Recently I spent the weekend in New York City.  My partner Setra and I love the hustle and bustle of The Big Apple.  We also went so I could introduce him to my colorful Italian-American family in New Jersey.

In truth they are a bit nutty, and so too am I  . . . heck the acorn does not fall far from the tree.  As you can imagine I was a little apprehensive to subject my calm and thoughtful partner to such mayhem.

Thankfully, he handled it with the grace and maturity I love about him.  He especially connected well with my godfather and his girlfriend.  Yes, my 84-year-old godfather has a girlfriend. And yes, he loves to be called Godfather.

When the dinner ended (after about four hours!) and everyone was saying their goodbyes, my godfather looked at Setra and said, “So nice to meet you, have a happy life.”

This may seem to some a sad statement.  And perhaps he is coming to grips with his mortality and knows his time is borrowed.

However, I framed it this way:  My godfather instinctively knows, based on decades of experience, that the most important gift we can give to ourselves is . . . happiness.  He is a man who has certainly enjoyed a rich life and endured many set-backs and even some awful tragedies.  However, he keeps his eye on the happiness prize and rarely loses sight of it.

And it is amazing how simple it can be to live a life dedicated to the pursuit of what I call harmonious happiness, also known as well-being.  It’s the place where, for the most part,  all the categories of life, career and personal, are supporting one another.  And it’s only simple if we are dedicated.

I believe this dedicated simplicity may be one of the major causes for the decline of happiness in many places around the world, especially in the USA.  We seem a bit addicted to lightening fast anything and so distrust solutions that take time and where the improvement is incremental but steady.  We love to go after the quick-fix goals we say we want without spending the time to think, “Why do I want those outcomes in the first place?”

My octogenarian godfather’s happiness wisdom is not just supported by the many experiences of the clients, students and coaches of Velocity programs.  Well-known and respected scholars and applied researchers like Tal Ben-Shahar, Sonja Lyubomirsky, Martin Seligman, Ed Diener, Shawn Achor, Ken Robinson, and my favorite Barbara Fredrickson have all written beautiful books demonstrating the paradoxical power of putting the cart (happiness), before the horse (goal achievement).

At Kinetic we have a slightly different but substantive take on the happiness quest.  We define happiness as goal achievement that increases your well-being.  In fact, goals are structured so that the process of achieving each one has the greatest likelihood of raising a client’s happiness level.  So let’s just say the cart and the horse are side by side working it all out.

And not surprisingly we have an acronym worth remembering when formulating goals to improve our happiness level . . . H.A.P.P.Y. Goals.

H: Harmonious with other goals.  Guess what? We cannot have it all.  So if we want to raise a family, go back to graduate school, and make a six figure salary, choices and compromises will likely be in order.  Each goal must be complimentary to ensure a well-being boost.

A: Authentic to who we are.  Our parents’ or partner’s goals for us may not create harmonious happiness.  Let’s choose ones that make our hearts sing, ones connected to our values, and aligned with our strengths and innate skill-sets.   Odds are our loved ones will be glad to be around us when they see the smiles on our faces.

P: Process Driven.  It’s about both the journey and the destination.  Enjoy the science experiment that is our lives.  Learn and grow from the journey and explore new destinations we may have never even considered when we started down the path.

P: Precise.  It’s not all touchy feely.  Let’s be as specific as we can, set benchmarks, and take small and consistent steps. We control the speed, the direction and the ending, most of the time.

Y: Yielding.  Yet sometimes we need to accept that when something is not working we need to try something else.  As we experiment we learn about both the possibilities and the limitations of our lives.   As Tal Ben-Shahar reminds his students, give yourself permission to be human.

Let’s also remind ourselves that pursuing harmonious happiness does not preclude us from experiencing unhappiness.  However, when we embrace the H.A.P.P.Y. Goal construct the depth and breadth of our unhappiness will be reduced.  We will bounce back faster and seize opportunities more often, instead of feeling stymied by perceived obstacles.

During this holiday season let’s have fun spending more time pursuing harmonious happiness with our loved ones, whether we are 4 or 84 years old.

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If you have any questions about coaching please feel free to contact me at scott@kineticcoaching.co, and remember I always offer a complimentary 30-45 minute session to prospective clients to determine if we want to work together.