Make a better New Year's resolution: Expert advice

NASHVILLE — Each new year brings a new chance to adopt a list of resolutions that will bring us health, wealth and happiness in 12 months' time.

For many, it also is an annual tradition to drop unsuccessful New Year's resolutions as the year wears on. But a Vanderbilt University anthropologist and World Health Organization well-being adviser says his years of research point toward a strategy for shaping better resolutions, and a more fulfilling life.

Edward Fischer has dedicated his career to understanding people from across the globe. His latest book, The Good Life: Aspiration, Dignity, and the Anthropology of Wellbeing, focuses on the pursuit of happiness.

For five years, Fischer researched different people's paths to the good life, from Mayan coffee farmers in Guatemala to middle-class grocery shoppers in Germany. He found some surprising parallels that transcend national and socioeconomic borders.

For one thing, money was not always the answer. Neither were material things.

"For a long time we defined well-being by income," he said. "Now what we have come to realize is it really involves all these other things."

More often, Fischer said, people placed a higher value on a sense of purpose in their life.

Fischer suggested putting aside dreams of a new Lexus or Rolex when you're setting priorities for 2015. He advised people to focus on improving their relationships and experiences in the new year.

"I think we get on that treadmill and we think that a little more money, a little better car, a little nicer house, that's what's going to make us happy," he said. "If we let those things define us, I think it's ultimately disappointing."

Fischer put his theory to work last January while he was crafting his own resolutions. He decided to travel for work less in favor of more time with his family.

He lost his coveted diamond medallion status on Delta Air Lines, but he spent more nights at home in his own bed.

"We remember experiences much better than we remember things," Fischer said. "That vacation we took or that time we played Monopoly all night long with the family.

"In a lot of ways those are the best predictors of well-being."