Today's Tuesday • 9 mins read
— By Dr. Sandip Roy.
This is about two things: finding out if you can stick to your goals, and learning how to set goals that stick.
If your passion fizzles out some time after setting a goal, then most likely it’s not for a lack of willpower. But because you didn’t use the psychology of goal commitment.
Five quick hints to set better goals and stick to them:
- Set your own goals
- Write down your goals
- Keep them secret from others unless …
- Make them slightly difficult (stretch goals)
- Be very specific about what you want from them
To take this quiz below, set a goal, or think of one you want to achieve. This quiz will give you a fair idea about how likely you are to be loyal to your goal.
Quiz: Are You A Goal-Loyal Person? A Quick Check!
Klein & Wesson (2001) developed a scale to measure levels of goal commitment.
Goal Commitment Scale
Think of a current goal and answer the following to know how likely you will stick to it:
Please indicate your level of agreement with each statement:
Response Options:
- 1 – Strongly Disagree
- 2 – Disagree
- 3 – Neutral
- 4 – Agree
- 5 – Strongly Agree
Your Goal Commitment Score: /45
Interpretation:
- Higher scores (e.g., above 30): Indicate stronger commitment to your stated goal, suggesting you are likely to persist and put in effort.
- Lower scores (e.g., below 20): May suggest weaker commitment, indicating you might be more prone to abandoning the goal or require external motivation.
- Moderate scores (e.g., 20-30): Suggest a moderate level of commitment, which might fluctuate based on challenges or competing priorities.
Understanding your goal commitment can help you identify areas where you might need to strengthen your resolve or re-evaluate the importance of your goal.
Interpretation:
- Low Commitment: Total score of 5-12
- Moderate Commitment: Total score of 13-18
- High Commitment: Total score of 19-25
Read on to find out how to make better goals so you stick to them.
Psychology of Goal-Setting
A goal is a desired future result. But to reach that future, you need to solve three issues now:
- Attach a plan, direction, and purpose to your goal.
- Build a conscious ritual (and later an unconscious habit).
- Have a plan B to keep going when things get boring or too much.
Two reasons we fail to stick to a goal are:
- Instant gratification: Our brains are wired to favor instant gratification over delayed rewards. So, when results don’t show quickly, we stop doing the work we committed ourselves to.
- Subgoal success: Succeeding in one subgoal can make us less focused on trying to achieve other related subgoals (Fishbach, Dhar, & Zhang, 2006). So, when you achieve a sub-goal (like eating healthy meals) that helps you work toward a bigger goal (like staying in shape), you may feel less motivated to pursue other sub-goals (like going to the gym).
6 Tips To Set Goals That Stick
Six most effective ways to make your goals sticky:
- Set Your Own Goals: Make sure you set your goals, rather than letting others set them for you. It can make it more likely to stick to them. Experts call it the endowment effect, meaning we resist giving up things we own, whether a gift or a goal.
- Write Down Your Goals: Writing down your goals helps you remember them better, act harder, and feel more attached to them. The generation effect says we remember information better when we actively generate it rather than just read it. Those who write down their goals are 42% more likely to achieve them (Gail Matthews, 2007).
- Be Specific About Your Goal: Be crystal clear about your goals. Specific goals result in higher performance than vague goals like “do your best” or having no goals at all (Tubbs, 1986).
- Make Your Goal Slightly Difficult: Make your goals stretch goals. Challenging goals lead to better performance than easy goals, as a vast number of studies prove beyond doubt.
- See Your Goals As Commitments: When people see a goal as progress, it has a liberating effect that nudges them to disengage from the goal. However, when they see a goal as something they are committed to, it has a motivational effect that encourages them to take action to achieve that goal (Fishbach, 2006).
- Get Regular Feedback: Take feedback at regular intervals. Feedback about how you are performing is a critical part of effective goal setting. Tracking your progress lets you keep yourself in check, so you know what more needs to be done.
↠ So, for best results, set your own goals, be specific, make them slightly difficult, see your goals as commitments, and monitor via feedback.
Secret Goals vs. Public Goals
Should you keep your goals secret or make them public? The right answer is a clever trick, from research.
- Keep your goals secret: Research says goal sharing can create a premature sense of completeness, widening the intention-behavior gap. That is, when you tell others about your goal, it tricks your mind into thinking that the goal is already achieved. This reduces your motivation to take the needed action.
- Make your goals public. This study found when you share your goal progress publicly, it increases the chances of success. Plus, sharing your goals with a higher-status person can create a sense of accountability and boost your commitment and performance, as you highly value their opinions.
↠ So, keep your goals private, unless your audience is someone you look up to and whose opinion you value.
Final Words
Always set goals. Without goals, you never get any direction or motivation in life.
The question, therefore, is of setting productive and valuable goals — ones that are the best real-world images of our hopes, aspirations, and dreams.
“When people know the desired destination, they’re free to improvise, as needed, in arriving there.”
― Chip & Dan Heath, Made to Stick
√ Also Read: 3 R’s of Habit Building (Help Your Brain Build A New Habit)
√ Please share this if you found this helpful.
