Are you a student facing time management issues? Well, the majority of students today struggle with managing their time effectively leading to a decrease in their productivity levels along with an increase in stress. Time management is an art that not only brings discipline in a student’s life but also optimises their overall growth. Thus, all students must know effective ways of time management. If you are one of those students looking for ways to manage your time, this blog is for you! Here we will discuss the importance of time management for students and also provide tips for the same. Take a look!

THIS BLOG INCLUDES:

1. What is Time Management?
2. Time Management Skills
3. Why Time Management Is Important To Students?
   1. It Increases Your Productivity
   2. It Keeps Your Work Organised
   3. Positive Effect On Health
   4. More Time For Extracurricular Activities
   5. It Helps in Stress Reduction
   6. No Last-minute Cramming of Syllabus
4. Tips for Time Management for Students
5. Time Management for Online Students

Must Read Motivational Books for Students

What is Time Management?

Each one of us has 24 hours a day and how we spend it completely depends on us. As the term suggests, time management is organizing your time and making the most of your daily routine. It is the ability to use each hour effectively. Managing time not only makes us complete our work but also give us ample time for ourselves. People can work smarter when they learn to manage their time effectively. However, each human is wired uniquely different. Hence, it is important to know that each one of our schedules might depend on several intrinsic factors and can be influenced by multiple external factors.

“The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot”- Michael Altshuler

Time Management Skills

While some people find it difficult to manage their time, others manage their time better because they have certain skills. Time management requires habituating oneself to a disciplined schedule. Here are a few time management skills you can inculcate in your daily routine. 

• Find your most effective and productive hour of the day.
• Make realistic plans.
• Own your work.
• Don’t bite more than you can chew.
• Plan ahead.
• Be flexible.

“Once you have mastered time, you will understand how true it is that most people overestimate what they can accomplish in a year – and underestimate what they can achieve in a decade!” — Tony Robbins

Why Time Management Is Important To Students?

Time management for students is of utmost importance to balance their studies with other daily essential tasks. Good time management reflects on your health and also adds to your energy to achieve more. Here are a few reasons why time management should be of utmost importance for all students.

It Increases Your Productivity

If you manage your time effectively, it adds to your productivity levels. Assigning a fixed time for all the tasks to be done in a day lets you plan your day in advance and enables you to do more tasks in less time. But you should remember that this will only be effective if you do your work on time, procrastination will definitely have a negative effect on your productivity. 

Here is a list of Top 10 Podcasts for Students

It Keeps Your Work Organised

The best way of time management for students is to create and follow a fixed timetable for each day. This is beneficial for students since they will have a clear idea of the different tasks to be done each day, and they could also easily mark the tasks as done after completing them. This will make your daily tasks organised and you can even choose to do the more important ones first by putting them at the top of the things-to-do list.

Positive Effect On Health

Good time management efforts also reflect on your health. When you manage your time effectively, you don’t have to stay up late to finish your tasks. Cutting down on your sleep time will lead to tiredness, which will hamper your schedule for the day. Getting a good night’s sleep is essential for your brain and body to recharge itself, and this reflects positively on your health and energy levels. 

Must Read: Learning Skills For Students

More Time For Extracurricular Activities

When you have a fixed schedule for all your tasks for the day, you get an idea of the extra time you will have left after completing all your tasks. You can schedule your tasks in a way so that you get more time to do what you love. This can include hobbies like drawing, painting, singing, dancing, photography etc, or you can even go cycling or jogging to get some fresh air to refresh yourself. 

“Either run the day or the day runs you.” – Jim Rohn

It Helps in Stress Reduction

Not completing your studies, assignments and projects can cause you to be stressed out. Taking care of our mental health is very important for everyone, and since students often get increased stress and anxiety levels due to the pressure of studies, it reflects on their poor performance. Effective time management can help you in lessening this mental pressure, which will also boost your confidence and energy levels.English Speaking Topics for StudentsBest Novels for Students

No Last-minute Cramming of Syllabus

One problem that students often face is not completing their syllabus on time. This leads to them cramming up all the chapters just before the exams, which undoubtedly makes them get lower scores than they expected. With proper techniques of time management for students, they can not only complete studying the chapters in their syllabus on time, but also have some extra time left for their revisions.

