Discover the secret to a joyous life that doesn't just hinge on reaching goals, but on the exhilarating process of pursuing them. Our engaging discussion peels back the layers on how goal-setting can magnify your happiness. We share candid insights from "The How of Happiness," where personal anecdotes converge with expert advice, revealing that the real treasure lies in setting goals true to your core values and relishing the strides you make toward them. This episode promises a fresh perspective on the bliss found in the chase, not just the catch.
As we talk through the art of crafting flexible, approachable goals, you'll understand the significance of evolving aspirations that dance to the rhythm of your life's changes. We'll show you how to infuse happiness into even the most mundane of tasks and how to align your professional and personal worlds for a more satisfying existence. With Denise Russo's expertise in coaching, we illuminate pathways for those ready to embrace transformation and offer guidance for a life brimming with fulfillment. Tune in for an invigorating conversation that might just be the catalyst for your next joyful leap.
Connect with us on our LinkedIn page School of Thoughts . We also value your reviews, subscribing, and sharing our podcast "What's On Your Bookshelf?" on Apple and Spotify.
Discover the secret to a joyous life that doesn't just hinge on reaching goals, but on the exhilarating process of pursuing them. Our engaging discussion peels back the layers on how goal-setting can magnify your happiness. We share candid insights from "The How of Happiness," where personal anecdotes converge with expert advice, revealing that the real treasure lies in setting goals true to your core values and relishing the strides you make toward them. This episode promises a fresh perspective on the bliss found in the chase, not just the catch.
As we talk through the art of crafting flexible, approachable goals, you'll understand the significance of evolving aspirations that dance to the rhythm of your life's changes. We'll show you how to infuse happiness into even the most mundane of tasks and how to align your professional and personal worlds for a more satisfying existence. With Denise Russo's expertise in coaching, we illuminate pathways for those ready to embrace transformation and offer guidance for a life brimming with fulfillment. Tune in for an invigorating conversation that might just be the catalyst for your next joyful leap.
Connect with us on our LinkedIn page School of Thoughts . We also value your reviews, subscribing, and sharing our podcast "What's On Your Bookshelf?" on Apple and Spotify.
Welcome to what's On your Bookshelf with your hosts, denise Ruzzo and Samantha Powell. Hi everyone, welcome back. It's another episode today of what's On your Bookshelf. This is a Life in Leadership podcast, where we're discussing and living out loud the pages of the books that are on our bookshelves. Well, in this case, the book is off of our bookshelf, it's in our hands. It's becoming something that's in our hearts, in our minds and in our actions.
Speaker 1:
My name's Denise Ruzzo. I'm here with my friend, sam Powell. We're in the middle of exploring a really great book, a very practical book, a book written by a psychologist called the how of Happiness. This is part of our series for 2024, where we are exploring the pursuit of happiness and maybe not finding happiness, but knowing that happiness is all around us and not something elusive that you have to chase after. Where we are this week is coming to the tail end of what are 12 different happiness activities. Maybe, as we kick off today, sam, I'd love to know one how you're doing today. Two, if you can sort of bring us up to speed as to why do these activities matter? This one matters to you because this is one of your top ones.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I'm excited about this one. There are 12 happiness activities that she suggests. Again, there's some assessments for people in the book and she has them online too, about which ones would fit you best and she recommends you pick three. This one, which is Happiness Activity Number 10 of 12, is in my top three, which, if anybody who knows me, this is no surprise. This one is committing to your goals. I am very, very goal focused. I've always got quite a few of them, some very lofty, some very small, in the habit range. But, yeah, I'm really excited about this one. I can't believe we're on 10. We hit double digits in this and there's only 12. So we've got this one and then two more. I can't believe it. I've been measuring my happiness level on one of the assessments in here. I'm seeing a measurable increase in my average happiness level. I've been measuring every week since we started reading the book. It's making a difference in my life. As we're reading this out loud, it is delivering on the promise of the front cover.
Speaker 1:
Oh, that's awesome, it really really is.
Speaker 2:
I love that this one, particularly as we were kicking off the new year. There was a lot of conversations and networking groups I was in and things like that. We had talked about what are your goals for the year, or whatever. This is one of the fun facts I gave. I was like did you know that if you can use goal setting to increase your average happiness level in your life, if you pick the right types of goals that's what she goes into in this chapter is what are the right types of goals that actually attribute to your overall happiness?
