Like most of you, I always had a rough list of goals and things that I wanted to accomplish in my life. These goals were spread out between a notebook page somewhere in the back of my mind and somewhere buried in the depths of my computer.

When goals in life are too easy or too vague, it damages one's affect. This is a measure of the individual's well-being. A person's affect is his or her response to experiences, emotions, and evaluations. A person's affect can be either positive or negative. Goal-failure damages a person's affect. A high-value goal is associated with a negative affect. This is consistent with self-regulation theory. It suggests that people seek to reduce discrepancy between current actions and a reference value.