How Does Positive Self-Regard Help Us Achieve Happiness?

How do you see yourself? Do you think that you’re strong enough to deal with life’s challenges? Is your opinion of yourself positive or negative in general?

This self-concept we have of ourselves is more important than you may think. We saw in a previous study that the way we approach our goals has a significant effect on achieving them. In this study, professionals tried to find out if there is a link between self-concept, our goals, and job/life satisfaction.

There are 2 types of goals.

Type 1: Approach goals- when we choose these goals we move towards a positive state.

Type 2: Avoidance goals– when we choose these goals, we simply want to avoid a negative situation.

When we choose approach goals, we want to pursue something that we’re interested in. We call these goals self-concordant goals, because they agree with us and what we like to do.

People with a positive self-regard tend to choose self-concordant goals more.

The way we see ourselves has an effect on the goals we pick, and our goals influence how happy we are in life.

Our self-concept is also linked to how successful we are at achieving our goals.

But why are people with a positive self-concept happier? Part of the reason for that is they’re more likely to choose self-concordant goals.

Because they’re interested in the goals they’ve picked, they are more motivated and committed to achieving their goals.

It’s not that people with positive self-regard are happy because they always attain their goals- they’re just more interested in them and try harder for them.

This motivation caused by an interest in goals lasts longer and doesn’t fade over time, unlike the motivation for avoidance goals.

Goals that we choose not because we like them, but because of external reasons (getting paid, society’s norms, etc.) don’t have an effect on success and life satisfaction.