The Goal Focused Life Is a Life of Misery

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Setting goals doesn't always lead to the desired outcomes, but it's important to accept that not everything is under our control. Instead, we should focus on living up to our values. Even if we don't achieve specific goals, the process of living our values is a success in itself. The goal focused life can lead to a life of misery, always chasing achievements and experiencing fleeting happiness. On the other hand, a values-focused life allows us to appreciate and enjoy living our values from moment to moment. While setting goals can still be useful for motivation, the key is to prioritize living our values rather than solely focusing on achieving goals. By embracing this concept, we can experience instant success by living up to our values in the present moment, rather than waiting for a future achievement.

Happiness is the subject of thousands of articles, podcasts, and scientific studies. Yet all this focus on happiness doesn't seem to be making people any happier. In fact, the more they try to be happy, especially by fighting to get rid of bad feelings and cling to good ones, the more unhappy people often become.

My guest would say that the first step in escaping this negative cycle is redefining what happiness even means — thinking of it not as a state of feeling good but of doing good.

His name is Russ Harris and he's a therapist and the author of The Happiness Trap.

Today on the show, Russ explains how struggling against difficult feelings and thoughts just makes them stronger — amplifying instead of diminishing stress, anxiety, depression, and self-consciousness — and how simply obeying your emotions doesn't work out any better. He then unpacks the alternative approach to happiness espoused by Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. With ACT, you allow both hard and pleasant feelings to coexist, and unhook from the latter so that they no longer jerk you around. This allows you to focus on taking action on your values to create a meaningful, flourishing life, or in other words, real happiness.