Coaching practices for What Actually Makes You Happy

Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For What Actually Makes You Happy, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.

Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

• I’ve finally accepted that chasing more stuff and more status isn’t making me durably happier, and now I want to pour my time and money into whatever actually does move the needle for good
• I can make myself do the easy little pick-me-ups, but they feel hollow and don’t really stick
• Plenty of what I do is pleasant enough but none of it feels like it matters, and that hollowness is wearing on me
• The things I once desperately wanted
• I finally hit the thing I’d been grinding toward and the satisfaction lasted about an hour before I was already onto the next target

Practices that may help

1. Invest in what research shows moves the set point
   Prioritize relationships, autonomy, and meaning — the three factors most reliably linked to lasting wellbeing gains.
   The Hedonic Treadmill, Made Practical
2. The Hedonic Treadmill, Made Practical
   The hedonic treadmill describes the human tendency to return to a roughly stable level of wellbeing after positive or negative life events — which means that chasing external outcomes for lasting happiness is largely futile. Research since Brickman and Campbell suggests the set point is real but not fixed: deliberate practices (gratitude, savoring, varied experiences) can raise it modestly.
3. Acts of Kindness, Made Practical
   Yes — performing deliberate acts of kindness reliably produces a measurable boost in well-being for the giver, not just the recipient. Randomized studies by Sonja Lyubomirsky and colleagues find the effect is real but depends heavily on variety and intentionality: doing the same acts repetitively, or without awareness, dilutes the benefit.
4. Anchor activity to personal values
   Choose pleasant activities that also connect to what genuinely matters to you, not just what is easy.
   Pleasant Events Scheduling, Made Practical
5. Meaningful engagement
   Spend regular time doing something that generates both positive emotion and a sense of purpose.
   Building Positive Emotions, Made Practical
6. Self-Concordant Goals, Made Practical
   Self-concordant goals, from Kennon Sheldon, are goals you pursue because they express who you genuinely are or what truly interests you — not because of guilt, social pressure, or external reward. Research finds that self-concordant goals are pursued with more sustained effort and produce greater well-being when achieved, even when the objective difficulty is held constant.
7. Slow down adaptation with deliberate savoring
   Actively attend to positive experiences in the moment to extract more happiness from what you already have.
   The Hedonic Treadmill, Made Practical
8. Prosocial Spending: Why Giving Boosts Happiness
   Elizabeth Dunn and Michael Norton’s research found that spending money on others — "prosocial spending" — reliably produces more happiness than spending the same amount on oneself, across income levels and cultures. The effect is real and replicates, though it is not unlimited: how you give matters as much as whether you give.
9. Celebrate growth, not just goal attainment
   Recognize progress in who you are becoming, not only whether you hit the number.
   Self-Concordant Goals, Made Practical
10. Map your personal sources of meaning
    Identify the activities, relationships, and causes that produce genuine felt meaning for you — not just values you endorse in theory.
    Logotherapy

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