This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedanta.

Religions tell us they have the key to our best lives.

Advice columnists tell us how to solve problems in our relationships.

And airport bookstores are stuffed with tombs on how to grow rich, manage our time better, and build effective habits.

All these sources of counsel can teach us valuable skills such as planning, patience and perseverance.

These can be vitally important to success.

But in a world overflowing with useful advice, why do so many of us feel stuck?

How is it even the very successful? Often feel like there is something missing from their lives.

Why do so many people spend years wistfully thinking about choices they might have made?

One answer to that problem? Many of us are leading lives that are misaligned with our lives.

Find with our own deepest values and preferences.

This week on Hidden Brain, what psychology can teach us about living our most authentic lives?

When you're a kid, grownups ask you what you want to do when you're an adult.

When you're a teenager, college counselors ask you what you want to study.

Once you join the workforce, managers ask you what your goals are for the next few years.

At every stage, we are really being asked the same question. What do you want to do with your life?

At the University of Missouri, psychologists Ken Sheldon studies the science of knowing what to want,

how to set your sights on targets that will actually make you happy if you achieve them.

Ken Sheldon, welcome to Hidden Brain. I want to take you back to 1981, Ken.

You just finished college and moved to Seattle. You wanted to become a musician. You started a band. How did it go?

Rock musicians can be kind of flaky and unreliable and we were all in our twenties.

Everybody had different goals. Everybody was kind of self-centered.

...