Fundamental Six: Lower Your Expectations & Aspirations

Created By: MICHAEL W. FORDYCE, Ph.D Answers the question – What are the top 14 traits of happy people? Highlights Happy people tend to: have lower, and more modest expectations and aspirations a slightly lower desire for success than unhappy people not postpone their happiness to a future point - the whole "I will be happy when" - Happy people are already happy -NOW! not "need" their ambitions to become reality in order to be happy THE MAJOR POINTS Don't set yourself up for disappointment. Our culture greatly overestimates the relationship between long-term goals and happiness. Happiness is a way to travel, not a place to arrive. (happy people know this & get happiness now rather then expecting it later!!!!) Success may not lead to happiness, but happiness leads to success. Happy people get what they want, because they want what they can get. The Sixth Fundamental is "Lower Your Expectations and Aspirations." It is also known as "the controversial Fundamental." It is based upon research findings which show that happy people tend to have lower, more modest expectations and aspirations, while unhappy people tend to be typified by extremely high expectations and goals. The conclusion, therefore, would seem to be that you would be happier if you lowered your own expectations and aspirations. Now, this conclusion strikes most people as quite controversial -- if not downright shocking. Lower your expectations and aspirations? It just doesn't sound right! One would think that happiness is more associated with high hopes, high ambitions, high goals, etc. -- not lower ones! Lower expectations and aspirations seem to run counter with everything we've been taught since childhood. We've heard that we should "dream the impossible dream," "reach the unreachable star," "set our sights high," etc.. Yet, this Fundamental will suggest that a more modest approach to life and goal-setting is the key to happiness. That is why this Fundamental is considered so controversial. Indeed, it was quite a puzzlement to me when I first stumbled onto it... Like most of us, I was raised on the "American Dream." I grew to believe that success, ambition, lofty goals, "making it to the top," etc. was the way to be happy. Second best was not good enough! Only the winners in life were happy (or so I was taught). The messages were everywhere. Magazines and T.V. were filled with the flashy cars, the beautiful homes, the exquisite people, the high-status careers... The "life-styles of the rich and famous" -- that's what it took to be happy! I bought it hook, line, and sinker. I bought it so well, that had I written this book based on my own personal views, it would be filled with inspirational "pep-talks" stressing high-achievement themes. I would have written things like "be a winner," "go for the gold," "don't stop, 'till you're on top," and the like. The message was so deeply ingrained, I never questioned it. Imagine, then, my shock, as I originally began to amass the past research on happiness, to find indications that the happiest people weren't highly ambitious. In fact, the data showed quite the opposite: those individuals who had the highest need to achieve -- the ones who placed the greatest stress on high ambitions and goals -- the ones most driven to succeed -- we're rather unhappy people! In fact, the data indicated that happy people actually had a slightly lower desire for success than unhappy people, and their "need for achievement" tended to be a bit lower, as well (95, 133, 175). High ambition appeared to be much more characteristic of the unhappy (133, 135, 390). In studies of values, for instance, those people strongly stressing values on achievement, ambition, and great accomplishment were usually unhappy (201, 202). Unhappy people were especially likely to set rigid and over-idealized goals for themselves (202, 132). Even the typical emotional demeanor we associate with success and achievement (the picture of drive, self-denial, and ambition) appeared to be more typical of unhappy, rather than happy, people. The happy person was found to be far less driven, more relaxed, and basically contented (202). Initially, some researchers pinpointed an obvious conclusion: clearly a main reason happy people aren't as ambitious is because they've already arrived! Many happy people, as we've seen before, already enjoy a great deal of success, and rarely express any desire to change their life (147). Why would they be particularly ambitious, when they're already there? But what about the many who've yet to arrive? The data regarding lower ambitions and expectations seemed to apply at all achievement levels... Obviously, there was something more fundamental we happiness researchers should investigate further. My own, subsequent investigations tended to confirmed the original findings in many ways. Despite my original skepticism, I have, through my study, finally come appreciate how lower expectations and aspirations lead to happiness for all of us. Hopefully, this Chapter, will help clarify this "controversial" Fundamental for you. MY OWN VIEWS Before we continue, however, it is appropriate here to reiterate that the Fourteen Fundamentals are all based solely on scientific research; not on my own opinions or conjecture. In fact, if this book had been based on my own personal philosophy and views, the Fundamentals would be quite different than they have turned-out to be. And in many cases, my own, pre-conceived ideas about happiness were just plain wrong! More than any of the Fundamentals, "lower your expectations and aspirations" proves the value of the scientific method. Science is more concerned in discovering how things actually are, than how we wish them to be. Let the data reveal what is true! Control over our lives can only come with accurate information based on objective facts, not through conjecture or belief. Science proves its value through the pragmatic test: it works. Much of the time scientific research confirms our naive preconceptions about the world, as it has in many of the discoveries we have made regarding the nature of human happiness. When it does, it gives our common-sense notions a stronger sense of certitude. It moves ideas from the ephemeral world of intuition to the concrete world of reliable facts. We generally take for granted how wonderfully secure and predictable the world becomes for us when such scientific certainty exists. But it is in the case of those rare scientific "gems" -- cases when the data reveals understandings that defy our common-sense notions -- that science really pays-off. Such, may be the case with Fundamental Six when it comes to our common understanding of happiness... THE MAJOR POINTS In previewing our discussion of Fundamental Six, we will be addressing five major points. Each will help explain why you would be happier if you could "Lower Your Expectations and Aspirations." The five points are: Don't set yourself up for disappointment. Our culture greatly overestimates the relationship between long-term goals and happiness. Happiness is a way to travel, not a place to arrive. Success may not lead to happiness, but happiness leads to success. Happy people get what they want, because they want what they can get. Before we examine these points, we need to distinguish between "expectations" and "aspirations" as we will refer to the terms in our discussion below. "Expectations," as we shall use the term, means the everyday, short-term predictions we make about upcoming events. They are the predictions we make about the way things will happen for us, in more immediate circumstances. "Aspirations," on the other hand, are the more long-term predictions we plan for our life. These involve our expectations about the more distant future, and include such things as our goals, our hopes, and our dreams. The research on happiness has something significant to say about both these terms. We'll begin with everyday "expectations" first... DON'T SET YOURSELF UP FOR DISAPPOINTMENT To start with, let me introduce one of the most basic ideas regarding happiness: high expectations lead to disappointment; low expectations lead to pleasant surprise. This basic principle underlies our entire discussion of Fundamental Six. To understand this idea, let's look at happiness in terms of a mathematical formula: F.H. = ? The formula begins with F.H., which represents "felt happiness." Felt happiness, of course, is our objective. It is the feeling of happiness we seek. But what does "felt happiness" equal? At the moment, our formula suggests a mystery. So let's begin to fill-in the blank. F.H. = A.E. Here we find represented the most basic view of happiness -- the one most people find to be true. In this formula, "felt happiness" is directly equal to A.E. (the "actual events" of life). This formula suggests that happiness is simply and exclusively based on the events and circumstances of life. It is a formula for happiness that makes perfect sense of life: if good things happen, we'll feel happy -- if bad things happen, we'll feel unhappy. It's an elegantly simple formula, and it seems to make such logical sense that most people are quite content with it. But, on closer scrutiny, there is something wrong with it. If happiness is totally based on what happens to us, why are some people so much happier than others are, given the exact same circumstances? The problem is, that the formula doesn't include any factor to explain individual