When I was 5 years old, my mom told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down “happy”. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment. I told them they didn’t understand life.” – John Lennon
When I was a kid, I had high hopes and big ambitions for the future. I wanted to be an actress, performing in high budget movies, 
travelling the world and getting to put my (otherwise useless) ability for mastering different accents to good use. I’m not really sure where the ambition came from, but from the age of 4 or 5, it was all I wanted to do. I went to drama classes, performed in school plays and musicals, and kept my little fingers crossed that one day, I’d be spotted by a Hollywood agent and would be whisked away to a Gatsby life of glitz and glamour.
When I received my Drama GCSE results, I came out with a B. A bloody B?! I was horrified. I genuinely believed that my performance as Olivia in Twelfth Night had blown my teacher away, but clearly I was wrong. To soothe the pain of my not so good review from the exam board, I threw my efforts into reading and writing, and the other ‘BORING’ things I’d always received good grades for.
I’m incredibly grateful now that I did, because writing is a huge passion of mine. I was chatting to a friend recently about those aspirations we have as children and as teenagers, and how often life takes us in entirely opposite directions. One thing that always strikes me is that we always ask children ‘what’ they want to be when they’re older, but we very rarely ask them ‘how’ they want to be, or ‘why’ they want to be that way.
For example, a friend of mine grew up wanting to be a lawyer. He knew at the age of 13, and he never deviated from his dream. He figured out which law school he wanted to go to, knew which exams he’d need to take, and had a water tight plan for achieving his dream. At 18, he went off to Wales to study law. He passed every exam and got his degree. He’d done it.
However, he’s not a lawyer now. He’s travelling New Zealand and Australia, almost ten years since completing his degree. He’s never practiced as a lawyer and he has no intention of doing so. Why, I hear you ask? Because at the end of it all, a very shocking realization washed over him – it didn’t make him happy. Not a single thread of life so far had filled him with a sense of achievement or success.
When we ask children what they want to be when they grow up, perhaps we should challenge their ideas. When they say ‘a doctor’, shouldn’t we be asking why? Furthermore, shouldn’t we be asking them if they think their chosen ambition will make them happy?
At People Lab, our work is grounded in positive psychology. We believe that if you put happiness first, success will follow – whatever you choose to do in life. The problem with many peoples’ perception of happiness is the assumption that an achievement will make them happy. Much like my friend, their belief is that getting a degree, getting the promotion or losing the weight is the key to unlocking happiness.
Want the truth? Living this way won’t make you happy.
It’s proven that putting happiness first is the key to success. If you focus on success over happiness, with every goal you achieve, you’ll want something more. For example, you’ll get the promotion, but then you’ll want another. You’ll lose the weight, but then decide you’re still too big. You’ll get your degree, but it won’t be good enough.
Let’s start thinking about encouraging positive psychology with today’s children, and change that dreaded question – instead of asking ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’, why not ask ‘What will make you happy when you grow up?’ It’d be interesting to hear the responses to these separate questions – if you asked your kids, please feel free to share their responses in the comments section below.
