Set Experience Goals

In order to leverage your brain’s power of competitive selection, let’s think about what we want to experience more of. Enjoying life more means different things to each of us, and can change based on what’s happening around us. I call the things you want to experience more of experience goals.

A first-time mom might want to experience more moments of confidence that she’s handling what matters so she feels free to let unimportant things go. A business person might want to experience more moments of camaraderie or being appreciated at work. When we’re lonely, we may want to experience connection. When we’re discouraged, we may want to experience a sense of progress.

If you can identify an effective label for the kind of experiences you want to have more of, then you can prioritize your focus to feature these experiences more prominently in the story of your life.

Some of the experience goals my thinking partners and I have had in the past few years:

• I want to live a remarkable life.
• I want to feel more connected to my kids.
• I want to do work that really matters in the long run.
• I want to feel respected at home.
• I want to know I did all I could for my terminally ill parent.
• I want life to feel fresh and exciting.

For each of those statements from my friends above, we boil down the thing we want into a single word.

• I want to live a remarkable life. Remarkable
• I want to feel more connected to my kids. Connected
• I want to do work that really matters in the long run. Impactful
• I want to feel respected at home. Trustworthy
• I want to know I did all I could for my terminally ill parent. Wholehearted
• I want life to feel fresh and exciting. Awake

Those words might not do it for you. That’s cool. When you write your own sentence, you get to pick your own word. But for each of us, that single word wasn’t just in bold, it had flashing lights, all caps, and a full lineup of dancers behind it. I can say “remarkable,” and it tells a powerful story.

Once you’ve got your word, you can use it to time travel. Travel to the past and reflect on the past twenty-four hours. See if you can identify any tiny ways, little things, or small moments that had a taste of that. Write them down.

Then travel to the future, maybe as you lay in bed tonight, and imagine: what could I do to bring a hint of remarkable to tomorrow. Where is remarkable already showing up? This reflection exercise will sensitize your brain to the experiences you want to win the competition for your attention. You can also set an intention for the day or the task at hand by asking, “What small thing could I do to make today more [insert your word here]?”

Choose An Experience Goal

Now it’s your turn. What experience goal could help positive experiences compete for your brain’s attention? What do you want to experience more of? Though I’ve given some examples of experience goals my clients and I have had, you probably want to craft your own. As you do, here are some success tips:

🥑 Choose Experience Goals, not Outcome Goals.

Outcomes are like finish lines: you only enjoy them for a second as you cross them. Delayed gratification is good for a lot of things, but not for enjoying life more right now. Instead of an outcome (like getting a promotion, becoming debt-free, or finding a romantic partner), make a goal for experience (like using your strengths more at work, enjoying what you already own more, or giving and receiving love every day).

🌟 Dig for the Needs Under Your Wants

Picking an experience goal is both less and more than asking, “what will make me happy.” Happiness is a notoriously foggy goal. Researchers who devote their careers to studying how we pursue happiness tend to agree that we achieve it best through indirect means. This means happiness happens while we’re focused on other things. So take a deep breath and let yourself off the hook from knowing for sure what will make you happy. You don’t have to be certain that your experience goal will make you happy. Go beyond happiness and think about what you actually need.

Needs and wants can look similar when we’re doing without them. But chasing wants can waste our time and emotional energy with little return. Wants tend to be narrow interpretations of the broader need. For example: noticing lonely feelings might make us aware of a want for a romantic relationship—a narrow interpretation of the deep need to feel honestly connected and loved. By finding the broader need, a wider variety of avenues for getting more of what we need appear.

❤️‍🩹 Escape the Self Pity Pit

Even if you want to be happier, you may find yourself waiting for the challenge, heartbreak, or reality to change rather than actively using your brain's ability to focus to your advantage. Self-pity can trap us in a waiting cycle because we keep thinking we shouldn’t have to try this hard.

Things don’t have to get better in your life for them to get better inside your head. You can’t notice, remember, or fully experience everything happening in your life. So be wild, grab a fistful of brave, and allow the contents of your attention to shift. Release preoccupation with the parts you wish were different and welcome more of the satisfying and potentially rewarding elements that are also present.

🔖 This excerpt comes from Think Wild, Mental Growth Tactic 5: Reverse Your Silver Lining