How To Be Happy: Understanding What You Really Value

The Psychology Behind Feeling Happy And Centered

Being happy may be one of the most cherished goals of all. In his work as a clinical psychologist, Dr. Mulry often heard people say, “I just want to be happy.”

But happiness is difficult to pursue when we have not clearly defined what it means to us. One person may feel happiest when independent and self-directed. Another may value close relationships above almost everything else. Someone else may place greater importance on achievement, recognition, security, influence, or physical comfort.

This is one reason happiness cannot be reduced to a single formula.

Julian Rotter’s Social Learning Theory provides a useful way to understand this. Rather than treating behavior as something that occurs in isolation, Social Learning Theory looks at the interaction between what we value, what we expect to happen, how we perceive a situation, and what we actually do.

Understanding those relationships can help us become more centered, make more purposeful choices, and develop a stronger Internal Locus of Control.

Start By Defining What Happiness Means To You

A vague goal is difficult to pursue. If your goal is simply, “I want to be happy,” the first question is: What would happiness actually look like in your life?

Would it mean having greater independence? Feeling loved and connected? Being recognized for something you do well? Feeling safe and supported? Having influence over important decisions? Experiencing greater physical and emotional comfort?

These are not interchangeable goals. The clearer you become about what you value, the easier it becomes to examine whether your behavior is actually helping you move toward it.

This is an important part of Self-Learning. Before asking, How can I become happier?, it may be more useful to ask: What matters to me, and what am I doing about it?

Reinforcement Value: What Do You Actually Want?

In Social Learning Theory, Rotter used the concept of Reinforcement Value, sometimes described more simply as the value we place on a particular outcome. We do not value every possible result equally.

Suppose two people are offered the same promotion. One may value the recognition, higher status, and responsibility that come with the position. Another may care much more about independence and personal time and therefore see the promotion as a burden.

The external event is the same. Its psychological value is different.

This is important because we sometimes pursue goals simply because they are expected of us, admired by others, or considered signs of success. But achieving something that has little reinforcement value for you may not produce much satisfaction.

Being centered begins partly with knowing the difference between what you truly value and what you think you are supposed to value.

The Six Need Values

Rotter organized important reinforcements into broader categories known as Need Values. These categories help us think about the kinds of outcomes that may be especially meaningful to us.

Recognition-Status

Recognition-Status involves wanting to feel competent, accomplished, respected, or acknowledged. This may include professional achievement, mastery of a skill, social standing, competition, or simply knowing that your efforts are appreciated.

Recognition itself is not necessarily unhealthy or superficial. The important question is how much value you place on it and how you pursue it.

For example, recognition may motivate you to practice, improve, and accomplish difficult things. But if your sense of satisfaction depends entirely on praise from others, the same Need Value can create frustration when recognition does not come.

Protection-Dependency

Protection-Dependency involves the value placed on support, security, reassurance, and assistance from other people. All of us depend on others at times. Healthy relationships often involve cooperation, trust, help, and mutual support.

The important question is not whether you value support. It is whether the ways you seek support are helping you function effectively.

You might ask: Am I accepting useful support, or have I become unable to act without reassurance from someone else? That distinction matters.

Dominance

Dominance refers to the value placed on influencing or directing the behavior of others. Leadership is one obvious example. A parent, manager, teacher, coach, or team leader may receive significant satisfaction from helping organize people and influence outcomes.

Dominance is not automatically controlling or negative. Problems arise when the desire to influence other people collides with their independence.

If influence is highly important to you, Self-Learning includes becoming aware of how you respond when others disagree, resist, or choose differently than you would prefer.

Independency

Independency involves the value placed on making your own decisions and relying on your own abilities. People who value independence may find great satisfaction in learning skills, solving their own problems, choosing their direction, and maintaining autonomy.

This Need Value connects naturally with Internal Locus of Control. But independence does not mean refusing help or believing that you control everything.

A strong Internal Locus of Control means recognizing where your own choices and behavior can make a difference, even when many circumstances remain outside your control.

Love And Affection

Love and Affection involve the value placed on emotional closeness, acceptance, warmth, companionship, and meaningful relationships. For many people, this is one of the most important sources of reinforcement in life.

Valuing love does not mean being dependent on approval. It may simply mean that close relationships are deeply important to you.

The Self-Learning question becomes: What behaviors help create the kind of relationships I value? Listening, communicating, showing affection, setting appropriate boundaries, keeping commitments, and learning to handle disagreement may all become relevant.

The Need Value tells us what matters. Behavior determines what we do about it.

Physical Comfort

Physical Comfort involves the value placed on safety, ease, stability, health, rest, and freedom from physical distress. Comfort is sometimes portrayed as something people should overcome, but physical comfort can be a legitimate and important source of reinforcement.

The difficulty comes when avoiding discomfort becomes more important than other highly valued goals. For example, someone may value both comfort and achievement. Achievement may require effort, uncertainty, practice, or temporary discomfort.

Now two valued outcomes compete. That conflict is where Self-Learning becomes especially useful.

Your Need Values Can Compete With Each Other

One of the most interesting things about Need Values is that we may value several things strongly at the same time. Those values do not always point in the same direction.

You may value Independence and Love and Affection. You want autonomy, but you also want closeness. You may value Recognition-Status and Physical Comfort. You want to accomplish something difficult, but you also value security and ease. You may value Dominance and Love and Affection. You want influence in an important relationship, but you also want warmth and cooperation.

These are not necessarily contradictions. They are competing sources of reinforcement.

The task is not to eliminate one Need Value. It is to learn how to behave in ways that allow important needs to coexist as effectively as possible.

