The beginning of a new year feels fresh, full of promise, and hopeful for many people. Some have a bit of anxiety about it because it is something different, and others might even experience outright panic. Regardless of your natural response to a new academic year, it is a good time to establish some goals and think about what you would like the new academic year to look like.
A few days ago, The Atlantic published Arthur Brooks’ article about goal setting. In it, he explains that it is important to have goals and suggests that setting the right kind of goals will help. He prefers intrinsic goals over extrinsic ones. An example is that seeking positive human connections is a preferable goal over increasing one’s material wealth. A goal of fostering deeper friendships and closer connections is likely to make one happier. This has been shown to bring greater well-being and happiness. It is also helpful to have “mastery goals,” such as doing very well at your job and/or in your classes. If your goal requires you to compare yourself to others, such as with a performance goal of doing “better than (name of someone else),” you could be setting yourself up for disappointment and unhappiness.
Focusing on goals that will add happiness to your life, such as better relationships and self-satisfaction with a job well done, will pay you back with great rewards.
Another view on goal-setting comes from the book, “How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci,” by Michael J. Gelb. While it seems preposterous to even imagine that one could think like that multi-talented genius, the author suggests that there are seven principles that, if followed, could help you think like the master himself. We just need to emulate and apply them.
These principles are:
- Having an insatiably curious approach to life
- Being willing to test knowledge through persistence while learning from mistakes
- Continually refining your senses, particularly what you see and observe
- Being open to embracing ambiguity and paradox
- Developing “whole-brain” thinking by engaging left and right parts of brain (science and art)
- Cultivating grace, fitness and poise
- Recognizing and appreciating the interconnectedness of all things
What if we apply these principles to some goals for this year to see how your attitude of interconnectedness can look:
Intrinsic Goal: I will be curious about people, open to them, and I will approach them with grace.
Mastery Goal: I will be persistent and observant in order to do by best work in my work/classes, while seeking a balance between logic & imagination.
Connecting the above-stated principles with the goals may not be at all what either author envisioned, but it seems like a worthy experiment. Each of the goals (better human connections and self-measured achievement) has the potential for genuine happiness and application of the principles thereto gives them both focus and direction.
If you want to set your own individual goals that are different from the ones suggested above, please be kind to yourself and set them in a manner that would allow you to be happy even if you did not achieve a “particular” result. Working hard and being true to yourself and others always has a good result.
