“Findings from thirty years of research on life satisfaction show that happiness requires having clear-cut goals in life that give us a sense of purpose and direction. When we make progress toward satisfying our most cherished needs, goals, and wishes in the sixteen areas of life that contribute to contentment, we create well-being. Our research shows that when we make progress toward attaining goals in one area of our life, we raise our overall life satisfaction in other areas because of this potent ‘spillover’ effect. …
If you follow our step-by-step method, you will learn what areas of your life matter most to you, what types of goals will bring you the greatest satisfaction, how to pursue them to completion, and how to flexibly disengage from goal pursuit that no longer suits your day-to-day reality. You will also learn happiness-boosting strategies that will increase your persistence and zest, as well as how to cope with the inevitable disappointments and setbacks that can threaten to undermine all goal support. In short, we give you a complete, step-by-step guide to understanding how to set and achieve goals, and we show you how and why this pursuit has the impact of making you happier, too.”
~ Caroline Adams Miller from Creating Your Best Life
Caroline Adams Miller is one of my favorite human beings on the planet.
And... This book is one of my ALL-TIME favorite books. In fact, it’s at least tied for first as my all-time favorite positive psychology book.
(Note: We have Notes on nearly ALL the best positive psychology books—from Seligman’s Flourish to Angela Duckworth’s Grit—so that’s saying a lot!
Why is that?
Because Caroline has a remarkable ability to make the basic science of well-being SUPER PRACTICAL and the density of TRULY PRACTICAL, SCIENTIFICALLY GROUNDED wisdom in this book is astonishing.
Gary Latham wrote the foreword. As you may know, Dr. Latham (and his colleague Dr. Edwin Locke) are THE WORLD’S preeminent authorities on the science of goal setting.
His two-page foreword in and of itself is amazing. He tells us: “This book is a ‘must read’ because it brings science to life—your life.”
I agree. I highly recommend you check it out. Get the book here.
As you can imagine, the book is PACKED with Big Ideas. It’s going to be tough to focus on just a handful of my favorite Big Ideas but that’s why you pay me the big bucks (wink ;), so let’s get straight to work!
P.S. Caroline’s first book is also amazing. It’s called Getting Grit.
P.P.S. Here’s a short list of the books by authors/researchers Caroline references on which I’ve created Notes: Flourish, Learned Optimism, and Authentic Happiness by Martin Seligman, The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch, The Psychology of Hope by Rick Snyder, Happier and The Pursuit of Perfect by Tal Ben-Shahar, The How of Happiness and The Myths of Happiness by Sonja Lyubomirsky, Thanks! and Gratitude Works! by Robert Emmons, Love 2.0 by Barbara Fredrickson, Why We Do What We Do by Ed Deci, Flow and Creativity by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, The Marshmallow Test by Walter Mischel, Willpower by Roy Baumeister, Peak by Anders Ericsson, How to Win Friends and Influence People and How to Quit Worrying and Start Living by Dale Carnegie, Pursuing the Good Life by Chris Peterson, Succeed by Heidi Grant Halvorson, The Emotional Life of Your Brain by Richie Davidson, plus The Power of Full Engagement and Toughness Training for Life by Jim Loehr.
(I smiled as I typed that list out. That’s a LOT of wisdom in there...)
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