Underlying most of the goals is the belief that achieving a goal could improve the quality of life, ours and / or those around us. Each of our long-term goals is often associated with many choices and decisions, including about what is worth trying and how much effort to invest in it. By assessing your quality of life, you can focus on the gaps and opportunities you have, to achieve better results.
Steps
Step 1. Try to fathom the aspects of your life and experiences that are most related to your desired quality of life
Which of your behaviors affect the quality of your life? Decades of research on what is most connected with the quality of life lead us back to five areas described in the acronym 'PERMA'::
- P: Positive emotions: Long moments or periods characterized by different positive moods, including feelings of happiness, gratification, intimacy, trust and tranquility.
- E: Engagement (commitment): Periods in which we are so engaged in the activity we carry out that we are merged with what we are doing, to the point of not being distracted by things that normally distract us. This is usually associated with the term 'eustress' meaning positive stress.
- A: Relationships: The quality of our relationships with others is closely related to the quality of life as a whole. The strength of our social network or 'Personal Safety Net' is critical to addressing the obstacles in our existence. Our relationships also underlie many other aspects of quality of life, especially positive emotions.
- M: Meaning: Feeling that our life has a meaning beyond what we do, in accordance with our deepest values, produces long-lasting motivational effects, much more than chasing the attainment of mere material pleasure. It is easier to do something meaningful when we work for the good of a community.
- A: Accomplishment: The sense of accomplishment is closely related to our satisfaction from being able to complete the to-do list. But it could also include the simple thrill of having solved a puzzle such as a sudoku puzzle or having passed a level of the video game.
- H: Health: Not mentioned in the original list, but worthy of mention here, is the quality of our physical well-being, including our suffering and physical abilities. According to Gallup's research on global well-being, the quality of our sleep plays a huge role in the quality of life as a whole - if we don't rest well and enough, we are more likely to be emotionally fragile or otherwise less productive.
Step 2. Try to find out how your mind makes choices
Every day we make a lot of choices that affect the quality of our life, but most of our habits (how we start the day, what we decide to eat) and standard reactions (eating when we are anxious, swearing at other drivers who commit offenses) take place automatically. Analytical thinking and programming are needed to dramatically change any automatic habits (how we choose food) or respond to patterns (how we react to frustration while driving). Turning on cognitive thinking just in time to make better choices is a fundamental skill. For example, if you feel your emotions are starting to take over, you have a limited amount of time in which you can ask strategic questions and choose more wisely what you will say or do next.
Step 3. Relate the quality of your ideal life to the above categories
What habits would you like to have? How would you like to react to challenging occasions? What should or shouldn't a perfect day include? Give yourself five minutes to write a wish list for each category.
- Write a gratification or 'satisfaction index' journal to keep track of your goals. Make a short list of the things you are satisfied with in your life within each category. Regularly assess your position within each of them by asking yourself: where are my minor and major gaps?
- Do some research that can help you on your journey. There are tons of online resources as well as lessons and courses. Ask yourself - what have you done in the past to fill these gaps? What have the others done?
- Collect ideas on the list of specific goals that, if successfully achieved, would help you fill the gaps and improve the quality of your life.
Step 4. Turn your goals into SMART goals:
S. M. A. R. T. stands for: Specific (specific), Measurable (measurable), Attainable (reachable), Realistic (realistic), Time-bound (based on time).
Experiment with various options to progress towards those goals. What mechanisms will help you remember to carry out your intentions? Focus on the easiest and quickest way to get the urge to continue using these steps in order to improve the quality of your life
Step 5. Seek the cooperation of other people
If you want to change a daily habit, such as eating healthier or exercising, collaborating with the people around you makes it easier. Collaboration could be counterproductive if their behavior affects yours or vice versa - work together to devise systems to try together.
For example, one of the simplest ways to eat properly is to reduce the presence of unhealthy foods at home. The choice is made first - when buying food - if you go to the grocery store, you can avoid the temptation to buy unhealthy food by staying in the perimeter aisles, unless you need something in the central ones
Step 6. Evaluate the results of your experiments
Use a diary to grasp your resolutions at the beginning of the day, review them and reflect on the results achieved at the end of the day and use what comes out of them to improve them. If you are collaborating with someone, review the results together. When you are falling asleep but are still conscious, that is, in the alpha state, your brain can focus more on how to achieve goals more productively.
Step 7. Be aware of productive failure
Imagining what doesn't work is part and parcel of imagining what works.
Advice
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An alternative habit to adopt at the end of the day is the RPM method: Reflect, Plan, Meditate:
- R.iflect about your day and personal results, then write everything down in your diary.
- P.deed for the following day. Planning ahead allows your mind to sift through your plans while you sleep and internalize the plans in order to be more involved in the moment you implement them the next day.
- M.edits. Focus your attention on the results of the past day. This will put your considerations first before bed.
- If you use the RPM method at the end of the day, you may find that you achieve better results on a daily basis.