differences in perception. In other words, happiness is not just a matter of individual circumstances (or the "actual events" that happen in life), it is also determined upon how we interpret the events which occur. There are many ways to put this, but as I wrote several years ago: Happiness is not what you have, it's how you view what you have! (citing). There is little doubt that no two people experience the same situation exactly the same way. Indeed, such individual differences in perception provides one of the most fundamental cornerstones of modern psychology. In everyday experience, we encounter this phenomenon all the time. Still, it never fails to amaze us... You and a friend go to a party: you had a great time; your friend thought it was lousy. You and your spouse see a movie: you hated it; your spouse loved it. What accounts for such different reactions? Well, psychologists know that our unique reactions to the "actual events" of life are mediated by literally hundreds of subtle psychological mechanisms. Our past experiences, our values, our beliefs, our attitudes -- all effect how we view the things that happen to us. But more than these, our fears, our insecurities, our prejudices, our hopes, our dreams -- these also contribute to the way see the world. Everything we experience is actually biased, to some degree, by these inner dispositions. In fact, we become so expert at biasing our interpretation of events, it's no wonder no two people see things quite the same way. Psychologists know that we develop all kinds of perceptual defenses to mollify painful reality. "Denial," "rationalization," "intellectualization," "reaction formation," "scapegoating," "projection" -- these are just a few of the technical terms that describe the many ways individuals distort reality. Thus our formula, as it stands, doesn't explain much about happiness at all. For the formula to work, it has to take into account these psychological biases as well. To do this, our formula would have to include hundreds of factors. But for the sake of our present topic, let's begin with just one: the factor of expectations. F.H. = A.E. x EXP Now, the formula has been expanded. It has yet to include all the psychological factors which affect happiness, but at least it's a beginning. Here we see that "felt happiness" is equal, not just to the "actual events" of life, but also to the "expectations" we had prior to the event. Algebraically, we now have two variables which can determine how happy or unhappy we might be in any given situation: the "actual event" and our "expectations" about the event. Theoretically, if our "expectations" of an event are equal to the "actual event" itself, we should feel relatively neutral about it. If our "expectations" of an event are much higher than the "actual event" turns-out to be, we will probably feel disappointed. If the "actual event" is much better than our "expectations" were, we'll most likely be quite pleased. Expectation theory has a long history in psychology. William James, the founder of modern psychology, expressed the theory initially, and Kurt Lewin's research laid the basic scientific foundations for it (133). The theory suggests that if events give us more than we expect, we tend to be pleased with the results; but if events fall short of our expectations we'll tend to be disappointed. This theory, over the years, has received scores of scientific confirmations. But it has only, more recently, been studied by happiness researchers and found to be one of the most basic components of personal happiness (124, 130, 133, 137 plus Michalos & me). Let's look a classic research example from an actual psychological experiment to see how "expectation theory" has been demonstrated... Students at a university have volunteered to spend a day taking psychological tests at the school's experimental laboratory. They've been induced to participate, partially because it had been announced that all volunteers for the project will be paid for their day's work (although the amount of pay is never specified). Now as the day's work progresses, the experimenter arranges for half the volunteers to "accidentally" overhear a rumor that the pay is to be $20.00 per person. He also arranges for the other half of the volunteers to "accident- ally" hear that everyone will get $100.00. At the end of the day, the experimenter thanks all the volunteers for their time and proudly announces, officially, that each volunteer is to be paid $50.00 for their efforts. Now $50.00 isn't bad pay for a struggling college student; particularly when they volunteered, not knowing if the so called "pay" might just be enough to pay for their lunch. So you'd think they'd all be fairly satisfied. But no! The reactions varied according to the "expectations." The students who had been led to expect just $20.00 are absolutely thrilled with the $50.00 they actually receive. Yet the students who'd been expecting $100.00 are quite angry and disappointed with a measly $50.00, and can't understand why half their cohorts are jumping around with glee. Expectation theory explains a lot. Perhaps, going back to our original examples, the reason you had such a great time at the party when your friend did not, is that you weren't expecting much of anything, while your friend was expecting "the best party of the year." Maybe the reason you didn't like the movie as much as your spouse did was because you had heard so many fantastic things about it, when your spouse had heard nothing at all. And maybe the reason you and your coworker had such different reactions to that "special recognition" was due to the fact that she was counting on it, while you were completely surprised. To put is simply, expectation theory says that when things work out better than we had thought, it makes us happy; and when things turn out worse than we thought, it makes us unhappy. Happy people seem to intuitively sense this, and because their general expectations of life are more modest, life tends to afford them more pleasantries than disappointments. So far, however, we've only been talking about expectations of events. But there are two other, highly conspicuous, categories where high expectations lead to major disappointment. The first of these is high expectations of others... Disappointing events are things that most of us can live with, but when people disappoint us, it's often hard to take. As bitter as these disappointments are, however, often they are caused by the high expectations we place on others. Other people's behavior can be terribly disappointing for those who expect too much. Many times we tend to expect others to behave in ways that are almost super-human. We expect them to treat us fairly, we trust that they will be honest, we count on their loyalty, we demand their constant allegiance, and we take for granted their love. But to expect others to treat us with unyielding fairness, honesty, loyalty, allegiance, and love is a sure-fire prescription for disappointment. In previous media, I've put it this way: "If you make your happiness dependent upon the way other people treat you, you'll never be happy" (tapes). What I've meant by that is that happiness comes primarily from within. Surely, close relationships with others contribute to it, but others should not be responsible for it. To expect other people to behave in ways that will make you happy is an expectation that is rarely attainable, and thus often leads to disappointment. Happy people, as we shall see in later chapters, depend more on themselves than others for their happiness. As much happiness as they attain from their social life, happy people don't depend on others to get them through life. Rather than expecting a lot from others, happy people just enjoy other people as they are. The classic example of how high expectations lead to bitter disappointment comes from all of our common backgrounds: our family. Parents, almost universally, have lofty expectations regarding how successful and admirable their children will turn out. Often these expectations are inordinately high and unrealistic. Still, many parents cling to them stubbornly. No wonder, when each of us represents the actual result of such expectations, so many parents end-up so disappointed. In my personal observations over the years, I have found that the most happy and fulfilled of parents tend to have fairly modest expectations on their children; while the most unhappy and unfulfilled of parents seem to place the highest expectations on their children. Essentially, I see this as a reflection of what we find true of happy people in general: their expectations of others is never unrealistically high. The second, conspicuous category of high expectations which dash happiness is high expectations on oneself. Here we're talking about the perfectionist. The kind of person who sets high standards for their behavior and almost unattainable expectations for their performance. Such stringent demands on oneself are bound to put one's happiness in jeopardy. Some people expect so much of themselves, they're constantly setting themselves up for disappointments when their best efforts continually fall short of the high mark they've set for themselves. We've all been taught that "nobody's perfect," but it's amazing how many people don't accept it when it comes to themselves. It seems many of us modify the old adage to read "nobody else is perfect," but somehow we've convinced ourselves that we should be. Anything less than