“To do two things at once is to do neither.”- Publius Syrus

Tips for Time Management for Students

Now that you know the importance of time management for students, you should start on working on managing your time better. If you are clueless about how you should start with this, worry no more! Here are some tips on time management for students that you will find useful:

• Create a daily timetable or schedule with all the tasks to be done
• Start your day early
• Divide your tasks 
• Take short breaks between studies or doing your tasks
• Do not procrastinate
• Work on one task at a time instead of multitasking
• Get enough sleep
• Do your tasks with full focus
• Practice healthy eating
• Try to keep away all distractions (like TV, mobile) when you study 

Benefits of online learning for students

Time Management for Online Students

Since students have been constricted to their homes, keeping track of studies, assignments and homework has become difficult. With regular classrooms, students had a specific place and a set time for their school/college hours. Online classes have considerably decreased the focus of students and made them lag behind. Here are a few tips that can help students manage their time for online studies. 

• Create a Well-designed Plan: Schedule your day according to to your other chores and task.
• Set-up a Virtual Classroom: Choose any corner of the house and make it your dedicated classroom. 
• Make a to-do list: Making a to-do list of all your assignments, studies, and chapters will help you know which are to be completed on a priority bases. 
• Add Minimum Time to do Each Task: Adding a minimum amount can help you allot time for each task throuighout the day. This will also help you know how much time you take for differentr assignments.
• Reduce Distractions: While studying, Dedicate this time to your studies only. Make sure you avoid being distracted by social media or family. 
• Reward yourself: Tale breaks and reward yourself at frequent intervals. This will help your mind stay focussed and also increase productivity.

Hope you found this blog on the importance of time management for students useful. Follow the tips mentioned here to manage your time better and achieve your desired results. If you are looking for higher education opportunities abroad, our experts at Leverage Edu can provide you with the best guidance regarding the top courses you can apply for. Sign up for a free session today

The Importance of Management Principles for an Organisation!

Proper understanding of management principles is very necessary and helpful for managers as these principles act as guidelines for managerial activities. By practising principles managers can avoid various mistakes while dealing with people in the organisation.

Image Courtesy : kirtland.edu/wp-content/uploads/academic-programs/small-business-management-and-entrepreneurship-certificate/kirtland-small-business-management-and-entrepreneurship-degrees.jpg

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The significance of management principles is due to following reasons:

(1) Providing managers with useful insight into reality:

Management principles act as guidelines for the managers. These principles improve knowledge, ability and understanding of managers under various managerial situations. The effects of these principles help the managers to learn from their mistakes. These principles guide managers to take right decision at the right time.

(2) Optimum utilisation of resources:

The management principles insist on planned activities and systematic organisation of men and materials in the organisation. Principles are designed to get maximum benefits from the human efforts and other resources.

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For example, scientific principles suggest to cut down the wasteful movements and setting up of standard time to complete a task. By saving time, energy and efforts activities can be made economical and result in maximum utilisation of resources.

(3) Scientific decisions:

Managers have to take number of decisions every day. So they need to assess the resources of organisations very carefully so that the appropriate decision can be taken by using the available resources in best possible manner. The management principles enable the managers to approach various problems systematically and scientifically.

For example, Taylor’s principles always insisted on replacement of rule of thumb by scientific approach i.e., he suggested to conduct the time study to set up the standard time required to perform a job rather than leaving it at the discretion or will of manager.

(4) Meeting changing environment requirement:

Every businessman has to make changes in the organisation according to changes taking place in the business environment. Management principles train the managers in implementing the changes in right direction and at right level in the organisation. Although management principles are relative and general guidelines yet by modifying these principles changes can be made in the organisation.