Speaker 2:
I had a couple of people who were like can you email me that list? I'm really interested in that, friends. I don't have to email it to you. We're going to talk about it today because this is a good one. I think you said this in the last episode, but we're probably in the time of year where your New Year's resolutions are in the back rear view mirror. Maybe some of them stuck. I'm hoping they have. If not, here's a good time we're heading into spring to recommit to goals and to really think about what is this new life you want to leave in and how can you set goals that really do make you happy every day Realistic when we talk about goals and I'm sure we'll get into it in this episode today, I think sometimes people look at this finite list.
Speaker 1:
You have to get everything done by Christmas, then in January you just start over again. Life isn't that way. It's a continuum. To me, one of the things I loved about this chapter was that it started out by saying something that I know is true about you. It says if you find a happy person, you will find a project. If you aren't a happy person with lots of projects, I don't know who is. When we set out to read this book, it became a goal for us to get through this book. It felt hard at first, didn't it, sam? This book was not like a book of stories. It was not a really very easy book necessarily to read. Yet the longer we committed to the goal and stuck with it, the better and better this book continues to get.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I completely agree with that. This is one of those. I think I've said this to you a couple of times this should be required life reading for everyone. It does feel a little clinical sometimes because we're talking about here's, this and that and data and all that sort of good stuff I loved about. I had exactly what you said about the projects highlighted. But she also said right at the beginning of this is that the process of working towards a goal is as important to well-being as its attainment.
Speaker 2:
Right, I think we're coming out of living in the present in the last chapter and it's particularly being in flow, savoring life's joys and things like that. Yes, as it turns, a new chapter is still kind of hinting at that. It's about the process of goal attainment, not necessarily about attaining goals. So when you think about happiness and you think about the relation between goals and between happiness, it's not about getting the thing. It's about the whole journey and really enjoying it and making sure that you've got a goal that allows you to enjoy the journey, so that when you get to that goal, it's not all hey, I did the thing check and that's great it's, I got the whole experience and the thing right. It's all continuous and together, and I thought that was really beautiful and a really nice way to think about goal setting.
Speaker 1:
I love that. It kind of actually makes me think about one of my top ten most favorite books, and you know that's hard for me because what's on your bookshelf is about hundreds of books.
Speaker 2:
Friends like right this one down. If it's on Denise's top ten, it's a good one.
Speaker 1:
This is definitely in the top ten, and so I would say, if this book I'm about to tell you is not on your shelf, it definitely needs to be, and you're gonna think maybe in a minute when I tell you what it is what does that have anything to do with committing to goals? But I hope it'll relate. The book that I want to share with you is a book where there was a person. It's a fiction book and there was a person in the book that is trying to get somewhere, and in the book, even in this book that we're reading, there's a quote that says from GK Chester 10 that says there's one thing which gives radiance to everything it's the idea of something around the corner. So in this story that I'm going to share with you in a second, there was a person in the book who is looking up ahead continuously on the quest for this thing to achieve, this place to go, this person to become. In the journey he got lost sight of the fact that it was about the journey and in fact, last week you know, I gave the quote from the Wonka movie that it's never been about the chocolate, it's about who you would share it with. And so this book that I really think needs to be on everybody's shelf is called the Alchemist by Paulo Coelho.
Speaker 1:
It's one of my favorite books and it's interesting because that book was given to me. Well, it wasn't given to me. The book was given to my son when he was like 10 years old by an adult man, and so I read it first to make sure it was going to be cool for Vincent to read. And I read it within two days and it became instantly a fan favorite for me on my shelf and I've read it time and again and gifted it to many people.
Speaker 1:
And the point of that book, and the point that you'll see in this chapter of this book, is that when you can't read it, you can't read it, and when you can learn to master your time, savor the moments that you're in, like we talked about last week, but to commit to goals that are for the future and have something, like Chesterton says, which is striving for something around the corner, all of those things highlight and bring relevance to happiness in your life. Because if you don't have anything to strive for, if you have nothing to savor and you have no memories to reminisce and you don't have friends and family around you that you care about investing your time with, there's no real meaning to your life, and so what I loved about this chapter is that, even though it may be a practical one and for you, sam, being so good at goal planning and goal execution For me it was really around the evidence that having dreams and bringing those dreams to life is what goals are about. We talk about that a lot in School of Thoughts, don't we? That if you have passion and you have potential and you have purpose, you have meaning, and all those things together is how you elevate your happiness.