perfection is viewed as failure. Albert Ellis, founder of "rational-emotive therapy," posited that the idea that we must be perfect is one of the commonly-held ideas that "make us sick" (to put it in his terms). Clinically speaking, perfectionist personalities are often more prone to emotional disorders than those persons who are less hard on themselves. Nor do perfectionistic tendencies contribute much to happiness. Happy people tend to be a bit more relaxed and not so demanding on themselves. Perhaps part of the answer is to treat oneself more like you would treat a good friend. Most of us don't usually expect perfection from our friends. We recognize they're human -- that they have their good points as well as bad points -- and we generally accept them that way. Why not treat ourselves the same way? High expectations of events, high expectations of others, high expectations on ourselves -- often these lead to disappointment. If you find that life tends to be a constant series of minor or major disappointments, then (as our formula would suggest) either you're living a pretty unlucky life (the "Actual Events" are pretty poor), or your expectations are getting in the way or enjoying life for what it is. If it turns out that your expectations are part of the problem, then you might profit by lowering your expectations to a more realistic level. At least in theory, the less you expect to get from life, the more reward you will receive! HAPPINESS AND GOALS Now we turn to the role that long-term goals and aspirations play in personal happiness. There is a complex interrelationship between goals and happiness, so we will delve into a lot of detail in order to fully explain it. Before we do, however, let's preview the gist of the discussion which follows this way: accomplishing our goals doesn't contribute as much to our happiness as most people believe. Ask the average person to pinpoint the causes of happiness (as my colleagues and I have often done), and many times you'll hear that "happiness is achieving one's goals." Few would doubt this. In many quarters happiness and the achievement of goals are synonymous. Especially in modern, industrialized societies is this believe held to be gospel. The marriage of happiness to achievement goes back centuries in Western philosophical and psychological writing. It is at the very heart of the American Dream. And most of hear this basic view of happiness continuously as we grow up in society. It is so much a central part of our cultural beliefs, that hardly anyone questions it. Indeed, it has only been with the advent of serious research into the nature of human happiness that this basic tenet has been questioned at all. Yet as the research has emerged, some serious questions regarding this age-old wisdom have come to the fore. These questions have come from many sources. The main one, of course, are the findings we've already cited that happy people seem to have more modest goals set for themselves, and that ambition and achievement are not especially important to them. Yet other evidence from studies on the effects of success and biographical research of those who've made it to the top tend to confirm the same idea. Essentially, the data stacks up this way. Although success and the achievement of goals contributes to happiness, it's overall contribution is somewhat minor. Furthermore, the impact (or "punch") which comes from achieving a particular goal isn't as strong as we've been led to believe. Apparently, our culture has over-dramatized and overrated the effect of goal-achievement on personal happiness. Thus, individuals who have based their lives on this highly-emphasized cultural value, often end up no happier for their efforts. What has gone wrong here? Let me try and explain by presenting a more philosophical analysis of the problems inherent in the "goal seeking approach" to attaining happiness. The research would suggest that there are five fundamental problems with staking one's happiness on the achievement of long-term goals. a) goals don't have much of a happiness "punch" b) the effort to payoff ratio is negative c) if you arrive, you don't know how to enjoy it d) it's hard to know when you've "arrived" e) you may have sacrificed too much to get there f) you might not arrive at all GOALS DON'T HAVE MUCH OF A HAPPINESS "PUNCH" Most of us are living for the day that our dreams come true, assuming that this will be the day when we'll be happy. We place great faith that the achievement of our goals will transform us from relatively unhappy, dissatisfied people into blissfully happy ones. But in actuality, it appears that the true impact of achieving our goals on happiness may not be as strong as our society has led us to believe. Although most of our cultural propaganda tends to reinforce the idea that the "lifestyle of the rich and famous" holds the ultimate in happiness for all of us, from time to time, an contrary story appears in the media about how very unhappy some at the pinnacle of life are. Certainly you've heard of individuals who've worked their way to the top, only to find no greater happiness upon their arrival. They often report being mystified, because they did all the "right" things. They went to the right schools, they got the right degrees, they got into the right career, they married the right person, they made the right friends, they moved up the success ladder using all the right strategies -- and, finally, they arrived at the level of success they had always imagined for themselves. But nothing happened! They had done everything they were supposed to do, but somehow their life was not deliriously happy. Instead, something was still missing. The achievement of their life-long goals did not really change things very much, at least in terms of happiness. Indeed, many people find success somewhat empty and unfulfilling -- some even find it disillusioning. A study of million-dollar state lottery winners (Brickman in Loftus) -- something most of us dream to be the answer to all our happiness problems -- actually found such winners to be no more happy than others as time went by. And even though, as we extensively documented in Volume I, income, occupational, and social success does contribute to personal happiness, never have the data shown them to be as strong a contributor as popular belief would predict. The apparent reason for all this is that the achievement of goals just doesn't have much of a "punch." The impact it makes on happiness just isn't that great -- especially in the long run. Certainly, at the moment of achievement, and for a little while thereafter, the achievement of a goal can provide a tremendous, temporary jolt of happiness. But after the dust settles, the happiness attained tends to fade. Successes in life, may be rather transitory in their effect on our happiness. Take any of your own moments of high achievement. Say, for example, making an "A" in a difficult course, or winning a race at the regional track meet. A lot of work and effort went into the achievement, and when the victory was yours it certainly felt great. But as exhilarating as the moment was, how long did it last? A day? A week? But after a while, did it make much of an emotional difference in your day-to-day life? Probably not. A NEGATIVE EFFORT TO PAYOFF RATIO A second problem with long-term goals centers around the work involved compared to the reward received. Generally, the amount of effort required to achieve a particular goal far outweighs the happiness attained at the end. Take the preceding examples: making an "A" or winning the track meet. The "high" was great, but how does it compare to the many, many months of difficult study and arduous practice it took to get your there? It's pretty clear that the ratio is terribly imbalanced: a lot of work for a minimal payoff. This is especially true if you didn't enjoy doing the work! Yes, herein, lies one of the major problems in staking our happiness on long-term goals. Most of us don't enjoy the "work" part of achieving a goal at all. Face it, it often involves difficulty, it's rarely appreciated, it requires a good deal of sacrifice, and it often provides little intrinsic reward on its own. Simply put, the hard work required to achieve our goals is often a most unpleasant way to spend our time. Therefore, when you add-up the days and months of unpleasant work it took to enjoy "a few moments in the sun," you can see how imbalanced the effect on our day-to-day happiness is. Now, on the other hand, if you're enjoying the work involved -- if it's truly a pleasure -- then this particular point doesn't apply to you. But most people can't honestly say this. Most of us detest hard work -- that's why it's called "work." It's no fun to do it, we're just hoping the payoff will make-up for it. IF YOU ARRIVE, YOU DON'T KNOW HOW TO ENJOY IT Another problem with staking your happiness on long-terms goals is, that when you get there, you may not know how to enjoy yourself. Unfortunately, in many cases, the very attributes it took to get you to your goal may be antithetical to enjoying it once you arrive. Often, the goal-oriented person must develop a whole host of "unhappiness" strategies to reach his or her goal. To achieve what they want to achieve in life, they often deny themselves much in the way of everyday pleasures. Typically, them limit their "fun time." They sacrifice their marriage and family life. They give themselves little time to enjoy life. Instead, they work doggedly