(5) Effective administration:

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Administration is the function of top level management. In this function major plans and policies are formed. The management principles act as guidelines and base to form various administrative policies to have systematic working in the organisation. Management principles make administration more effective by discouraging personal prejudices and biases. These principles insist on objectivity and scientific decisions.

For example, principle of unity of command, scalar chain, and unity of direction leads to systematic and smooth functioning of the organisation as unity of command avoids confusion of more bosses. Unity of direction unifies the efforts of all the employees in common direction and scalar chain results in systematic flow of information. So all these principles definitely bring effective and efficient administration.

(6) Fulfilling Social responsibilities:

A business is creation of society and makes use of resources of society so it must do something for society also by performing some social responsibilities. Management principles not only act as guidelines for achieving organisational objectives but these principles also guide the managers to perform social responsibilities.

For example, the principle of fair remuneration insists on adequate salary to employees and takes care of interest of employees also.

(7) Management Training, Education and Research:

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The management principles stress on scientific judgements and logical thinking. As a result these principles act as base of doing research and development in management studies. As these principles provide organised body of knowledge to perform research work and generate more and more knowledge, they have provided new ideas, imagination and base for research and development.

Principles of management are at the core of management theories. These act as base for management training and education. Professional courses such as BBA, MBA also teach these principles as part of their curriculum. The entire management institute takes aptitude test and these tests are based on management principles only.

M&R Ch. 3: Truthfulness and relevance

Posted onJanuary 11, 2014AuthorBrian LarsonLeave a comment

This is my colleague Chris Cocchiarella’s summary of the third chapter of Wilson and Sperber’s (2012) Meaning and Relevance. We previously posted Chris’s summary of the book’s preface, an intro to some of the terms and concepts of Relevance Theory, and a his summary of the introductory Chapter 1. All the other chapters  before the present one have also received summaries. (Click on the “Relevance Theory” tag link on any of these, and you’ll get the whole list.) I also posted a claim that Relevance Theory matters to rhetoric and TC.

Having explained the meaning of inferential pragmatics in Chapter 1 and word-concept relationships in Chapter 2, Sperber and Wilson move to the topic of truth in Chapter 3.  Any discussion of truth can start with the truism that hearers generally expect speakers to say things that are true.  Does this mean, as some philosophers of language believed (e.g., David Lewis and Paul Grice), that language use is governed by specific rules or conventions of ‘truthfulness,’ which enforce trust among speakers and hearers?  For example, Lewis thought that a ‘convention of truthfulness’ makes hearers and speakers trust one another with respect to what they say, especially what they literally say (if this so-called ‘convention of truthfulness’ sounds vague, S&W will explain why, as we shall soon see).  

Basically, S&W disagree with Lewis in at least two ways.  First, language use is not necessarily governed by some rule or convention of ‘truthfulness’ (but by expectations of relevance, of which truth is a by-product).  Second, truth is created not only by what can be literally said (but also by what can be loosely and figuratively said, depending on expectations of relevance).

First, S&W argue, “language use is not governed by any convention or maxim of truthfulness in what is said” (47).  Instead, they insist that language use is governed by expectations of relevance, and relevance is what makes truth possible, not vice versa: “expectations of truthfulness—to the extent that they exist—are a by-product of expectations of relevance” (48).  What do S&W mean when the say truth is a by-product of relevance?  Simply put, a linguistic utterance is recognized as true when it is already inferred as meaningful or relevant: “an utterance is relevant when the hearer, given his cognitive dispositions and the context, is likely to derive some genuine knowledge from it” (60).  This inferential nature of communication explained by Relevance Theory (RT)[1] is what allows hearers to interpret true conclusions about what speakers say:

This relevance-theoretic account not only describes a psychological process but also explains what makes this process genuinely inferential: that is, likely to yield true conclusions (in this case, intended interpretations) from true premises (in this case, from the fact that the speaker has produced a given utterance, together with contextual information) (66).

