Happy "with" Your Life: Meaning & Achievement
Happiness Encyclopedia VIII from the Happiness PhD Project...
It’s a Saturday afternoon after a busy workweek.
You kick back on the couch, overlooking a lovely spring afternoon, and think – wow, life is good…
Then you get a call from the Global Flourishing Study (1) (shout out to them for their excellent research), and they actually ask you questions like:
“Overall, how satisfied are you with life as a whole these days?”
“Overall, to what extent do you feel the things you do in your life are worthwhile?
“If you were to rate your life on a ladder with 1 being the worst and 10 being the best, where would you place yourself?”
This is an actual experience that’s happened to about 200,000 people as part of that study, and they answered many other questions. So, the question becomes: what would you answer? And what’s behind your answers when it comes to life satisfaction?
I suggest two primary components that influence this domain: Meaning and Achievement (relative to expectations).
Just about every psychological framework (and common sense) suggests that feeling like you’ve made something of yourself and that your life has some meaning goes a long way in feeling content with it.
Let’s start with the achievement side first. There’s an often overlooked component here: how achievement influences your satisfaction is a function of both the achievement and your expectations.
Happiness ≥ Your perception of events in your life – Your expectations of how life should be
This “equation” comes from Mo Gawdat in Solve for Happy. Mo has an incredible story. He spent 20 years making a fortune in big tech and became the head of Google X (their innovation and big ideas group). His beloved son died unexpectedly at age 21, and it set Mo on a new quest – to figure out happiness.
His book is a valuable contribution to the field because, although he’s not an academic, you essentially have one of the smartest people imaginable spending several years intensely studying happiness.
In his book, he presents this equation that’s so simple, yet profound. Is this not how we assess so much of our experience? Imagine your doctor calls after a routine check-up and says you have a serious heart condition and only six months to live.
A few hours later, you get a callback, and she says, “So sorry, we had the wrong number – you actually just need to have your gallbladder removed. It will be painful, and you’ll be in bed for a week.”
All of a sudden, you’re totally relieved! Not just relieved – ecstatic! You’re ecstatic to have your gallbladder removed?! Why? Because of the other half of the equation: expectations.
So, I could write a few pages trying to brilliantly tell you to lower your expectations, but I’ll spare you and just tell you – lower your expectations.
Mo explains it this way: Remember to look down. This means that instead of constantly looking up to others and to the next goal (what we don’t have), pause to look down at what you’ve accomplished and what you do have. Approximately 3 billion people live on less than $3 per day, approximately 1 billion have no clean water, and approximately 1 million people in the U.S. alone are homeless.
Here’s a practice you can try with this.
Negative visualization, or futurorum malorum praemeditatio (Latin for “premeditation of future evils”), is a Stoic practice of imagining worst-case scenarios. Rather than focusing on positive outcomes, this exercise helps build resilience and gratitude by picturing realistic losses – such as the death of a loved one, a failed project, or public embarrassment. People often refer to it using the adapted Latin phrase premeditatio malorum. .
Take some time to consider all the bad that can happen – and may. See how this changes your perception of your life. Again, the idea is not to dwell in fear or pessimism but to prepare yourself, lessen the shock of adversity, and deepen your appreciation for what you currently have. In other words – reset and lower your expectations.
Now, let’s explore more of the psychology of achievement.
A sense of accomplishment or achievement is the result of motivation, mastery (competence), and working toward goals. This contributes to happiness and well-being because individuals can look at their lives with a sense of pride. (2) This is especially true when the achievement is tied to striving with an internal motivation or an “autotelic goal,” which is a goal that exists just for the sake of the pursuit and improvement. (3) In fact, achieving intrinsic goals (such as growth and connection) leads to larger gains in happiness and well-being than external goals such as money or fame.
So, setting goals and working toward their achievement is important – especially when those goals are things you’re intrinsically interested in and relate to mastery of something. Achievement bolsters your self-efficacy and gives you a sense of competence. We have this need from birth – we want to have an impact, an effect on our environment and the world around us. A baby puts blocks together (for no reason) and then says, “Mom, look what I did!”
This is not part of the baby’s five-year plan to set themselves up for a better allowance. No, they just do it to feel a sense of competence from changing their environment.
Making progress and achieving things you care about are important for happiness.
Recognize your accomplishments and achievements, and focus on making progress on things that are intrinsically important to you and push you to grow. As you do so, lower your expectations.
The other critical part of life satisfaction is meaning. What does psychology tell us about building a meaningful life?
You’ve probably heard people say things like, “This is the meaning of life,” or, “The purpose of life is this, that, or the other thing,” right?