ahead toward their long-term ambitions. As the months and years go by, they are subtly training themselves into fixed behavioral patterns of self-denial and sacrifice. At the same time, they slowly loose the capacity to enjoy life -- bit by bit, extinguishing any "happiness" strategies they once might have had. In essence, the single-minded pursuit of of their goals is entrenching their worst "unhappiness" traits deep into their personality. Thus, when they actually arrive at their goal, they've lost the capacity to enjoy it. Here they are, where they always wanted to be! Now they in a place they always believed would make them happy, but they don't know how. They're still driven; still unsatisfied; still wanting more. Somewhere along the way, their ability to be happy was lost... IT'S HARD TO KNOW WHEN YOU'VE "ARRIVED" Still another difficulty with staking ones happiness on long-term goals is the matter of when you've actually arrived. Most people usually have a particular level of goal-attainment in mind, i.e., "I've got to get into Medical School!" There, we have the assumption that when this goal is reached, we will be happy. But what actually happens when we get there? Well, we can't be happy yet, because now it is obvious that we have to succeed in medical school and get our degree. So, only later, when we get there, apparently, is when we'll be happy. But now we have our degree and our Internship faces us. So it looks like we'll have to postpone our happiness until we finish that and start our own practice. Thus, we do that. But it's still just a beginning, because we've hardly started to achieve any respect or recognition among the other practitioners in our community. The years go by, and we have finally achieved a high degree of local -- and even regional -- success and recognition. Yet when compared to those who are nationally -- or even internationally recognized -- for their medical work, we've hardly arrived at all. So when do we truly get there? When can we start to be happy? If we're waiting for success to make us happy, we may never know when to begin. No matter how many times we climb to the top of the achievement ladder we've set for our self, at the top rung there is another, even loftier ladder there -- and we're at the bottom rung of it. No matter how high we climb in life, there's always someplace higher to go. So if you're waiting until you reach the top to be happy, you never will be. YOU MAY SACRIFICE TOO MUCH TO GET THERE Perhaps the most devastating problem in staking ones happiness on long-term goals is that you can sacrifice too much to achieve them. As many times as success seems to enhance some individual's lives, there appear to be just as many cases when the pursuit of success ruins lives. Tragically, many people loose everything of value in their pursuit of fame and success. It is a theme that permeates the great literature of all times. It is a theme that repeats itself in so many modern "success" stories. It is the theme of a man or a woman who discards their morals, betrays their friendships, turns against their god, rebukes all decency, and looses their loved ones -- all for ill-gotten success. And as much as the world's great literature and religious teachings point to the tragic consequences, many of us still fall victim. For most goal-directed people, the sacrifices never reach the cosmic proportions found in the Classics; but the sacrifices take their toll, nonetheless. Some, in their pursuit of success, loose their marriage. Others, loose a close and lasting bonding with their children. Many find their close friendships have fallen by the wayside, or their family ties wasted. Most admit to having lost a lot of the spontaneity and "fun" they once had in life. And many acknowledge regret about compromising their "ethical self" along the way. All this lost for success! Was it really worth it? The research on happiness would say "No." Partly, because the data seems to show that success doesn't create all that much happiness in the first place. But even more, the goal-oriented person we described above has lost the sources of happiness (like marriage, family, friends, and "fun") which really count the most in life! YOU MIGHT NOT ARRIVE AT ALL Of all the problems inherent in staking your happiness on long-term goals, the worst of all is the possibility that you might never achieve them! The media inundates us with a continual stream of "success stories." Everywhere we turn, there is yet another story about someone who has gone from "rags to riches." We follow the winning sports teams, hear from the successful political figures, watch the "awards ceremonies" on television -- and somehow feel that success is accessible to all of us. But in actual fact, such real success is rare. There are many more "failure stories" than "success stories." Even in America, "the land of opportunity," economic failure is much more prevalent than success. The problem is, we just don't hear much about it. Statistics in the United States show that 95% of all new businesses fail within the first three years; 60% of all marriages end in divorce, almost 87% of older Americans report that they never came close to realizing their young-adult dreams for success, and the vast majority of us end up in just about the same relative financial position our parents did a generation ago. This is not to say that dreams don't come true. They do for a very small few. But for most of us -- if we're staking our happiness on it -- the odds are against us. As hard as we work -- try as we might -- there is no real guarantee that our goals will be achieved. And if we've dedicated our eventual happiness on the fulfillment of that goal, we've set our entire lifetime in a framework of chronic and never-ending disappointment. Here then, is the saddest happiness forecast of all: a life spent staking one's happiness on a goal which never comes to be... POSTPONING HAPPINESS Staking one's happiness on long-term goals backfires because it is based on a fallacious assumption: that happiness is something which lies in the future. There are many ways we commonly express this assumption. The old adage "good things happen for those who wait," for example. Or, "From little acorns, mighty oaks grow;" "Rome wasn't built in a day;" "Patience is a virtue;" etc.. But however it's expressed, cultural folk-wisdom is filled with the widely-held belief that happiness is something we need to wait for. Something to be postponed until a time when our goals are finally fulfilled. It's natural, especially in such a strongly achievement -oriented society such as ours, to view happiness as something only the future holds. Any culture which places such primary emphasis on being successful and attaining goals, implicitly teaches that happiness requires much work, a great deal of patience, and mostly a lot of time. As a result most people never view happiness as anything that's immediate to them, rather, they're set in a mode of waiting and anticipating. Of course this assumption is valid, if, in fact, goal- achievement is the ultimate cause of personal happiness. But what if it is not? Well, then we find -- as, in fact, is the case with most Americans -- people postponing their happiness. Waiting patiently for their successes to bring happiness to them, yet it never quite seems to get there. Early in my research, I stumbled across an interesting twist to this "waiting to be happy" syndrome We we analyzing some data we had collected using a variant of a "sentence completion" test. If you're unfamiliar with it, it is a test that many psychologists use to develop insight into an individual's personality. There are dozens of versions, but they all have in common a series of partial sentences the examinee is asked to finish. A typical series of sentences might include items like: "My parents were __________________________." "I dislike people who _____________________." "My greatest fear is ______________________." Clearly, each person tends to complete such sentences in a unique and personal way, and what a person writes can often prove quite revealing. In our investigation, however, I was most intrigued with the responses to one sentence, which read: "I'll be happy when __________________________." Now, how would you complete this sentence? As you can imagine, we got a wide variety of responses. Below are just a few of them. "I'll be happy when I get my degree." "I'll be happy when I finally get married." "I'll be happy when I become a Doctor." "I'll be happy when I get my dream car." "I'll be happy when I have my first child." "I'll be happy when my children grow up." "I'll be happy when I become vice president of the company." "I'll be happy when I make a million dollars." Although themes varied greatly, overall, they were just what one would expect. Most people assumed that their happiness would come when one of their important goals came true. That's not what surprised me... What surprised me was the responses of the happiest people in the group that we studied. A few of them, apparently, just couldn't relate to the sentence. They crossed it out, and wrote "I'm happy now." "I'm happy now!" It would appear that the happiest people, unlike so many of the rest of us, aren't waiting to be happy. They already are! HAPPY PEOPLE ARE ALREADY HAPPY One of the most important lessons happy people have to teach us, lies in the obvious fact that they're already happy. In a very real sense, happy people have already arrived! They