Will Trying To Be Happy Make You Miserable?

There is only one success – to spend your life in your own way – Christopher Morley

Part of the reason we are so successful as a race is our drive to improve and develop. We are always
striving for the next thing, to be more, richer, thinner, healthier, younger, maybe happier.

Goals create anxiety or pressure which motivates us to move forward, to improve and develop, so it
is important to set them for ourselves. However they need to be both achievable and measurable,
so that there is a clear point at which the goal is reached, the anxiety/pressure can be allowed to
dissipate and be replaced by a sense of achievement.

Happiness is subjective (personal and idiosyncratic)and thus very hard to define and to measure,
so when setting this as a goal we need to be careful that we are not just setting ourselves up to fail
i.e. exposing ourselves to the anxiety and pressure with no hope of this being replaced by a sense of
achievement.

Setting happiness as a goal is not a bad thing, especially when you consider all the benefits that
research has shown to be linked to it (better relationships, health, sleep better, more creative, view
more positively by others), and the fact that it is not just a sign that things are going well but a factor
that will increase the chances that they will continue to do so. But there are potential pitfalls so
when setting happiness as a goal, consider doing the following:

1. Have a clear personalised definition of happiness and what this will actually look and feel like
for you.
2. Identify what will make you happier then identify achievable and most importantly realistic
steps that you can follow to achieve your goal
3. Measure your progress against your personalised vision and not against someone elses: the
subjective nature of happiness makes the social pursuit of it complex.
4. Do not make the pursuit of happiness your primary objective – the pressure this will create
will undermine what you are trying to achieve. Make this one of many goals including being
a good friend, wife/husband, mother/father, developing interests /having experiences that
expand your horizons.
5. Be realistic, do not strive for perfection ;consider the theory of Yin and Yang - It is impossible
to be happy all the time and actually in order to be happy we need to also experience
unhappiness; the existence of one relies upon the other

The Britsh CBT & Counselling Service