Speaker 2:
Yep, absolutely, absolutely. And I see this all the time in my coaching practice with people is usually somebody's got some like nugget of an idea or something that feels big and they're like, oh man, I've always wanted to do this, I've always wanted to be that. And going through that journey with someone and watching them gain the confidence in themselves, gain the skills, gain the you know, just live that journey to where they get, to that goal and the person that they become as they do, it is like one of my absolute favorite things that I savor. It's one of the joys I savor in life is watching people and doing. That's why I love goal setting and the goal attainment. So much is because I love. I love seeing people create this vision of something they get to look forward to and then helping them do it.
Speaker 1:
It doesn't matter what it is.
Speaker 2:
It could be the craziest thing under the sun, it could be something that I personally have no interest in, but it doesn't matter. What I love is the passion that the person has for the thing, and you know where they're going and stuff like that, and it's just you know, and that's what I think is so magical about goal attainment is watching and living that experience of that journey. I love what she broke down here, because I've never seen goals broken down this way, and I goals a lot. You and I are both like multi certified coaches and so like goal. How do you get people to help them with their goals is like part of all the training that we've done at all these certifications, but I've never seen goals broken down this way, and so this is the.
Speaker 2:
If you want goals to help you with your happiness, here's the list that you need, and the first one is that the goal has to be intrinsic. It has to be a goal that is motivated from inside of you, right? It can't be something that like, oh, I want to be a doctor because mom wants me to be a doctor. It's. I want to be a doctor because I love helping people with their health and you know you've got some personal, internally motivated thing with it, and what I love about this is this is like it was like a duh moment for me, like, of course, of course, this is like a goal that would make you happy, is something that's motivated by yourself versus externally. But if you're looking to set a goal, you know that's, you know that's one of the ones that you know that you should. You should really think about that. The next thing is authentic goals, so goals that are rooted in your deeply held interests, in your core values. So, right, the first thing's talking about what's your motivation, your internal motivation. The other thing is what do you care most about? Right? Is this something that is true to who? You are right If you're somebody that believes I had that. My son, I don't know. A while ago, he yelled at me. He was mad. You know he's a kid. He got mad at me about something and he was like mom, all you care about is safety and kindness. And I'm like, yeah, those are, those are two of my core beliefs, those are two of my house and I core beliefs. I was like I, you know, like, while he's yelling at me, I'm like nailed it, like got it. You know, he knows what's important to me, and so, like, goals that are authentic to kindness and to safety and creating safe spaces, those are things that would work really well for me, right, because that's authentic to who I am.
Speaker 2:
The next thing is approach goals, this one, I like. It took me a minute to understand this one was what this one was, but I love it after I understood it. So an approach goal is where you are moving towards something and it's in contradiction to an avoidance goal, so away from something. So it would be something like, you know, trying to, you know, not feel guilty, right, it would be like moving away from something. I'm trying to move away from guilt. Having a goal of, like, lessening guilt in your life or getting away from it wouldn't be, you know, isn't really the best when you're phrasing a goal, but moving towards something. That is what you want to have. I want to have a life where I'm deeply connected with people, where boundaries are in place that help me live the life that I want. So it's moving towards something instead of away from something. And when we think about happiness, we think about it on the end of the scale. That's like positive emotion and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:
So when you're thinking about setting goals, look at the phrasing that you've got going on, right, am I saying, oh, I'm trying to avoid something and that's my goal? Like, oh, I'm trying to not eat sugar. It's like, well, what would you? What are you actually trying to accomplish in that? Right, what's that question that you can flip around? How could you say that statement in a avoid sugar, but maybe it's. I want to eat other things instead. I want to increase fiber, I want to do whatever, right, so, finding things that help you flip that script a bit into. I'm moving towards something, not away from something. The next one is a harmonious goal. So this is something that is congruent with the rest of your life, which to me, denise, I thought right about of atomic habits and all the identity based habits.