are not waiting to be happy. They are not putting their happiness "on hold." They are not trying to achieve things that they hope will change it around (like the rest of us do). In essence, they are already there! The best way to explain this is to imagine how you might feel if you were already as happy as you could be. If you were, how important would your future plans and goals be? Certainly, you'd want to progress. And, certainly, you'd still have goals to achieve. But how critical would they be for you? Well, if you were already truly happy, they wouldn't be very critical at all. That is what we find with the happiest people. When a person is truly happy, ambition and achievement seem to loose their critical importance. After all, when you're already happy, where else is there to go? Now it's not that happy people have no goals and ambitions in life. Quite the contrary. As we've seen before, in both Volumes I and II, happy people are quite planful and are well-directed individuals. They have their goals, their hoped-for achievements, and things they want to accomplish. But the key is: they are not staking their happiness on these goals! If their ambitions come true, happy people view it as just "more gravy on an already full turkey." If they don't come true, it doesn't matter that much because they're already happy. In a way, happy people can't loose. They'll be happy no matter what! Apparently, happy people live their lives happily, not waiting until their dreams come true; while unhappy people live their lives unhappily, waiting until their dreams finally do come true and make them happy. HAPPINESS IS A WAY TO TRAVEL, NOT A PLACE TO ARRIVE... Happy people seem to be telling us that happiness is something we can have with us always -- that it isn't particularly tied to the accomplishment of our long-term goals in life. Clearly, there is a message that happiness needn't lie in the future -- it is something which can be experienced along the way... If we're enjoying each daily step in life, if we can enjoy the "work" we're doing, if we can take time to savor the everyday pleasures of life -- then our goals become somewhat secondary. After all, as we've explained, the single-minded search for goal-attainment is riddled with "happiness" problems. Although their attainment may occasion a temporary jolt of happiness: it may not have much "punch"; it may not be very long-lasting; it may not be worth the effort; it may not be worth the personal sacrifices it took to achieve it; and it may never happen at all. In terms of "happiness economics," the goal-attainment strategy is a poor investment. The risks are high, and the payoff is low. The happiness research shows so many, more profitable, investments for the individual how is earnestly concerned with real happiness payoffs in life. Clearly, according to the data, good friendships, a rewarding family life, a close love-relationship, meaningful work, and "fun" contribute a whole lot more. And these are, generally, the sources of happiness we have around us now -- not waiting in the future. The only way to win at the goal-attainment strategy is when you actually enjoy doing the everyday steps that get you there. Thus, happiness is a way to travel, not a place to arrive. Happiness should be the way we go through life, not a goal waiting for us at the end. For happy people, this seems to be the fundamental approach. Every day is a happy day. Certainly, they have their goals and dreams; and if those goals and dreams come to pass, so much the better! But what if they don't come to pass? Well, that's the beauty of it! They'll still be happy like they've always been! As good as all this might sound, however, it raises a small dilemma for most of us. Apparently, the real secret to happiness lies in the present, not particularly in the future. Thus, the tough part for most of us is how to find happiness in our life "these days." If we could do this, we too could travel through life happily, and stop postponing our happiness until later. The other way to look at it is: if one can't learn the secret to happiness in the present, nothing in the future may make much difference. If you can't learn to be happy within the constraints of your own particular situation "these days," what makes you think any great achievements in the future are going to change things around? THE IRONY OF SUCCESS There may be those reading this chapter who have noticed a bit of a contradiction between what has been said here and what was said regarding happiness and success in the previous volume on happiness research. To be more specific, here we have suggested that happy people are not particularly strong in their need for success -- that their expectations and aspirations are lower than unhappier people. Yet if you recall, in Volume I we covered a wealth of research findings which indicated that happy people tend to be more successful than unhappy people are. On the surface it would appear as if we have quite a contradiction on our hands. How can people who have a lower need for success end up being more successful? Can both these things be true at once? Well, in fact they are. Both are true, according to the research. Indeed, this fact is one of what I have labeled the "happiness ironies" (videos). We'll run into a few other "ironies" in later chapters, but for now, this irony is: "Happy people are more successful, though their desire for it is less." How in the world does this happen? How do happy individuals end being so successful, when they were never all that concerned about it? Well, the answers lie in a closer analysis of what it's like to feel really happy. THE CONTENTED PIG What is it like to feel really happy? In Volume I we devoted an entire chapter to an examination of the happiest of moods and the feeling of happiness, but to summarize here, the happiest moods are wonderful moments, filled with joy and profound contentment. When we are in a happy mood, everything is right with the world! We're more sociable, more secure, more complete. And, more pertinent to our present discussion: we feel like we've arrived in life! Abraham Maslow, in his study of "peak experiences" (those ultimate happy moments in life) (xxx), found that when people are in the happiest of moods they are, as he described it: "...non-needing, non-striving, non-wishing, and non-hoping." In other words, ultimate happiness is a state of completeness. There's nothing to wish for, nothing to want for, nothing to strive for -- you're already there! My own earlier studies on the "best moments in life" (xxx) found much the same. In the best of moments, there is a sense of fulfillment that can be mesmerizing. All goals seem to vanish for the moment. Ambition seems irrelevant. After all, where else is there to go, when you've already arrived? It's a good question -- and one that many critics of happiness seize upon. In Volume I we examined a number of concerns that philosophers and social critics have raised about happiness. One of the most prominent, as we mentioned then, is that happiness leads to a sense of complacency. Such critics, therefore, argue against the pursuit of happiness as an ideal, since they believe that a happy society would be a nonproductive society. Happiness, in this view, is seen to be an opiate -- and those who become addicted to it become lazy, a-motivated, and forsake all progress. Simply put, they become "contented pigs -- wallowing around in their own bliss -- too happy to do anything of merit. Yet is this fear of happiness justified? Not according to the collected research. In fact, just the opposite is true... Think about your own happy moods.When you're feeling "on top of the world," what do you do? Are you so entranced by the feeling that you do nothing at all? Do you just sit there agog, and wallow in the mood? Are you paralyzed with pleasure? In some, extremely rare happy moods, the answer might be "Yes." But most of the time the answer is a definite "No!" Most of the time when we're feeling happy, we tend to be more energized than we do placid. Instead of just sitting there, we get "pumped-up." Our energy soars. We become more talkative and sociable. We want to interact with people; visit with our friends; do something fun with our family. We're driven to activity and our interest is heightened. We want to do things. We're motivated to work on our projects, get a few things done, and be a bit more productive. Even chores seem enjoyable when we're in a happy mood. Happiness doesn't make us lazy and complacent. It makes us energized and busy. That is why I have always called happiness "The Great Motivator." HAPPINESS IS "THE GREAT MOTIVATOR" Happy people are active people (as we saw in the chapter on Fundamental One). Happy people are productive people (as we reviewed in our discussion of Fundamental Three). Happy people know what they want and are well directed toward their goals (as we found in Fundamental Four). And, as we detailed in Volume I, happy people tend to be quite successful. But now we find that these qualities may be just as much a result of happiness as a cause. Happiness is "The Great Motivator." It makes us active and productive by its very nature. Accomplishment, therefore, may well be an unintended by-product of being happy in the first place! In fact, the most interesting thing about "happiness-induced" productivity is that it is "pure" productivity. The productivity engendered by a happy mood is quite different than the "work" most of us