There are a few reasons that goal achievement might not make you happy:

1. Adaptation, your brain adapts quickly to the changed environment and returns to its original feeling states
2. Miscalculation, you may be simply be wrong in predicting what goals make you happy
3. Downside, you may have not fully appreciated the downside of achieving your goals (e.g., a new house brings maintenance problems, less cash for vacations, higher heating bills)

So why achieve goals? I find that I achieve goals for the following reasons:

1. Self-Confidence, achieving goals helps me develop confidence in my abilities to act in the world
2. Smooth Living, achieving goals helps me to live more smoothly and efficiently. There are fewer bumps in the road.
3. Wife is happy; my wife is pleasantly surprised about how quickly issues get resolved.

One can be happy with or without conscious goals.

Making your happiness conditional on achieving a goal is a dangerous path. Saying ”I will be happy IF I achieve ____” is a sure way to motivate you to act, but the risk is that you are unhappy during the long process of achieving that goal, and this might require years. 

You will spend more time working to achieve your goal (years) than actually achieving it (one day). After achieving the goal your brain will begin the process of adaptation, and your peak level of happiness will vanish.   

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 27th, 2007 at 2:57 pm and is filed under Happiness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.