Second, as RT also has shown, language can communicate truth not just literally but also figuratively or loosely, depending on how expectations of relevance interact with words and context to produce interpretations.  While literal interpretations are the least dependent on context, “figurative interpretations are radically context-dependent” (51); loose interpretations are in between, since they involve “an expression applied to items that fall outside its linguistically determined denotation,” such as rough approximations (e.g., “Holland is flat”) (54).  In sum, true linguistic expressions are not only created by literal interpretations but also by loose and figurative interpretations.

The fact that truth can be spoken not only through literal but also through loose and figurative expressions (a fact well known by artists and poets) explains why the so-called ‘convention of truthfulness’ is just not true.  According to S&W, “Without such an appeal to literal meaning in the determination of what is said, the claim that there is a maxim or convention of truthfulness in what is said would be, if not vacuous, at least utterly vague” (50).  So there are not necessarily rules of ‘truthfulness’ that govern cognition or language use.  However, there is an inferential process in cognition and language use that ‘maximizes’[2] relevance, and this process creates meaning through a continuum of literal, loose, and figurative language—or degrees of stronger or weaker explicatures and implicatures (see Preface and Chapter 1 summaries).  Truth, in sum, emerges from relevance (or, as S&W say, truth is a ‘by-product’ of relevance).

S&W’s explanation of truth as a by-product of relevance explains why, beyond literal truth, there is loose and figurative truth communicated in quotidian and poetic language.  To repeat the earlier premises of RT, stronger and weaker degrees of explicatures and implicatures create a continuum of literal, loose, and figurative interpretations that satisfy expectations of relevance:

Literal, loose, hyperbolic or metaphorical [i.e., figurative] interpretations are arrived at by exactly the same process [the relevance-guided comprehension heuristic or procedure], and there is a continuum of cases which cross-cut these categories (74-75).

Beyond literally true language, when a speaker communicates via loose or figurative language, more processing effort is required by the hearer to create broader cognitive effects (i.e., wider ranges of meaning), resulting in figuratively true language.

The more metaphorical the interpretation, the greater the responsibility the hearer has to take for the construction of implicatures (i.e. implicit premises and conclusions), and the weaker most of these implicatures will be.  Typically, poetic metaphors have a wide range of potential implicatures, and the audience is encouraged to be creative in exploring this range (a fact well recognised in literary theory since the Romantics) (76).

S&W thus differ from earlier theorists (particularly Lewis and Grice) about the relation between truth and relevance in at least two ways.  First, language use is governed by expectations of relevance, of which truth is a by-product.  Second, since relevance creates a continuum of literal, loose, and figurative language, truth can be literal, loose, or figurative.[3]  S&W conclude:

So, yes, hearers expect to be provided with true information.  But there is an infinite supply of true information which is not worth attending to.  Actual expectations are of relevant information, which (because it is information) is also true.  However, we have argued that there is just no expectation that the true information communicated by an utterance should be literally or conventionally expressed, as opposed to being explicated or implicated (83).

Having explained how truth can go beyond literalism, S&W put RT in a position to directly address rhetoric and figurative language such as metaphor and irony.  The implications of RT for rhetoric, metaphor, and irony are detailed in chapters 4, 5, and 6, respectively.

References

Wilson, Deirdre and Sperber, Dan.  (2012).  Meaning and Relevance.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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[1] Again, according to RT, the mutual adjustment of stronger or weaker explicatures and implicatures creates positive cognitive effects through minimal processing effort, which satisfies expectations of relevance that result in acceptable and accessible interpretations.  This process is called the “relevance-guided comprehension heuristic” (7) or the “relevance-theoretic comprehension procedure” (74).  See Preface and Chapter 1 summaries.

[2] As I parenthetically opined in my summary of chapter 1, instead of saying that we ‘maximize’ relevance, I believe S&W should rather say that we ‘satisfice’ relevance, since “optimal relevance” is just an interpretation that is “relevant enough to be worth processing” (64).