do. When people are productive in a happy mood, it appears to be productivity that is intrinsically rewarding. Although there is a concrete goal in mind, that seems to matter little. Apparently, productivity in a happy mood is productivity for it's own sake -- productivity for the mere enjoyment of being productive. It is "pure" productivity, in the sense that it is done for the sheer joy that comes from doing. How different this is from the goal-based motivation that keeps most of our noses to the grindstone. And just as happiness is "The Great Motivator," unhappiness is "The Great A-motivator." Nothing saps ones motivation like an unhappy mood. When one is depressed or "down," even the slightest effort toward progress seems insurmountable. Energy vanishes, enthusiasm wanes, the desire to work with others is diminished. You put things off, you let things slide, and your productivity comes to a halt. Yet, interestingly, it is at those same unhappier times when desperate dreams of achieving lofty goals and ambitions tend to grip the imagination. What a tragic combination -- when great achievements seem to be our only savior, our energy and motivation is barely with us. So here, perhaps, we have the answer to our ironic contradiction. Apparently, happy individuals are successful in spite of themselves! Its not that they particularly need to be successful, they just end-up that way because they're so happily productive! As opposed to a "vicious circle," here we have a "happy circle." Happy people feel so good, they can't help being active and productive. In being productive, they inevitably become successful. Their success adds to their happiness, thus they continue being happily productive. This leads to greater success -- and round and round it goes! Can it be that some people just stumble into success as a by-product of their happiness? Well, apart from our research on the nature of happy people, I ran across an interesting article in a national business magazine several years ago which gives testament to this very idea. It was one of those articles we all "love to hate" which dealt with a number of newly successful individuals. I believe it was entitled "The 50 Newest Millionaires in America," or something like that, and it profiled the "success stories" of each of them. The article was not a rigorous research effort, but the writers had attempted to objectify their conclusions somewhat, and one of the questions they asked themselves was "How had these people become so successful?" The answer was a bit of a surprise. Contrary to what most of us might imagine, very few of these "new successes" were motivated by a burning ambition to make it to the top. Fewer still had actually set a personal goal of "making a million dollars" for themselves. And only a minority of these successes described their climb to the top in terms of arduous work, emotional struggle, or personal sacrifice. In fact, just the reverse appeared to be true. The vast majority of these successes became wealthy doing what they loved to do! Neither fame nor riches were the objective. They were simply engrossed with the "doing" of their projects. Most described their ventures as being "the time of their lives." The financial "bottom line" concerned them little. Indeed, many of these successes were actually shocked to find how lucrative their enterprise had become -- it certainly wasn't the primary object of their efforts. Therein, I think we have our lesson. Happy individuals end up being more successful, almost in spite of themselves. It may be one of the payoffs for being a happy person, in the first place. If not that, it certainly seems the result of doing what makes you happy. SUCCESS MAY NOT LEAD TO HAPPINESS, BUT HAPPINESS LEADS TO SUCCESS Over the years, I've often consulted with corporations and business organizations regarding personal happiness. Most of this work calls upon me to deliver lectures, in-service training, or "motivational" seminars. I'm always glad to present the findings of happiness research, but when it comes to my discussion of Fundamental Six, most business people are rather shocked. Fundamental Six, of course, is "the controversial Fundamental," but nowhere is it as controversial as it is in Big Business. The senior people who contract with me, are quite attracted to the "happiness idea," initially. They're hoping my happiness training will motivate their employees to greater productivity. With them they've bought the cultural myth that success is the "royal road" to happiness, thus they assume my talks will be another one of the many success- oriented "pep talks" they're used to. So as my presentation of this Fundamental unfolds, an uncomfortable hush falls over the audience, as I explain to them what I've already explained to you in the discussions above. It's no fun for an organization whose sole function is to be successful, to hear that success may not contribute that much to happiness. Nor is it any fun to hear that success is just one of a dozen important contributors to happiness -- and a minor one at that. But mainly, it's no fun for the organization to hear that their whole strategy of making employees more productive, in order to achieve corporate happiness, is in error. Yet, in essence, that's the problem with American business. It's founded on several misunderstandings regarding the relationship between happiness and success. The first misunderstanding involves the primacy of happiness. These Volumes are dedicated to the proposition that happiness is the overriding human goal in life. Riches, love, social acceptance, and fame are just means to get to it -- and so is success. Success is just one of many avenues to reach happiness -- it should not be an end in itself. After all, why do we really want to be successful in the first place? Why do we really want to achieve our goals? Why do we want to be rich? If we ever stop long enough to really analyze it, the answer is obvious: we believe that these things will make us happy. Success is not the point to life. The point is the happiness such success might bring. Thus both business, as well as the average individual, tends to miss the point. As we have seen here, when this point is missed (in other words, when success becomes an "end" in itself), happiness is often lost. In such a case, success is just a hollow triumph. The second misunderstanding is a confusion of cause and effect. As we've seen, most people (and therefore most businesses) assume that success causes happiness. And though the research substantiates this assumption somewhat, there is no guarantee that being successful will make a person happier. On the other hand, as we've also seen, there is better evidence that happiness leads to greater productivity and success. Apparently we've put the cart before the horse. Business, especially, has unquestioning faith that productivity leads to success, and that success will lead to happiness. Thus it focuses all its attention on strategies to boost productivity, assuming every participant will be happier in the end. But if the research is accurate, it might be far better to work on the happiness end of the equation first. With this strategy we find that happiness leads to productivity, and productivity leads to success. We simply put the horse before the cart, where the research shows (and most farmers know) it naturally belongs. It's an application of what we might eventually label "happiness-side economics." The third, misunderstanding deals with what really motivates people. Psychologists have identified dozens of basic motivators. But, in the most basic view, each can be subsumed as being either negative or positive. In explaining motivation to my freshman college students, I often drew a mule on the blackboard. At its rear-end, I draw a whip. At its front, I'd draw a carrot at the end of a stick. "There are basically two ways to motivate this mule to move," I suggest. "One is negative and one is positive. You can either whip the mule to force it to move, or you can reward the mule when it does." We live in such a highly competitive society, where negative motivation seems to predominate. Comparative anthropologists note that American Culture, in particular, relies far more on punishment, criticism, and other forms of negative reinforcement than do other cultures. Punishment appears to be the primary way we exert control on our children and it is the primary way we exert social control on adults. Negative motivation is so ingrained in our society few of us question its value. Most people grow up believing that the only way to accomplish anything it to be punished into it -- or "made to do it." Success, especially, is generally viewed in such negative terms. Most people believe that the only way to become successful is to be forced into it. Success is seen as something that can only be motivated by fear and negative consequences. We fear the possibility of being fired; we worry about the loss of position and prestige, we're threatened by the loss of income or esteem. Generally, many of run scared as we attempt to succeed; and it seems like many organizations focus on such threats and fears to make us run. We accept this because we have been taught that the road to success is paved with negative feelings, and to be a success, we simply have to endure them. Yet, contrary to our commonly-held cultural assumptions, success and achievement need not be negatively motivated. Many people end up being successful through positive