Well, that doesn’t square with what we see in the research. Joseph Campbell summed it up well when he said, “What we think we want is the meaning of life, but what we really want is the experience of being alive.”
That’s a different way of thinking about meaning. Meaning is not something we find but something we create. You bring it to life through your life. And I propose a simple, science-based equation for creating a life of meaning and purpose.
Strengths-Based + Values-Aligned = Meaningful Life
If you live a strengths-based and values-aligned life, you’re going to create an experience of meaning and purpose. Again, I write “create” rather than “find” because meaning isn’t necessarily discovered like hidden treasure buried in the woods. It’s something you embody through your way of life.
This is not just my opinion. To create this equation, I draw on perspectives from several fields of psychology, primarily positive psychology from Dr. Martin Seligman. Dr. Seligman offers this explanation of meaning: meaning comes from using your unique strengths to serve something greater than yourself.
Let’s break that definition down. Using your unique strengths means leaning into what you’re naturally good at – your physical, mental, or character-based abilities. It means doing things that you find engaging and intrinsically motivating. Then using those to serve something greater than yourself means aligning with a cause, mission, or set of values that matters to you.
To hone in on your strengths, think about what feels like fun to you but like work to others. What do you find easy that others find hard? What do people say you’re weirdly good at?
For example, some people love networking. They walk into a room and immediately connect with everyone. For others, that sounds like hell. But they might thrive in spreadsheets and analysis. With some good questions, reflection, and intuition, you can start to get a feel for your strengths.
There are also several great assessments:
CliftonStrengths (formerly Gallup StrengthsFinder)
VIA Character Strengths
SIMA – System for Identifying Motivated Abilities
For example, my top strengths from these assessments all coalesce around “learner,” “theoretician” (drawn to collect information and teach), and “woo” (enjoys networking and winning people over). As someone who will take a course on systems thinking for fun, then organize it into an online resource and share it with strangers for no reason, this seems to line up pretty well. At the same time, I often feel burnt out when I have to do too much analysis and strategizing.
So, some combination of self-study and assessment should get you started here.
If strengths are how you work, values are why you work and what you work for. You may identify your values by reflecting on causes, communities, or ideals that matter to you.
What is a cause or belief you’d die for?
What virtue or value do you most admire?
What values does your ideal self embody?
Beyond these prompts, try our Values Tool: happinessmeansbusiness.com/values-tool
Let’s say your top values are faith, work-life balance, and health. If you’re working 80 hours per week at an investment bank, you’re probably violating all three. You’re not expressing your faith, you’re too busy for life outside of work, and your health is suffering. Even if you’re using your strengths, that disconnection from values will leave you feeling empty.
Now flip the scenario. Imagine you become a faith-based family counselor. You’re serving your faith, you’ve got time for relationships and hobbies outside of work, as well as sleep and exercise for physical health. You might be making less money, but your life satisfaction is way up.
Here’s another real-life example for application. Take an Army Chief of Staff named Colonel B. His top strengths are Strategic and Arranger. He thinks big picture and is great at getting people organized. Meanwhile, you have Lieutenant Colonel S with the top strengths of Achiever and Empathy. She excels at connecting deeply, building trust, and getting things done at the same time. They both care about the same mission – say, improving recruiting and retention – but they can and should approach it differently. He’ll build a strategic plan with different courses of action and priorities and then set up the perfect team to tackle it. She’ll visit with her reports to understand what’s really going on, identify the root problems, and start taking action on her to-do list.
On top of this, they may have different values. COL B is all about honor and service, so he feels he’s using his strengths to serve his nation and is willing to sacrifice more in terms of time and effort. LTC S has top values of connection and family, so she’s more focused on building relationships and maintaining balance with time for her family.
There’s no right or wrong – just different ways of bringing meaning to life. Here’s how this would look as a short meaning statement for each of these folks.
COL B – I will create strategies and arrange teams to complete the mission in service of my nation.
LTC S – I will use empathy and my desire to achieve to complete the mission while building relationships and providing for my family.
Meaning isn’t found; it’s made – by living strengths-based and values-aligned.
You now have the knowledge of the main contributors to life satisfaction: identify goals that are important to you and recognize your progress working toward them to create a sense of achievement and competence. And as you do this, use your strengths as tools and your values as guideposts.
If you bring all this to life, through your life, you are on the path to a life of satisfaction: happy with your life.
Learn more at globalflourishingstudy.com
Seligman, M. E. (2012). Flourish: A visionary new understanding of happiness and well-being. Atria Paperback.
Quinn, A. (2018, February 3). Theory of well-being: Elements and interventions. GoodTherapy Blog.