[3] For readers familiar with the theories of Grice and Lewis, S&W also discuss in chapter 3 how their notions of ‘literal meaning’ or ‘what is said’ (in contrast to implicature) are better rethought as S&W’s notion of ‘explicature’:

In our account [Relevance Theory], we give theoretical status to the notions of explicature and implicature (roughly, the explicit and implicit contents of utterances, but not to the notions of literal meaning or what is said.  Indeed, we introduced the ‘explicature’, on the model of Grice’s ‘implicature’, because we doubt that there is any common-sense notion of what is said capable of playing a useful role in the study of verbal comprehension (77).

CategoriesRelevance theory, Speech Act TheoryTagsCognitive-pragmatic rhetoric, Dan Sperber, Deirdre Wilson, Grice, Pragmatics, Relevance Theory, Speech act theory

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Happiness is an emotional state characterized by feelings of joy, satisfaction, contentment, and fulfillment. While happiness has many different definitions, it is often described as involving positive emotions and life satisfaction.

When most people talk about happiness, they might be talking about how they feel in the present moment, or they might be referring to a more general sense of how they feel about life overall.

Because happiness tends to be such a broadly defined term, psychologists and other social scientists typically use the term ‘subjective well-being’ when they talk about this emotional state. Just as it sounds, subjective well-being tends to focus on an individual’s overall personal feelings about their life in the present.  

Two key components of happiness (or subjective well-being) are:

• The balance of emotions: Everyone experiences both positive and negative emotions, feelings, and moods. Happiness is generally linked to experiencing more positive feelings than negative.
• Life satisfaction: This relates to how satisfied you feel with different areas of your life including your relationships, work, achievements, and other things that you consider important.

How to Know If You’re Happy

While perceptions of happiness may be different from one person to the next, there are some key signs that psychologists look for when measuring and assessing happiness.

Some key signs of happiness include:

• Feeling like you are living the life you wanted
• Feeling that the conditions of your life are good
• Feeing that you have accomplished (or will accomplish) what you want in life
• Feeling satisfied with your life
• Feeling positive more than negative

One important thing to remember is that happiness isn’t a state of constant euphoria. Instead, happiness is an overall sense of experiencing more positive emotions than negative ones.

Happy people still feel the whole range of human emotions—anger, frustrastion, boredom, loneliness, and even sadness—from time to time. But even when faced with discomfort, they have an underlying sense of optimism that things will get better, that they can deal with what is happening, and that they will be able to feel happy again.The Benefits of Optimism

Types of Happiness

There are many different ways of thinking about happiness. For example, the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle made a distinction between two different kinds of happiness: hedonia and eudaimonia.

• Hedonia: Hedonic happiness is derived from pleasure. It is most often associated with doing what feels good, self-care, fulfilling desires, experiencing enjoyment, and feeling a sense of satisfaction.
• Eudaimonia: This type of happiness is derived from seeking virtue and meaning. Important components of eudaimonic well-being including feeling that your life has meaning, value, and purpose. It is associated more with fulfilling responsibilities, investing in long-term goals, concern for the welfare of other people, and living up to personal ideals.

Hedonia and eudemonia are more commonly known today in psychology as pleasure and meaning, respectively. More recently, psychologists have suggested the addition of the third component that relates to engagement. These are feelings of commitment and participation in different areas of life.

Research suggests that happy people tend to rank pretty high on eudaimonic life satisfaction and better than average on their hedonic life satisfaction.¹ 

All of these can play an important role in the overall experience of happiness, although the relative value of each can be highly subjective. Some activities may be both pleasurable and meaningful, while others might skew more one way or the other.

