The Importance of Meaningful Projects

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Well-being depends on the sustainable pursuit of core projects. Knowing what our projects are tells you a lot about how our lives are going. The single most important dimension out of personal projects in predicting various outcome measures like health and well-being and happiness is the sense of efficacy, the likelihood that you perceived successful completion of these projects.

Award-winning researcher and pioneering psychologist Brian Little has plenty of accomplishments under his belt. He’s the author of the bestselling books “Me, Myself, and Us” and “Who Are You, Really?” His TED Talk on the science of personality has tens of millions of views and he’s been elected a Favorite Professor multiple times at Harvard. And he’s also Adam’s favorite psychologist – and personal mentor. Brian and Adam talk about how our personal projects shape our well-being, the nuances of introversion and extraversion, when it makes sense to act out of character, and what our daily pursuits reveal about us. Transcripts for ReThinking are available at go.ted.com/RWAGscripts