motivations. They needn't be punished, goaded, or prodded to get there, they are self-seeking -- they appear to enjoy the entire process. Most anyone who's been to business school knows that study after study has confirmed the value of positive motivational practices compared to negative supervisional methods in the workplace. Still, even after decades of such research findings, most employers still tend to motivate their employees using the classic negative methods employers have always used. Cultural traditions die hard. The fourth, and final, misunderstanding involves a classic fallacy of logic. It is often suggested that because highly successful people claim to have had high goals set for themselves, that these high goals were the actual cause of their success. It also follows, that if we sustain the same high goals, we will be successful too. And when we examine the "true-life stories" of many successful people, it's pretty clear that they all wanted to be great successes. But consider the source of these "success fables." They always come from the people who've made it already! Now, most of them are willing to share their apparent "secret" to success. They'll tell you "Shoot high!" "Believe you can achieve the ultimate goal!" "Anyone can be a millionaire, if they want to be!" Etc.. But they offer this advice as if they were the only ones who ever wanted success! Yet, you and I know that is not the case. I don't believe I have hardly talked to anyone in my entire life that didn't dream of being a success -- and I doubt you have either. (And indeed, there is ample research which confirms this [bens/jenks, etc ]). Just because some millionaires set a goal of becoming rich is no reason they got that way. There are hundreds of thousands more who set the same goal for themselves that never came close. For every success you'll ever read about, there are a thousand failures who were striving for the very same goal. But nobody wants to read about them... To suggest, then -- as most people do -- that high ambitions will lead to success, is based on a fallacy. But that, in turn is based on a larger fallacy: that success will lead to happiness. Apparently, therefore, both business and the average person has it wrong; success may not contribute half as much to happiness, as happiness can contribute to success! HAPPY PEOPLE GET WHAT THEY WANT, BECAUSE THEY WANT WHAT THEY CAN GET Another reason lowered ambitions may contribute to happiness is simply because they are more likely to be achieved. When it comes to happiness, it's an easy idea to understand. Say your a salesperson. If your goal is to do 10% more sales than you did last year, chances are better that you might achieve this, than it will if your goal is to double your sales. Obviously, doubling your sales will be far more thrilling than increasing them by 10% -- but which outcome is more probable? Assuming the 10% figure is realistic, while the "doubling of sales" is almost impossible: which is the better goal to select? As far as happiness goes, the lesser goal is a better bet. It can meet with success. The higher goal, on the other hand, may be setting you up for a bitter disappointment -- mainly because it's unachievable. Everyone would agree that some goals are harder to reach than others. For the sake of argument, lets graphically represent them in the line below... 0----1----2----3----4----5----6----7----8----9----10 EASY MODERATE HARD Imagine this line represents a continuum of goals one might possibly set for oneself, ranging from the easiest to achieve on one end, and gradually building in difficulty to the most challenging and difficult goals to achieve at the other. In every possible pursuit in life, one's goals could be arrayed on this line. For demonstration purposes, however, let's take just one area of possible goal setting: an academic career. At the easy end of the line might be graduating from high school. At the moderate level could be doing successfully in college. In the middle to hard range might be admission to a graduate program. And at the difficult end would be the achievement of an advanced professional degree. Sports achievement might be another way to look at the line. At the easy level, would be just making the roster of the high school team. In the moderate zone: being a high school standout and getting a college scholarship. Higher still would be becoming a college "star" and selected into professional sports. And the highest level, naturally, would be "super-stardom" at the multimillion dollar pinnacle on a world-class team. Certainly, as we move across the line, things become a bit tougher to achieve. But why not set our goals at the top? The most fundamental reason is because, in all probability, we'll fail! In the real world, there are many limits to success. Academically, the number of actual admissions to advanced degree programs are quite limited. Only the top 10% of college students (as a rough average) have the opportunity to continue any higher than a 4-year degree. In sports, less than 2% of all college athletes make it into professional sports. In business, although there are hundreds of corporate executives who'd like to be the company C.E.O., there's only one slot open at any given time. Most lawyers dream of serving on the Supreme Court, but of the tens of thousands of current local and state judges, and the many hundred of thousands of practicing lawyers, there are only nine Supreme Court appointees -- and they serve for a lifetime. Financially, although we'd all like to be millionaires, there's not enough actual wealth in the world to allow each of us to be one. In essence, rooms at the top are unimaginably limited. There are many more of us who would like to be there than there are possible vacancies available. But even if there were unlimited openings at the top, there is a basic limitation which limits us all: our skills and abilities. Few people have the innate intellectual or athletic ability to realistically set high academic or sports goals for themselves. Most of us don't! Most of us are "normal," by definition. We live with average skills, talents, and abilities. Thus if we expect "super-normal" achievements for ourselves, we're bound to meet with failure. It's honestly recognizing these limitations that's the key! Let's look at the line again; but this time we've marked a certain level of achievement with an "X". X 0----1----2----3----4----5----6----7----8----9----10 EASY MODERATE HARD Here, we've set the "X" arbitrarily to indicate a particular person's natural level of skill and ability. The "X" is not especially fixed for this individual. With experience and education is has a potential to be raised somewhat. But let us assume, that within a certain range, this "X" represents the limits of this particular person's potential. Given this basic ability-level, our hypothetical person has all the ability he or she needs to achieve easy, and even moderate, goals with no difficulty at all. Yet goals set in the 7, 8, 9, or 10 range may not be within this individual's ability to achieve. Using our previous examples, this particular person might do well in college, but not in graduate school. This person might get a college sports scholarship, but never be selected by a professional team. In other words, the "X" marks the spot where goals leave an achievable range and move into an unachievable range. Below the "X," goals are within a person's ability to achieve. Above the "X," goals quickly become beyond one's ability to achieve. The trick, of course, is to recognize the reach of our abilities -- and set our goals accordingly. Let's look at two more representations of this line of goals. This time, we'll look at a happy individual compared to an unhappy one... The line below represents the graph of a typical happy person. Note that the "X" is in the same location as the genetic individual we presented above. But also note the cluster of dots which are drawn-in. These represent the goals this happy person has set for him or herself. "A Happy Person" 0----1----2----3----4----5----6----7----8----9----10 EASY MODERATE HARD Here you see a picture of success. The happy person seems to have selected goals that are within his or her ability to achieve. Thus, time after time, they've been able to achieve the goals they set for themselves. Only rarely, as the dots indicate, have they set goals beyond their ability level. Perhaps the reason they've set such realistically achievable goals is because they have such an honest and objective picture of themselves -- or perhaps, as we've suggested, happy people have more modest ambitions. Whichever the case, however, happy people appear to get what they want because they want what they can truly get. The graph of the unhappy person is just the opposite. As seen in the graph below, even though the ability-level is just the same, the dots which represent the unhappy person's goals are all way beyond their ability to achieve. "An Unhappy Person" 0----1----2----3----4----5----6----7----8----9----10 EASY MODERATE HARD Here is the sad picture of failure. A picture of a person who fails to achieve most of the goals they set for xxx. They took to heart the popular cultural message that it was best to "aim high" and ended-up empty handed. They staked their happiness on getting into medical school when they were only an average college student. They dreamed of a professional sports career when they barely made the college football team. They imagined