**2. Selected goal-setting techniques around the 'why of goal pursuit'**

Setting goals plays a major role at work (e.g. career development, promotion, qualifications) and in our private life (e.g. marriage, house, children). People constantly pursue goals, even subconsciously [21], and research in idiographic personal goal setting has become a rich tradition within personality psychology [22]. A 'goal' typically refers to the desired end state [23], yet the pursuit of goal can be recognised as one of the most effective happiness-increasing strategies, due to its positive effect on personal life and work performance outcomes [24]. However, not all goals are considered to be of equal importance to people's subjective well-being. Some goals are more effective in improving people's well-being than others because they better channel or express a person's interests, values, talents, needs and motives [22]. When goals are not related to a person's interests or needs, they are less likely to increase subjective well-being and, in some instances, they might even cause harm [25]. Hence, it is important to understand what kind of goal characteristics contribute best to people's subjective well-being and understand how they are appropriate for the attainment of both work-related and personal goals.

Several studies have shown that there are differences in the reasons why people pursue their most important goals and how this impacts their well-being [26–28]. The question to what degree people strive for their most important goals applies equally to their professional, as well as their personal goals [22, 25]. An important prerequisite to setting happiness-related goals, either professional or personal, is that they are self-concordant [28]. Self-concordant goal pursuit is hereby defined as striving for a goal based on self-determined choice, whereas a non-self-concordant goal pursuit, or controlled goal pursuit, is when people strive for their goals due to external reasons and beyond internal self-choice. Typically, this represents some outside force where people feel compelled to pursue a goal because of some form of external pressure. Studies show that high levels of self-concordance are associated with a variety of positive outcomes, one of which is increased subjective well-being [25, 28]. Given the significant impact of self-concordant goal pursuit on increased happiness, a range of interventions has been developed. Most of these interventions have a strong focus on the provision of an autonomous supportive environment to help people develop selfconcordant goals. For example, research [29] suggests the following specific behaviours that are linked to self-concordant goals of employees in the workplace, namely the following: asking open questions and inviting others to address problems; active listening and acknowledging the employees' perspective; offering choices within the organisational structure and clarifying responsibilities; providing constructive, factual and non-judgemental feedback that acknowledges initiative; minimising coercive controls, such as rewards and comparisons with others; developing talent and sharing knowledge to enhance competence and autonomy.

Other scholars identified concepts such as transformational leadership [30] or executive coaching [31] to help employees develop self-concordant goals at work. We argue that some of these techniques to develop self-concordance are equally appropriate for personal goals and would be effective for those who work in a hybrid format. For example, Burton [32] indicates that when people set goals, they tend to follow their gut instead of being rational about it, which suggests greater levels of selfconcordance [22]. Self-concordance is also linked to higher levels of trait mindfulness, which suggests that those who practise mindfulness and listen to their inner self more carefully tend to be more successful in setting self-concordant goals. Studies in sports

also found that athletes who have been coached in an autonomy-supportive way (i.e., enabling choice and agency) report higher levels of self-concordance [33] and equally where people were pursuing more recreational sports activities [34].

Another effective approach to help people strive for their most important goals in a happiness-increasing way is delineated by the goal-striving reasons framework [26, 35–37]. Unlike self-concordance theory, the goal-striving reason framework measures the degree to which people's goal reasons are underpinned by approach rather than avoidance reasons, which is an important distinction that has been shown to be strongly related to people's well-being [38]. The distinction here is that people who predominantly set approaching goals (i.e., moving towards a desirable outcome) show higher levels of subjective well-being than people who set avoidance-driven goals (i.e., goal is motivated to avoid an undesirable outcome). The goal-striving reasons framework applies the notion of approach and avoidance-driven motivation to the reasons why people pursue their most important goals. In essence, the goalstriving reasons framework promotes the pursuit of goals for approach reasons such as pleasure or enjoyment and for altruistic reasons (i.e., helping others, making the world a better place), and discourages people to strive for their goals out of avoidance reasons such as for self-esteem reasons or out of necessity (i.e., I have to do it otherwise I am in trouble).

The goal-striving reasons framework has been converted to a multi-component happiness intervention entitled 'Happiness through Goal Setting' [27], whereby people are equipped with the relevant tools and insights to modify their goal reasons into more happiness-increasing ones. The intervention has been effective in both person and online [39], which is vital as many hybrid-working employees depend on online interactions with their colleagues. The 'Happiness through Goal Setting' intervention is equally applicable to people's personal as well as professional goals. The following exercises are the key elements of the training for each of the four goalstriving reasons (see **Table 1**). For a more detailed description of these exercises refer to Ehrlich and Milston [27].


### **Table 1.**

*Goal striving reasons and relevant interventions within the Happiness through Goal Setting approach.*
