Graduation season is upon us once again, bringing with it the age-old tradition of inspirational speeches. These speeches are filled with clichés about following your dreams, shooting for the stars, and believing in your limitless potential. However, in our current challenging times, these messages might feel out of touch. We face a troubling reality: more and more people are committing suicide because they feel they cannot meet the expectations they have set for themselves, or because their dreams are simply too big to achieve. This heartbreaking trend calls for a reevaluation of the traditional inspirational messages delivered in graduation speeches.
Graduation speeches often tell us to follow our dreams, shoot for the stars, and believe that we can do anything we set our minds to. However, in our current challenging times, these messages might feel out of touch. The pandemic has systematically thwarted our greatest aspirations, whether personal or professional. What we once thought would be a few weeks of disruption has turned into months, and eventually more than a year. In light of this, perhaps the words of British satirical poet Alexander Pope are more fitting. In 1727, he advised his friend John Gay with a ninth beatitude: “Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.”
Whether Pope was serious or not, his advice holds some truth both in normal times and during a pandemic. Bold goals can certainly invigorate us, but an obsession with them can lead to enormous disappointment. Worse, when your eyes are always fixed on the horizon, you might miss what’s right in front of you. For happiness, we need a better way to set goals—goals that allow us to achieve success in life while also letting us enjoy the present moment.
The Short-Term Happiness Boost of Goal Setting
In most cases, goal setting can moderately boost our happiness in the short term by increasing our optimism and sense of direction. For instance, a 2008 study showed that participants who set and pursued their own life goals reported an 81% increase in happiness compared to their starting point and a 121% increase compared to the control group who did not set goals. This suggests that goal setting, when done thoughtfully, can significantly enhance our well-being.
However, not all goals are created equal. An analysis of German survey data indicated that while goals involving family, friends, and social engagement could increase life satisfaction, those focused on career success and material gains could be harmful. Similarly, research on American college graduates found that intrinsic goals—such as personal growth, intimate relationships, and community involvement—brought greater happiness when achieved compared to extrinsic goals like material wealth, fame, and attractiveness.
The Importance of Realistic Goals
The size of your dreams also matters. Setting short-term, realistic goals can trigger a cycle of success and happiness, as long as these goals align with our values rather than being imposed by others. For example, college students who set academic goals that matched their intrinsic motivations were more successful and thus experienced greater happiness and confidence. This allowed them to set more goals, achieve more success, and so on.
Conversely, focusing on long-term, difficult-to-achieve goals is risky because the likelihood of achieving them is lower. Disappointment can lead to pessimism and potentially trigger depressive symptoms. Therefore, goal setting—especially bold goals, or even ordinary ones in times like these—might lead to more unhappiness rather than joy.
A Balanced Strategy for Goal Setting
Fortunately, we don’t have to give up goal setting to protect and enhance our happiness. Instead, a balanced strategy based on research can benefit us while largely avoiding the costs. The scientific literature clearly shows that when goals are short-term, achievable, and lead us toward ultimate success, they can bring great joy. In other words, achieving these goals indicates that we are making progress. Self-improvement guru Tony Robbins teaches that making progress toward goals can bring more happiness than actually achieving them.
To develop a happiness strategy around this principle, set an ultimate goal and then break it down into manageable steps: a year, a month, a week, a day. Daily goals are particularly important. Dale Carnegie, in his 1948 self-improvement classic "How to Stop Worrying and Start Living," advised readers to resolve to live in “day-tight compartments.” Regularly evaluate your long-term goals, but not too frequently; the rest of the time, focus on what you can do today to make positive progress. Do your work, set it aside, and enjoy the accomplishment. Then, start again tomorrow.
The Power of Detached Intention
Committing to lifelong ambitions can be unsettling because they are the least likely to succeed. But long-term goals can be bold and audacious without causing disappointment if they aren’t achieved. The secret lies in a formula articulated by writer Deepak Chopra: detached intention. Being overly attached to anything in life invites suffering. The solution is to view primary goals as navigation points for your life’s journey rather than the only path to happiness.
When setting your long-term goals, try writing them down and then adding these words: “or something better.” This gives you explicit permission to deviate from these goals as life circumstances require without disappointment if the original goals no longer fit.
Focusing on Intrinsic Goals
Extrinsic goals—worldly desires for money, power, and prestige—are the hardest to achieve because they are inherently zero-sum. In the pursuit of scarce resources, we push each other aside. In contrast, intrinsic goals based on love and personal growth are non-zero-sum and therefore more likely to succeed. Moreover, they are the goals most associated with happiness. Therefore, a proper wish list should focus on these intrinsic desires.
List specific intrinsic goals and strive to achieve them. If you need help coming up with suggestions, remember that intrinsic goals are similar to what writer David Brooks calls “eulogy virtues”—the things you want people to remember you for at the end of your life. For example, “a loving mother” versus “someone who flew 5 million miles on United Airlines.”
Conclusion: A Better Approach to Goal Setting
For happiness, even during a pandemic, neither the cheerleaders chasing dreams nor Pope’s passive shrug is the best approach. A better graduation speech might suggest this: dream of the person you want to become—not a future where you are wealthy, powerful, or famous, but a life where your work and living enrich others and leave the world better than you found it. Then, think about what you need to do to get there and find happiness in the joyful journey of creating value and loving others richly. Finally, focus your attention on what you will do today in your work, spiritual life, and relationships to put you on that path.
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