Our typical goals will not bring us the sense of wellbeing we expect. That’s because our biases negatively impact our goal setting and experiences. Here are five ways to overcome this flawed goal setting.

It’s not uncommon to have everything on paper, but still feel a lack of wellbeing or happiness. This is because we tend to focus on the wrong goals. Even though we have strong intuitions about what will make us happy, our mind is playing tricks on us. If we understand these biases, we can set better goals to boost our wellbeing.

Key Take-Away Points

Yale University’s popular course, The Science of Well-Being, is taught by Laurie Santos and offered for free through Coursera.

  • I recently went through the course and you can too! Click here.
  • Santos teaches several science-based techniques for enhancing well-being. I’ll post about those next!
  • Before we can implement the course’s recommendations for better wellbeing, we must first understand how we’re hard-wired to focus on the wrong goals.

Five Ways We’re Hard-Wired to Focus on the Wrong Goals:

  • Knowledge is not enough. We think if we know what to do, we’ll do it, but this is a fallacy.
  • Wanting the wrong things makes us focus on the wrong goals. We engage in “miswanting,” meaning we tend to be mistaken about if and how much we’re going to like our accomplishments and possessions in the future.
  • We don’t use reasonable reference points, comparing ourselves to standards that are not relative to our situation.
  • Our “hedonic adaptation” causes us to adapt and become less sensitive over time, so we forget how far we’ve come and how good we have it.
  • “Impact bias” causes us to overestimate the emotional impact (both good and bad) of things in terms of their intensity and duration.

What To Do About It:

  • If you want to improve your well-being, you must set goals that help you change your habits. (Knowledge alone is not enough!)
  • Be intentional with the goals you set by focusing on experiences over accomplishments or possessions.
  • Set goals and measure your performance relative to yourself, not others. It’s especially important to control media consumption!
  • Periodically reflect on your progress, remind yourself how far you’ve come, and celebrate your successes.
  • Define what’s truly “awesome” to you (other than house, job, income, etc.) and set goals/habits around these experiences (not things).

It can be really helpful to work with a health and wellness coach to ensure you’re setting the right goals and protecting yourself from these biases!

Helpful Links

Take “The Science of Well-Being” through Coursera.

Additional Posts Related to Goal Setting:

Small Changes, Big Transformation

Understanding our biases and setting more appropriate goals is one small change we can make to prioritize our health and build resilience. Wellness doesn’t have to feel so overwhelming. Give this practice a try this week and let me know how it goes!

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