Personal Goals and the Positive Life

The beginning of each year inspires many of us to take time for reflection and goal-setting. For the last twenty-five years, one area of psychological research has focused on understanding how personal goals are related to long-term levels of happiness and life satisfaction. Not surprisingly, it shows that goals and life meaning are inextricably linked. 

The research (Emmons, 1996) explores the common domains in which we strive for meaning; the type of goals that are linked with happiness; and the connection between how we state our goals and living a positive life.
Personal/life meaning was the subject of three different research programs with heterogeneous populations using diverse methodologies. Each study independently agreed on four life meaning categories:

Achievement/Work

Includes being committed to one’s work, its worth and liking a challenge.

Relationships/intimacy

Includes relating well to others, trusting others, being altruistic and helping others.

Religion/spirituality

Includes having a personal relationship with God, believing in an afterlife, and contributing to a faith community.

Self-transcendence/generativity

Includes transcending self-interests, contributing to society, and leaving a legacy.

Given that these four categories are the common domains in which we seek meaning, it is interesting to note that another study on the content of our goals showed that those related to intimacy, spirituality and generativity tend to foster consistently high levels of well-being. When goals centred upon striving for power or self-sufficiency (as opposed to connectedness with others) then they were negatively associated with well-being. Interestingly, just having goals and working towards them did not necessarily result in feelings of well-being or a positive life - it is the kind of goals we work towards that affects our well-being.

Another research program showed the orientation of our goals has a profound effect on our well-being. Having extrinsic-oriented goals of financial success, social recognition and physical attractiveness were positively associated with measures of anxiety, depression, narcissism, as well as symptoms of physical illness. Conversely, research participants with intrinsic goals of personal growth and community contribution reported higher levels of well-being. This study was extended cross-culturally and the findings remained consistent.

Finally how we state and pursue our goals also has an impact on living a positive life. Goals that are focused on moving toward the outcome we want, rather than avoiding an outcome we don’t want, have a different effect on our well-being. This area of research is more complex in that “avoidant” type goals have some positive, as well as negative, consequences. On the whole though, stating goals in the positive and pursing positive goals has a beneficial effect on personal well-being.

“Happiness and life satisfaction are influenced in deep ways by the goals that people are committed to.” (Emmons, 2002). Of course there are always exceptions and extremes that can make some of these findings appear inaccurate, however it appears that positively-stated goals of a self-transcendent nature do contribute to our well-being.

If you have created new goals for the year, perhaps it’s worth examining their content and the way you have stated them to determine if they are likely to enhance your well-being.

Are there implications for organisations as well? The studies I explored were focused on individuals, not organisations, but it is an interesting question to ponder.

Job Satisfaction, Productivity and Well-being

“If you are under excessive stress, you will get ill.” How’s that for cheery news? That quote comes from Cary Cooper, Professor of Organisational Psychology and Health at Lancaster University in the UK. Professor Cooper was a recent guest on ABC Radio National’s “The Health Report”, and I listened with interest as he discussed the costs of stress in the workplace. Loss of productivity, sick leave, turnover, and occupational injuries are among the costs for organisations, as well as the significant price paid by individuals in their personal health and well-being.

Even five years ago, it was difficult to make the link between a happy and satisfied workforce and a productive organisation. Now, studies are making that link and proving the costly results of a stressed organisation.

The focus of stress in organisations has also shifted. Stress was once thought to be the domain of middle managers and those below them, not leaders. The traditional explanation for this has been that leaders had more control over their situation, so, while they were in higher pressure jobs, they experienced less stress than those who had less control. Research now shows that both leaders and staff experience stress and are becoming, at the very least, less productive as well as physically and/or emotionally ill.

Dr Cooper’s group conducted a meta-analysis of every study in the world looking at job satisfaction and ill health. What they found was a “massive relationship”; meaning if you are not happy at work, the chances are very high that you will get ill. The type of illness depends upon genetic predisposition - one person may be predisposed to heart disease and another to mental ill health.

In some ways this doesn’t seem like anything new - it is something many of us have either experienced or felt intuitively. The news is the quantitative aspect of this analysis that has been difficult to prove before. The National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health estimate the cost of stress in organisations is five-to-ten percent of the gross national product per annum. In the UK, where Dr Cooper comes from, that is thirty million lost working days due to stress. Five-to-ten percent gross national product per annum is consistent in the USA and across the EU, and is likely to be a similar figure in Australia.

As a society, we’ve been speaking about work/life balance for at least a decade. What we need to do now is address the way in which we respond to the ever-present stress in our lives. Changing our response to stress and increasing our capacity to cope with uncertainty will undoubtedly help us, not only in our work, but in many other aspects of our lives.

At Strategic Intent, we feel some of our most important work is in helping our clients to manage stress. We offer a number of pathways to this goal, designed to suit individual circumstances.

Executive Short Breaks Intensives are a series of 1:1 coaching sessions in which we teach Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction and the body/mind connection. Our physio, Elke Rudolph, will work with you during these sessions to help you develop better body and mind habits in response to stress.

Getting Unstuck – Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction is an eight week course starting on 20 March 2007. This is a small group format in which you meet with us each week to understand the physiology of stress, experience mindfulness meditation and develop your own practice for managing stress and increasing your sense of well-being.

All of our work is grounded in current Mind-Body Medicine research which we are happy to make available to you. To obtain more information or sign up for either Executive Short Breaks Intensives or Getting Unstuck, please contact Pamela Lovell at

(Brochures online at http://www.strategicintent.com.au)

Coaching Your Staff

Have you ever felt that you could get so much more done at work if it weren’t for people? Many leaders are surprised by how much of their time is spent managing people. Wouldn’t it be great if you could learn more effective ways of working with your staff so that tasks were accomplished and both parties felt fulfilled?

At Strategic Intent, we coach individuals for a variety of reasons. Often, our coaching involves teaching our clients to coach their own staff. By learning this skill, you will equip others to work more effectively. Through coaching, motivation, learning and ownership increases and you will become attuned to new ways in which you can use coaching to be more productive and feel more satisfied in your work.

Strategic Intent has developed a workshop to share the techniques of coaching with leaders. During the workshop you will:

• discover the concept and different types of coaching, and how to plan coaching sessions; and

• develop and refine skills in coaching through interactive exercises.

We teach coaching using a “strengths-based”, Solution-Focused framework, aimed at freeing leaders and staff to move forward rather than getting stuck in problem analysis. The feedback we receive from leaders is that this is a powerful way to work.

The course runs for 2 consecutive days. Each participant will be given numerous opportunities to coach using real-work situations. No role plays!

Group size can be from 12 – 20. Please contact Pamela Lovell or Julie Kelly to schedule your group.

Strategic Intent is on the move!

From 1 March 2007, Strategic Intent will move to a new office space. Fortunately for all of us we are moving just down the hallway, in the same building and on the same floor. Our new location has an additional, purpose-built meeting room to accommodate larger groups, to work with teams, and to offer Getting Unstuck – Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, and Executive Short Breaks on site.

We look forward to meeting with you in 2007 in our new, sunlight-filled premises.

Strategic Intent offers a number of ways in which you can experience Mindfulness:

Executive Short Breaks - ‘Mindfulness – Transforming Your Response to Stress’ - in which group participants learn to develop a capacity to be in stressful and uncomfortable moments without reacting in a habitual way;

Short Break Intensive, customising Executive Short Breaks for individuals.

Getting Unstuck – an 8 week course, meeting weekly for 2 hours, in Mindfulness-based stress reduction

(Brochures online at http://www.strategicintent.com.au)

For more information or a copy of any research, please contact me