I was 10 years old when I set my first New Year’s resolution. In my big purple diary, I scrawled, “This year, I will get straight A’s and be elected to the student council.” With that pledge, I joined the millions of people around the world who resolved to make the year ahead a better one.
Then, within a few weeks or months, I joined the similarly sizable hordes in largely abandoning the goals I had set for myself. Chasing them, I found, left me tired and unfulfilled.
As I got older, my resolutions evolved—lose weight, get promoted, become more productive. No matter what I chose, these aspirations never brought me much joy. It would take me over 20 years to learn that the real problem was that I was setting the wrong goals.
Americans are largely conditioned to believe that happiness comes from pushing and pleasing ourselves. Naturally this means many of us launch into January with grand plans for improving our own lives and serving our own needs and desires. Yet an abundance of scientific research suggests we should take the opposite approach: The best way to feel happy is to help other people to feel happy.
A study published in the journal Emotion in 2016, for example, found that participants who were asked to perform three acts of kindness a day for around a month expressed far greater well-being weeks later than those who performed three kind things for themselves.
Even donating money can improve your mood. A study published in Psychological Science in 2018 found that people who had $5 to buy the same treat for themselves for five days straight reported far less happiness than those who spent $5 a day on someone else. Other studies show that the social and physical benefits of volunteering are linked to greater longevity and lower depression in older adults.
Consider the example of the late president Jimmy Carter. Four years after leaving the White House, he and his wife Rosalynn joined a group of volunteers on a 27-hour bus ride from Georgia to New York City to help rebuild a broken-down building on the Lower East Side for the nonprofit Habitat for Humanity. The Carters went on to build affordable housing for the homeless with the organization for a week a year for the next 30-plus years—until they were well into their 90s. “I have learned that our greatest blessings come when we are able to improve the lives of others,” the former president observed.
A full week may sound like a daunting commitment, but most of us have plenty of small moments in our days when we have the chance to help someone else, by offering a favor, an ear, even a compliment. Feeling too busy to spare the time? Rest assured that studies show that people often feel paradoxically rich in time when they give some away—partly because helping others makes us feel more competent and therefore productive with whatever time we have. Behaving generously has also been shown to inspire others to do the same.
What’s all too clear is chasing pleasure and prestige hasn’t been serving us. A 2024 Gallup survey found that less than half of Americans say they are “very satisfied” with their personal lives—a near record low. A 2024 American Psychiatric Association survey found that one in three Americans say they feel lonely at least every week. In the latest World Happiness Report international happiness rankings, the U.S. fell from 15th to 23rd place.
The sources of this dissatisfaction, be it personal or national, are complicated. But the solution probably isn’t in setting a new private goal to be somehow thinner or richer or more efficient. Instead of turning inward, this is as good a time as any to turn outward, perhaps by signing up to volunteer at a local charity or trying to be more patient with everyone from children to cashiers. The benefits may surprise you, and are more likely to last past February.
This article was written by Stephanie Harrison who is the founder of the company The New Happy and author of the book “New Happy: Getting Happiness Right in a World That’s Got It Wrong.”