Speaker 1:
Yes, that's so good, so it goes from here to talking about that. You could get all this right, with it being something internal and intrinsic and motivating and positive and authentic. What happens, sam, when you have to be flexible? What happens when the goal isn't just I want to get healthier and happier, but you're at work, like, how do you take this flexible, appropriate and activity section of this book that we're reading right now and still find happiness in the mundane, like we talked about last week, because not all goals that are work related feel connected sometimes.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, absolutely Right. And she says in here you've got to find the right tasks at the right time, like we should be. If we're doing things right, in my opinion, right, you should be constantly growing and changing and you know, your opinion should grow along with you, your thoughts, your ideas, right. Like you should be coming bigger and larger every year over year, week over week, day over day, hopefully, right, but you should be moving towards something, and so those goals have to grow with you. They have to be able to flex.
Speaker 2:
You have to give yourself grace in that moment of hey, yeah, my goal is this, but I can expand it, I can adjust it and there doesn't have to be anything wrong with that. Right, like, oh, it's not exactly the goal I set out for it's no, it grew with me, it changed with me, it's appropriate for where I'm at now, you know, instead of saying like, oh, I would like to have something. That's crazy, that doesn't make sense, because it's not who you are in this moment, it's not where you're headed in this moment. So, yeah, you're right, it's such an important thing to think about, and you've coached people for years to me. I mean, I'm sure you've got, you know, examples of people who maybe thought they wanted one thing and then as they grew, you know, change changed along the way, and I was okay, yeah, I'm going to give an example.
Speaker 1:
I recall this has been a couple of years now, maybe five years even I was coaching to what we would call early talent people, meaning these were people that had either just come off of internships or just graduated from college and they were starting their career. Like what an exciting time to be able to start off on a journey that actually was probably going to take them 40 years to finish right, because if you think about just the age of retirement these days. And so in this example there were these two young people One person lived. They were both Americans. One lived on the West Coast, one lived on the East Coast. They both went to Ivy League schools. They both had almost the same kind of a job. They were in a technical role in a technical large company. Person number one was miserable. Person number two was miserable. But I want to share what the difference was, because it's all based around committing to goals. The first person was in a role that they didn't like and shared with me in the coaching sessions that they were doing. The job they were in because their parents were from another country, moved them to this country and wanted them to have a better life and basically said the only way to have a better life is to work in tech and to do this kind of technical job. And in this case this was a female and so being a female in a tech world, you're gonna stand out. So the goal was intrinsically what the parent thought was best for their child, because they cared for their child. It wasn't. They wanted their child to be unhappy. The child, however, which was an adult female, she really loved art, painting, the creative arts, and I recall one time I was talking to her, sam, and she started sobbing on the telephone and saying how she felt like she was gonna be stuck in this career, dead-end, doing something she didn't like for the rest of her career, to make her parents happy at her expense, and so she wasn't committing to her goals. She was committing to their goals and her happiness continued to decline to the point where she ended up stop taking coaching sessions because she knew that she wasn't going to take the reins over her own destiny.
Speaker 1:
Flipside other person on the East Coast, same story in a role did not like the job they were doing, went to college for the same kind of reasons. The parent said go get this kind of a career, it's gonna make you a lot of money, you won't have to worry, etc. Now this person loved teaching and loved young people, and so the difference between this person and the first person was this person actually sat down with intention and did everything you just said, which was be authentic in their heart. Approach the goals in the right way, have something intrinsically motivating and being able to create a journey and being able to commit to a pursuit, to something. And so the persons decided that they wanted to explore. Could they afford to become a teacher Doing the thing in tech, teaching young people about tech, because they still liked tech, but they didn't want to be an engineer. They wanted to teach people how to be an engineer.
Speaker 1:
So the person committed to that ended up going networking with their former teachers at their school, interviewing people, testing some things out. Ended up leaving their very nice paying job to go become a teacher to see if they could swing it. Ended up in the first year winning an award as like a teacher of the year. So happy, so settled, so satisfied, because they committed to something that they wanted to pursue. Now is it possible that person might change their mind later and decide they want to then change it. If you ever looked at my LinkedIn, you'd say Denise, you're one to talk, because my LinkedIn is sort of like Mr Toad's Wild Ride. But it's important to continue to pursue the thing that brings you the happiness, and when it no longer brings you joy it's kind of like the Marie Kondo book. I always bring up the life changing magic of tidying up. When it no longer brings you joy, then why continue to pursue that thing?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, yeah, I love those stories. I mean, I mean, the first one makes me sad and the second one makes me, so you know, happy, but I think it's, you know it really comes down to are you committing to something? That means something is and is, you know, meaningful. And the very last type of thing she talks about in this chapter is activity based goals, which I thought was an interesting one, because I didn't quite understand this one either at first glance. But this is something about, you know, living that experience that you want, living that life that you want and thinking about your goals in that context. Right, like, yeah, I like tech, but what I like about tech is teaching people about it. Right, like, that's really different.
