But this is just arguing by definition, so I won't continue along that line.

Agreed. I find it practical to define my goals as all of those subgoals and not make happiness an explicit node, because it's easy to evaluate my subgoals and measure how well I'm achieving them. But maybe you find it simpler to have only one mental construct, "happiness", instead of lots.

The second paragraph seems to say what I intended the second paragraph of my previous comment to mean.

I guess I explicitly don't allow myself to have abstract systems with no measurable components and/or clear practical implications–my concrete goals take up enough mental space. So my automatic reaction was "you're doing it wrong," but it's possible that having an unconnected mental system doesn't sabotage your motivation the same way it does mine. Also, "what I actually end up doing" doesn't, to me, have to connotation of "choosing and achieving subgoals", it has the connotation of not having goals. But it sounds like that's not what it means to you.