What Happens to Us When Life Happens: how life’s events have an impact

A fair amount of us have the aim of improving and keep achieving set goals in life. The hope is to obtain that happiness which majority is looking for, but are we sure that achieving all those goals will only bring joy to our lives or will bring some less pleasant feeling too? Let’s find out!

Carphone Warehouse in conjunction with clinical psychologist and personal performance coach Joshua C. Klapow and clinical psychologist Dr Perpetua Neo have conducted a study to understand how people behave and feel when substantial life changing moments happen.

Getting a promotion doesn’t mean you will have more money – odd, right?

Although it’s normal to think that a promotion will bring more money into your account, the reality is that when Brits get a promotion, they spend more money than before. Almost one in 40 Brits go into debt after a promotion with 3% more men than women.

But promotions are also extremely good, those who got one confessed that its top three impacts are:

  • Almost half of those who got promoted (46%) revealed that their finances got boosted.
  • 45% of people said that achieving that new role made them happier with life.
  • But it doesn’t only boost your finance, 42% of those who got promoted claimed that they felt better about themselves after a promotion.

Tying the knot: you will be happy, but your bank account may not be.

78% of people confessed that getting married was the life event that made them happy the most. However, only 6% of those surveyed who were unmarried said that it’s one of their goals to achieve in the next five years.

While is known that weddings can be expensive, it’s not surprising to think that once the big day is over your spending habits will come back to normality. Unfortunately, almost half of people who get married find they spend more and 18.4% got into debts in the following six months.

Dr. Joshua C. Klapow says:

‘Marriage has morphed into a broader category of lifelong companionship and we now see it in other configurations, like co-habitation and civil partnerships.’

Relocating: opens your life vision, your social circle and money’s flow.

Only a third of Brits have ever relocated to a new city or country in their life. However, half of the ones that did it have confessed to love the experience and three out of ten claims that this experience made them feel better about themselves. Apparently, we should leave our comfort zone.

Either for work related reasons or simply for a life change, relocating can sound scary for some and exciting to others but what is clear is that will bring you new friends. 60% of those who relocated claim that this allowed them to open up their social circle with 66% of women being able to make new friends compare to only 3 in 5 men.

Expert Perpetua Neo adds:

‘Some life events are more ‘universal’, while others, like relocating, are more private and individual. The less ‘universal’ something is, or the less it’s regarded as important in our social circles, the less pressurising it feels.’

It is fair to say that accomplishing life goals bring happiness, sense of self-achievement and empowerment but it’s not to forget that new obstacles will come too.

To find out more on other life events and people’s reactions head here.