themselves on a Broadway stage when they landed a lead in the high school play. And the saddest thing of all is that they had the very same ability as our happy person. Their sadness came in the improbable goals they set for themselves. Why do unhappy people set such impossible goals for themselves? The research shows many reasons. Unhappy people tend to over-exaggerate their abilities. They tend to envision grandiose possibilities for themselves as the only exit to their unhappiness. And they tend to see happiness strictly in terms of elaborate success and fame. Not all unhappy people take this route. Many give-up under the strain, and resign themselves to a life where no goals are sought at all. They retreat to an easier twilight world where ambition and achievement don't exist. Most unhappy people, however, remain devoted captive to the deeply-imbedded cultural myth we all share, "Ultimate success is the only road to happiness!" So here we have two people. Both with the same skills, the same intelligence, the same abilities. Yet, one is happy and the other is not. The difference, apparently, is where they set their goals. Happy people, setting their goals in a more realistic and achievable level, seems to accomplish everything they want to. Unhappy people, setting their goals on an impossible level, never accomplish theirs. Even more sad, the research shows that unhappier people would be less able to achieve their higher goals, even if they're goals weren't so high. The typical research picture of the unhappy person is one of poorer competence and efficiency, unsustained motivation, low energy levels, and procrastination; while the picture of the happy person, according to the studies, is one of high competence and organization, strong self-direction, perseverance, energy and enthusiasm. Again we see a basic irony regarding the differences between happy and unhappy people. Happy people appear to be more capable, yet their ambitions are not extremely high. Unhappy people appear less capable, thus placing their higher ambitions even further from their reach. So not only do "happy people get what they want because they want what they can get" -- it's actually easier for them! Perhaps even sadder, unhappy people usually don't enjoy the petty, everyday successes happy people do -- even when they do achieve them. Happy people actually seem to revel in minor successes. According to the studies, they appear to get a "kick" from the accomplishment of rather simple goals they've done time and time again. It is, as Abraham Maslow described it, "fresh appreciation." Every time a task is mastered, even though it has been accomplished before, it brings joy. For the unhappy person, successive accomplishment holds holds little weight. There is no "fresh appreciation." The equaling of past performance provides little joy. Only greater and greater gains quenches their thirst (if only it could be attained). The unhappy person appears to be in a horrible trap: on one hand, their abilities for achievement are relatively low, yet their need to achieve is high. Typically, they are not satisfied with ordinary accomplishments, yet they dream of goals and ambitions far beyond their ability to achieve. What they can achieve brings them little satisfaction. What they want, they never achieve. Finally, there is the matter of how a person's success or failure effects their mental health. Developmental psychologists know that there is nothing more valuable in developing a healthy, positive self-identity than "success experiences." Successes lead to a strong self-concept. They lead to a feeling of competency and a sense of mastery. Successes help build a life-long sense of independence, security, and self-assurance. Failures, on the other hand, undermine self-esteem. They lead to undue caution, insecurity, and a sense of worthlessness. Nothing is more devastating to a person's ego, one's self-esteem, or the feeling that one has lost control over one's life, than failure. Chronic failure can build to create a highly negative self-image. And with it can come the associated feelings of inferiority, apathy, anxiety, anger, guilt, and frustration -- all the earmarks of an unhealthy personality. It's hitting the mark that counts! But hitting the mark depends largely on where you set it. The happiest people apparently know, as I have lectured over the years, "It is far better to succeed at a whole series of more modest goals, than to fail reaching for the stars." (XXX) Happiness, according to many people I have interviewed over the years, is often defined, quite simply, as "getting what you want in life." There is much truth to this simple view of happiness: "getting what you want" can contribute a lot to your happiness. Furthermore, the research we've reviewed previously shows clearly that happy people tend to do quite well when it comes to achieving the things they want in life. Yet here, we've come to appreciate why... Happy people get what they want because they want things they can realistically achieve. THE "NEED" FACTOR Ultimately, the basic psychology underlying this Fundamental centers on "neediness." How much one's expectations and aspirations effects one's happiness is largely a matter of how much one feels they "need" them in order to be happy. Clearly, happy people don't "need" their ambitions to become reality in order to be happy. Mainly, because they're already so happy to begin with! In other words, the state of happiness itself is a state where a person already feels a high level of fulfillment, success, and satisfaction with his life. In such a fulfilled state, high expectations and aspirations for the future are not that necessary or needed. The happy man and woman feels that he or she has already arrived! Goals for the future remain, but the desperate neediness for such dreams to come true drops by the wayside. Freed of this "neediness," goal-seeking becomes a fun pursuit for the happy person. For the unhappy person, goal-seeking is no fun pursuit at all -- it often becomes an almost life-or-death issue. The unhappy man or woman, however, feels that their happiness is far from their immediate reach. Thus, they tend to invest all hope for happiness in the achievement of their long-term goals. Because of this, their "need" for goal-attainment is intense. There is a desperateness to it -- a sense of an all-or-nothing gamble for happiness. Obviously, the unhappy person is playing a "high-stakes" game -- everything is riding on success! In the final analysis, therefore, there may be nothing especially wrong with goals and ambitions, all by themselves. It may have more to do with how desperately you needthem... For the person who doesn't need every dream to come true to be happy, the realization of ambitions isn't very critical. But for the person who can't imagine being happy without their dreams coming true, goal-achievement can become an obsessive pursuit, fraught with frustration and bitter disappointment. SUCCESS VS. HAPPINESS? Historically, success, particularly in the Western World, has always been viewed as the most important road to personal happiness. But in our research, we find it to be relatively unimportant. Certainly, success and the achievement of one's goals contributes to happiness. Indeed research cited in Volume I, provide ample evidence toward such a conclusion. And if one can accomplish all one's hopes and ambitions in life, there is little doubt that a degree of greater happiness will follow. But to what degree? That has been the question posed in this chapter... Our discussion of Fundamental Six suggests a number of important conclusions in this regard. We've seen how high expectations tend to lead to disappointment -- not just in day-to-day situations, but especially with long-term goals. We've seen that our culture places an undue emphasis on accomplishment and goal-achievement -- and that, in many cases, the realization of goals doesn't seem to add as much to our happiness as we might have hoped. We've indicated how heart-aching it can be to stake one's happiness on dreams that might never come true. And we've seen how self- defeating it is to strive for goals that are far above one's ability to reach. We've also seen, ironically, how happy people seem to end-up where most of us would like to be, though they lack the burning ambition to be there. Though their ambitions are lower, they tend to succeed much more. Though their skills are greater, they tend to shoot for more modest goals. They tend to get most everything they wish for in life, but this is partly because they want what they can realistically get. Yet, mostly, we see a picture of the happy person wherein success doesn't matter all that much. In the happiest people we've studied, just "being" seems a happy enough state of affairs. It is, simply, the everyday things that make for their happiness. It is as if each and every day was the focus of their happiness. Certainly, they have their hopes and plans for the future -- but they are not counting on them to make them happy. They know that the real secret for happiness lies in "today." They understand that "happiness is a way to travel, not a place to arrive." In sum, as counter intuitive as this Fundamental might sound, happiness research indicates you might be much happier if you could "Lower Your Expectations and Aspirations," and base your happiness more on what you have now, than what you might achieve.

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