That may be a much more useful definition of being centered than simply trying to feel calm all the time.

Expectancy: Do You Believe Your Actions Will Work?

Knowing what you value is only part of Social Learning Theory. Rotter also emphasized Expectancy.

Expectancy refers to what you believe is likely to happen if you behave in a particular way. You may value friendship very highly, for example, but believe that reaching out to someone will result in rejection. You may value recognition but expect that your work will never be noticed. You may value independence but believe that you are incapable of handling an important decision yourself.

Those expectations influence behavior. If you expect an action to fail, you may be less likely to attempt it.

This helps explain why two people who value the same outcome may behave very differently. One expects success. The other expects disappointment.

Experience Can Change Expectancy

Expectations are not fixed. They develop through experience.

If you repeatedly try something and fail, you may begin to expect failure. If avoidance repeatedly removes discomfort, you may learn that avoidance “works,” even when it creates larger problems later.

Successful experiences can work in the other direction. Practice a new behavior, experience a better result, and your expectations may gradually change.

This is why action matters. You cannot always think your way into a new expectancy. Sometimes you need a new experience.

Psychological Situation: How Are You Interpreting What Is Happening?

Rotter also emphasized the Psychological Situation. We do not respond only to objective circumstances. We respond to what those circumstances mean to us.

Imagine receiving constructive criticism at work. One person may interpret it as, Someone is helping me improve. Another may interpret the same feedback as, They don’t respect me. A third may think, I’m going to lose my job.

The situation may be similar, but the psychological situation is very different. Those interpretations influence which behaviors become likely.

This is another reason happiness and balance depend on Self-Learning. Sometimes the question is not only, What happened? It is also, What did I believe was happening?

Behavior Potential: What Are You Most Likely To Do?

Social Learning Theory ultimately concerns behavior. Rotter used the term Behavior Potential to describe the likelihood of a particular behavior occurring in a particular situation.

What you do is influenced by several things working together: what outcome you value, what you expect your behavior will produce, how you perceive the situation, and what you have learned from previous experience.

This makes behavior understandable without assuming that it is inevitable. If your current response is not producing the results you want, another behavior may be learned and practiced.

That possibility is central to the Mulry Method principle: We become what we do.

Internal Locus Of Control: Focus On Your Part

An Internal Locus of Control does not mean believing that you control every outcome. You do not.

Other people make their own choices. Circumstances change. Luck, opportunity, illness, economics, relationships, and countless other factors can affect what happens.

Internal Locus of Control asks a more practical question: What can I do?

You may not control whether someone approves of you, but you can control whether you communicate clearly. You may not control whether every effort succeeds, but you can control whether you prepare, practice, evaluate the result, and try another approach. You may not control another person’s behavior, but you can decide how you respond to it.

This keeps attention focused on the part of the situation where learning and action are possible.

Using The Personal Concerns Inventory For Self-Assessment

Understanding Need Values provides a useful theoretical framework. But real life is more specific.

You may know that relationships matter to you without knowing exactly what is troubling you about a particular relationship. You may value independence but still have difficulty identifying where you feel controlled. You may value recognition but not realize how strongly a particular workplace situation is affecting you.

The Personal Concerns Inventory helps make those concerns more specific. Rather than beginning with a general question such as What is wrong with my life?, self-assessment helps identify the particular areas that deserve your attention.

That matters because a problem becomes easier to work with when you can clearly verbalize it.

Connecting Concerns With Need Values

Suppose the PCI identifies repeated concerns involving conflict at work. The next question might be: What makes these situations important to me?

Perhaps Recognition-Status is especially important and you feel your work is not being acknowledged. Perhaps Dominance matters and you become frustrated when others do not follow your direction. Perhaps Independence is highly valued and you feel overly controlled.

The same workplace concern can have very different psychological meanings.

Once you understand what is reinforcing about the situation, you can begin examining your expectations and behavior more clearly. You might ask: What do I want? What do I expect will happen? What am I currently doing? Is that behavior producing the result I want? What could I try differently?

That is Self-Learning in practice.

Happiness Is Not Just Getting What You Want

There is another important distinction. Being happy does not necessarily mean receiving every reinforcement you value. That would be impossible.

Sometimes the people we love disappoint us. Sometimes our work goes unnoticed. Sometimes independence is restricted by circumstances. Sometimes achieving something worthwhile requires considerable discomfort.

A more realistic goal may be learning how to recognize what matters, respond effectively, tolerate uncertainty, adjust when necessary, and continue directing your behavior toward worthwhile outcomes.

That is different from chasing a permanent emotional state. It is closer to learning how to live in greater alignment with what you value.

Becoming More Centered

Being centered does not require eliminating every conflict, uncomfortable feeling, or disappointment. It means understanding yourself well enough to respond deliberately.

You know what matters. You recognize what you expect. You become more aware of how you are interpreting the situation. You observe what you are doing. Then you decide whether that behavior is moving you toward or away from the outcomes you value.

When it is not working, you learn, adjust, and try again.

That process strengthens Internal Locus of Control because your attention returns to the part you can influence: your own behavior.

Moving Forward With Self-Learning

Happiness becomes easier to understand when it becomes more specific.

Instead of asking only, How can I be happy?, ask: What do I value? What am I trying to achieve? What do I expect will happen? How am I interpreting the situation? What am I doing now? Is it working?

Those questions turn an abstract goal into something you can examine and learn from.

You may not control every circumstance that affects your happiness. But you can become increasingly skilled at understanding what matters to you, evaluating your own behavior, learning from experience, and choosing what to do next.

That is the connection between happiness, Self-Learning, and Internal Locus of Control.