Speaker 2:
But this activity based goal thought process is, you know, let's say well, just to business, two things here. But like you want to buy a new TV, right, like, oh, I want to buy a big giant, really nice, fancy TV. If you buy that TV and you check it, you know, like you save your money, you work towards it, you do it, you get it and it's like it's great. But then, if we learn from earlier in the book, right, that hedonic adaptation comes around and you're like, oh no, I'm just used to a big TV and it's whatever. But if you change that goal and you think about it as, why are you buying the bigger TV? Why are you? Why do you want this? And maybe you want that because what you really are trying to do is to create an experience for your family to have movie nights, yeah, so your goal isn't oh, let me get to the end result of this thing. It's, let me think of the activity that gets me the, and this is, and then the TV is part of it. Yeah, I want to buy this big TV because it's going to, you know, create this experience for us, this activity for us. That's, you know, that's something magical, and you know, and something larger and bigger.
Speaker 2:
And I think that you know you're, you know, as I think about the two, you know women in your story. It's, you know, one chose the path of this broader. Why do I want to do this? What am I doing? Really exploring that, and that's, you know, when we think about goals, make sure that it is. It checks all these boxes. Right, it's in it's intrinsic, it's true to who you are. But really think about it in a bigger sense. Ask yourself that why, question, I always live a five? Why analysis right, why do I like this and why is that important? And then, why is that important? And really getting down to what is it, and usually comes back to the experience, the activity, the bigger sense of what is it, the bigger sense of why you're trying to pursue something right, what the life that you want, that this contributes to.
Speaker 1:
The life you want. So in summarizing for this chapter, remember the name of this book is called the how of Happiness. There are 12 different activities that will help you craft your own. How the author actually ends this chapter in a way that is obviously best in her writing than us trying to repurpose what she wrote. So I'm going to just read it as the closing for today to hopefully sum this up for you as a listener, about how you can use committing to your goals to drive your happiness.
Speaker 1:
What she says is the pursuit of goals that are intrinsic, authentic, approach oriented, harmonious, activity based and flexible will deliver more happiness than the pursuit of goals that are extrinsic, inauthentic, avoidance oriented, conflicting, circumstance based or rigid. This mouthful of words is based on decades of research as a first step. Then consider your significant goals and strivings. I thought that that was like, if that doesn't bang you over the head with saying this is research based and common sense right, like who would think that extrinsic, inauthentic, avoidance oriented, conflicting, circumstance based, rigid goals would ever bring you closer to happiness. And yet how many of us seek after those things?
Speaker 2:
Right. Yeah absolutely, absolutely. I think that's a perfect summary.
Speaker 1:
So, that being said, we've got still a little bit more to go on next week. So we have next week number 11. There's only two left right, Sam, 12 all together. I can't believe it. So next week is one that may or may not resonate with everyone. It is actually in my top. It's called Practicing Religion and Spirituality and how that health and well-being ties to your overall happiness. So that's next week. If you don't have this book or you've just started jumping in with us, go ahead and get it. We'll have a link, Scott. If you could please put the link in our show notes for people to get a copy of the book if they don't already have it. There's also tons of free stuff that the author gives for you to even go deeper than we're able to take you on our podcast, Sam. Any closing thoughts for today? Now go out there and find those goals.
Speaker 2:
Friends, get out there, find the ones that really mean something to you and pursue them. And if you need help, denise and I are coaches.
Speaker 1:
we can help you Absolutely, and there will be ways for you to reach us on that as well, and that is really a good reminder. Maybe what we could do to bring about some happiness is to offer up some free initial coaching consultations. So if you're listening and you're thinking, you know something really is stirring in my stomach. Here I need to make a change. I know there's something that I can do, be or have that'll make me happier, but I'm just not sure where to start. Coaching is the place to start. Let us help you. We will commit to giving you a free initial consultation, whether it's with us or one of our many networked coaches that are multi certified in this stuff, to help you in your pursuit of finding, seeking, having being and living a life of happiness. So, for today, my name is Denise Rousseau. My friend Sam Powell has been with me and will continue to be, which makes me so happy. We'll see you next week on another episode of what's On your Bookshelf.