For example, volunteering for a cause you believe in might be more meaningful than pleasurable. Watching your favorite tv show, on the other hand, might rank lower in meaning and higher on pleasure.²

Some types of happiness that may fall under these three main categories include:

• Joy: A often relatively brief feeling that is felt in the present moment
• Excitement: A happy feeling that involves looking forward to something with positive anticipation
• Gratitude: A positive emotion that involves being thankful and appreciative
• Pride: A feeling of satisfaction in something that you have accomplished
• Optimism: This is a way of looking at life with a positive, upbeat outlook
• Contentment: This type of happiness involves a sense of satisfaction

What Are the Types of Happiness?

How to Cultivate Happiness

While some people just tend to be naturally happier, there are things that you can do to cultivate your sense of happiness. 

Pursue Intrinsic Goals 

Achieving goals that you are intrinsically motivated to pursue, particularly ones that are focused on personal growth and community, can help boost happiness. Research suggests that pursuing these types of intrinsically-motivated goals can increase happiness more than pursuing extrinsic goals like gaining money or status.³

Enjoy the Moment

Studies have found that people tend to over earn—they become so focused on accumulating things that they lose track of actually enjoying what they are doing.⁴

So, rather than falling into the trap of mindlessly accumulating to the detriment of your own happiness, focus on practicing gratitude for the things you have and enjoying the process as you go. 

Reframe Negative Thoughts

When you find yourself stuck in a pessimistic outlook or experiencing negativity, look for ways that you can reframe your thoughts in a more positive way. 

People have a natural negativity bias, or a tendency to pay more attention to bad things than to good things. This can have an impact on everything from how you make decisions to how you form impressions of other people. Discounting the positive—a cognitive distortion where people focus on the negative and ignore the positive—can also contribute to negative thoughts.

Reframing these negative perceptions isn’t about ignoring the bad. Instead, it means trying to take a more balanced, realistic look at events. It allows you to notice patterns in your thinking and then challenge negative thoughts.What Is Cognitive Reframing?

Impact of Happiness

Happiness has been shown to predict positive outcomes in many different areas of life.

• Positive emotions increase satisfaction with life.
• Happiness helps people build stronger coping skills and emotional resources.
• Positive emotions are linked to better health and longevity. One study found that people who experienced more positive emotions than negative ones were more likely to have survived over a 13 year period.⁵
• Positive feelings increase resilience. Resilience helps people better manage stress and bounce back better when faced with setbacks. For example, one study found that happier people tend to have lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol and that these benefits tend to persist over time.⁶
• People who report having a positive state of well-being are more likely to engage in healthy behaviors such as eating fruits and vegetables and engaging in regular physical exercise.⁷
• Being happy may make help you get sick less often. Happier mental states are linked to increased immunity.⁸

Improving Your Happiness

Some people seem to have a naturally higher baseline for happiness—one large-scale study of more than 2,000 twins suggested that around 50% of overall life satisfaction was due to genetics, 10% to external events, and 40% to individual activities.⁹

So while you might not be able to control what your “base level” of happiness is, there are things that you can do to make your life happier and more fulfilling. Even the happiest of individuals can feel down from time to time and happiness is something that all people need to consciously pursue.

Get Regular Exercise

Exercise is good for both your body and mind. Physical activity is linked to a range of physical and psychological benefits including improved mood. Numerous studies have shown that regular exercise may play a role in warding off symptoms of depression, but evidence also suggests that it may also help make people happier, too.

In one analysis of past research on the connection between physical activity and happiness, researchers found a consistent positive link.¹⁰

Even a little bit of exercise produces a happiness boost—people who were physically active for as little as 10 minutes a day or who worked out only once a week had higher levels of happiness than people who never exercised.

Show Gratitude

In one study, participants were asked to engage in a writing exercise for 10 to 20 minutes each night before bed.¹¹ Some were instructed to write about daily hassles, some about neutral events, and some about things they were grateful for. The results found that people who had written about gratitude had increase positive emotions, increased subjective happiness, and improve life satisfaction.

