I’m very sympathetic to the overall point but confused about the study description, this seems to have been over a very small time period, not enough to achieve any significant goals so how could it be predictive of things like, I’ve always wanted prestigious (and enjoyable) job X, achieving it made me happy/or not. Does not money correlate with happiness up to a certain point? I guess I have a hard time imagining that an author who never achieves success as a writer is as likely to be as happy as an author who has moderate or extreme success. But studies tend to be rather overly specific or overly broad and don’t get to the kind of scenarios where extrinsic goals resulting in happiness makes logical sense. Not sure if I’m making sence.
Having my life in middle age derailed by a debilitating illness caused me to examine a lot of my priorities and values, and I can say now most of my goals are intrinsic.
I totally agree with you that intrinsic goals are much more worthwhile. I think a lot of the dissatisfaction from extrinsic goals comes from the let down that the monetary gains or status increases are not causing the expectation increase in happiness. Which then leads to even more disappointment that achieving the goal should make you happier.
I’m very sympathetic to the overall point but confused about the study description, this seems to have been over a very small time period, not enough to achieve any significant goals so how could it be predictive of things like, I’ve always wanted prestigious (and enjoyable) job X, achieving it made me happy/or not. Does not money correlate with happiness up to a certain point? I guess I have a hard time imagining that an author who never achieves success as a writer is as likely to be as happy as an author who has moderate or extreme success. But studies tend to be rather overly specific or overly broad and don’t get to the kind of scenarios where extrinsic goals resulting in happiness makes logical sense. Not sure if I’m making sence.
Having my life in middle age derailed by a debilitating illness caused me to examine a lot of my priorities and values, and I can say now most of my goals are intrinsic.
I totally agree with you that intrinsic goals are much more worthwhile. I think a lot of the dissatisfaction from extrinsic goals comes from the let down that the monetary gains or status increases are not causing the expectation increase in happiness. Which then leads to even more disappointment that achieving the goal should make you happier.