it turns out, spending money on others – even small amounts, like $5 – generates more happiness than buying something cool for ourselves.
Here are some simple ways to integrate kindness into your life:
- Buy a coffee for a friend every week
- Send people cards for their birthdays and other big events
- Identify a small chore and do it for a friend or loved one
- Make and deliver (or order!) a meal to a friend who is really busy
- Pay for the next person’s coffee
Social Connection
Humans are social animals. There have been a bunch of studies that show that interacting with other people makes us happy in a meaningful, lasting way. In fact, as you get older, keeping up social connections makes you less likely to contract a bunch of diseases!
And I know we live in a weird time (what with COVID-19 and all), but keep in mind that you don’t need to cultivate deep, meaningful connections in order to reap the benefits of these simple life goals. In fact, just making eye contact with a stranger and smiling has some benefit!
With that in mind, here are some ways to deliberately get some social connection in your life:
- Schedule a call with someone you haven’t talked to in a while
- Text someone and ask them about their day – not “how are you?” but rather a more impactful question (try, “What are you up to today?”)
- Compliment a stranger
- Make eye contact and smile with three people on the street on your way to work
Time Affluence
Time affluence is when you feel like you have ample time to enjoy. When you generate time affluence, you regularly engage in rest and hobbies, and enjoy the time you spend on them. I’ve talked about time affluence before, so check out that post for more information.
Research shows that time affluence drives more life satisfaction than monetary affluence. (Caveat: up until about $75k in income, every additional dollar drives a significant amount of life satisfaction, but after that, time affluence is the way to go)
Here’s some ways to create time affluence in your life:
- Carve out 15 minutes for something you’ll really enjoy
- When you eat breakfast, take the time to prepare and eat it, without doing anything else with your time
- Create (and perfect!) a skincare routine
- Try reverse scheduling, where you put your recreation activities on the calendar BEFORE you schedule everything else
Mindfulness
Mindfulness is a really hot topic these days, and for a good reason. Turns out, around half the time (46.9% or so), our brains aren’t focused on anything in particular. Instead, our brains use what’s called the default network. Whenever we’re not specifically focused on our task, our brain switches over to the default network. Our minds wander. We’re imagining the future or the past.
As it happens, using the default network doesn’t necessarily make us happy. When we’re dwelling on positive things, we tend to be just as happy as when we’re focused on a task. But if we’re dwelling on neutral or negative things, we’re less happy.
Meditation and other mindfulness habits train our brain to stay focused on the here and now more often. Over time, this helps us maximize the time we spend focused, driving more lifetime happiness.
Here are some simple goals to add mindfulness to your life:
- Research simple meditations and commit to trying a different one every week for a month
- Yawn and stretch for 10 seconds every hour
- Try mindful driving the next time you drive to the grocery store
- Do a mindful wakeup every day for a week
Healthy Habits
Do I need to explain that good sleep and regular exercise is good for you? There is plenty of science to support getting at least 7 hours of sleep per night and exercising for 30 minutes thrice weekly. But if you struggle to implement those things in your life, here are some simple goals to sneak them into your life:
- Turn off all electronics 30 minutes before bedtime for a week
- Try three new kinds of exercise this month
- Pick a bedtime and stick to it for five days
- Check the weather and pick the three best days this week. Get outside for a walk during the warmest hours of the day
Summary
Life goals don’t need to be extreme to make us happy. In fact, the simple life goals might be the ones that make us happiest. Kindness, social connection, time affluence, mindfulness, and healthy habits are going to make us happier than any career or monetary goal we have. Cognitive psychology has many, many studies to support this. So get out there and set some simple life goals for yourself!