As the authors of the study suggest, keeping a gratitude list is a relatively easy, affordable, simple, and pleasant way to boost your mood. Try setting aside a few minutes each night to write down or think about things in your life that you are grateful for.Why You Should Write Down the Things You’re Grateful for Each Day

Find a Sense of Purpose

Research has found that people who feel like they have a purpose have better well-being and feel more fulfilled.¹² A sense of purpose involves seeing your life as having goals, direction, and meaning. It may help improve happiness by promoting healthier behaviors. 

Some things you can do to help find a sense of purpose include:

• Explore your interests and passions
• Engage in prosocial and altruistic causes
• Work to address injustices
• Look for new things you might want to learn more about

This sense of purpose is influenced by a variety of factors, but it is also something that you can cultivate. It involves finding a goal that you care deeply about that will lead you to engage in productive, positive actions in order to work toward that goal.How to Find Your Purpose In Life

Press Play for Advice On Reaching Your Dreams

Hosted by Editor-in-Chief and therapist Amy Morin, LCSW, this episode of The Verywell Mind Podcast, featuring best-selling author Dave Hollis, shares how to create your best life. Click below to listen now.

Follow Now: Apple Podcasts / Spotify / Google Podcasts / RSS

Challenges of Finding Happiness

While seeking happiness is important, there are times when the pursuit of life satisfaction falls short. Some challenges to watch for include:

Valuing the Wrong Things

Money may not be able to buy happiness, but there is research that spending money on things like experiences can make you happier than spending it on material possessions. 

One study, for example, found that spending money on things that buy time—such as spending money on time-saving services—can increase happiness and life satisfaction.¹³

Rather than overvaluing things such as money, status, or material possessions, pursuing goals that result in more free time or enjoyable experiences may have a higher happiness reward.

Not Seeking Social Support

Social support means having friends and loved ones that you can turn to for support. Research has found that perceived social support plays an important role in subjective well-being. For example, one study found that perceptions of social support were responsible for 43% of a person’s level of happiness.¹⁴

It is important to remember that when it comes to social support, quality is more important than quantity. Having just a few very close and trusted friends will have a greater impact on your overall happiness than having many casual acquaintances.

Thinking of Happiness as an Endpoint

Happiness isn’t a goal that you can simply reach and be done with. It is a constant pursuit that requires continual nurturing and sustenance.

One study found that people who tend to value happiness most also tended to feel the least satisfied with their lives.¹⁵ Essentially, happiness becomes such a lofty goal that it becomes virtually unattainable. 

“Valuing happiness could be self-defeating because the more people value happiness, the more likely they will feel disappointed,” suggest the authors of the study.

Perhaps the lesson is to not make something as broadly defined as “happiness” your goal. Instead, focus on building and cultivating the sort of life and relationships that bring fulfillment and satisfaction to your life. 

It is also important to consider how you personally define happiness. Happiness is a broad term that means different things to different people. Rather than looking at happiness as an endpoint, it can be more helpful to think about what happiness really means to you and then work on small things that will help you become happier. This can make achieving these goals more manageable and less overwhelming.How to Make Your Health Goals S.M.A.R.T.

History of Happiness

Happiness has long been recognized as a critical part of health and well-being. The “pursuit of happiness” is even given as an inalienable right in the U.S. Declaration of Independence. Our understanding of what will bring happiness, however, has shifted over time.

Psychologists have also proposed a number of different theories to explain how people experience and pursue happiness. These theories include:

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

The hierarchy of needs suggests that people are motivated to pursue increasingly complex needs. Once more basic needs are fulfilled, people are then motivated by more psychological and emotional needs.

At the peak of the hierarchy is the need for self-actualization, or the need to achieve one’s full potential. The theory also stresses the importance of peak experiences or transcendent moments in which a person feels deep understanding, happiness, and joy. 

Positive Psychology

The pursuit of happiness is central to the field of positive psychology. Psychologists who study positive psychology are interested in learning ways to increase positivity and helping people live happier, more satisfying lives. 

Rather than focusing on mental pathologies, the field instead strives to find ways to help people, communities, and societies improve positive emotions and achieve greater happiness.