Acting on Personal Goals in a Meaningful Way

As we reflect on the past few weeks of a new year, it becomes important to know the “why” behind various goals that we set for a new season of our lives. Goal-setting becomes most meaningful when we sincerely identify moments in our past that caused us to experience coming alive and being most engaged. Behavioral science research currently indicates that knowing the “why” behind these goals is linked to what matters most in our lives and will increase the likelihood of achieving those goals as well as building resilience when adversity occurs. Many goal theorists continue to remind us that even though the strength of personal commitment to a goal energizes the actual goal achievement, the will to act upon the goal may not necessarily accompany this motivation and personal commitment. 45% of those that set goals in January end up failing to achieve them by February. Whether it’s bad habits that prevent us from moving forward, poor planning and performance, lack of focus, inability to endure the longsuffering, or simply being disheartened through the absence of strong-enough reasons – these are all personal stumbling blocks along the path of goal attainment.

What fuels our desires to succeed? 

At the height of the Second World War, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Winston Churchill stated, “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” Due to the reasoning that people can put themselves in better circumstances, willpower and the will to act was not viewed favorably in the medical community as a necessary component of goal attainment. Messages such as, “if your motivations are strong and pure,” “if you try hard enough” and “if you have enough discipline and willpower” are all current conceptions that incorporate this view of maintaining strong willpower to act on a goal. 

Currently, there is a growing body of research that shows a positive relationship between how an individual views control with how much effort becomes exerted on particular tasks. Persistence is seen as possible with the face of obstacles and setbacks in goal-setting when an individual sees multiple options and abilities to achieve the same goal. Optimism also fuels an individual’s general disposition toward action since there is a core belief that “things will generally work out, mistakes can be righted, I’ll be able to do whatever it takes to get this done, and my decisions influence the ability to realize my goal achievement.” 

In a classic study in which researchers follow typists over the span of 10 weeks, some typists were given weekly-modulating goals of how many lines to type, and others were assigned more ambitious and challenging goals than others. According to the results, the more difficult the goals were, the better they did overall. Additionally, an action-oriented individual will persevere with goal-related efforts when faced with competing demands, challenging setbacks, and mounting obstacles. New information will cause the action-oriented individual to remain focused on how to revise the plan and circumvent these difficulties as they arise. Rather than becoming absorbed by an internal state of rumination that involves brooding and obsessing over distressing feelings of inner turmoil when setbacks arrive, these action-oriented individuals attend to, focus upon, and wholeheartedly pursue their goals in response to constructive feedback. These individuals desire to search for additional information about how to advance their goal-related efforts rather than sit in a state of self-absorption when obstacles are experienced and sorely felt. 

Here are several strategies to continue to help propel you toward achieving your goals in this new year: 

• Understand what matters to you most while also choosing goals that are aligned with your personal values. Read more on this here. 
• Goal setting is one of the most replicated and influential paradigms in behavioral science literature. Hundreds of studies conducted in numerous countries and contexts have consistently demonstrated that setting specific, challenging goals can powerfully drive behavior and boost performance. Yet, challenge yourself to remain flexible rather than rigid with these newly established goals. 
• Choose personal goals that are aligned with your intrinsic values and flow from an inner motivation. This will lead to less inner exhaustion and better self-control performance when choices and decisions toward a goal are autonomous rather than feeling forced. 
• There is a phenomenon of “miswanting” in which goal-setting individuals place false hope in goal selection but end up disliking or not enjoying the outcome of a goal when attained. Oscar Wild once said, “In this world, there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.” Falsely predicted happiness will fail by maximizing authentically experienced happiness. 
• Plato previously remarked, “Do one thing and do it well.” Place effort into the decision-making process and choose one over-arching target goal that you can run after to maximize self-control. 
• Specificity adds to self-control and greater performance indicators for personal goals. Be as specific as possible for goal-setting around your targets. Contemporary studies correlate psychological well-being and positive mood states with specific goal-oriented efforts. 
• Psychologists term “stretch goals” as those ambitions that are often difficult enough to reach but with strain, effort, and time when attained, are met with personal satisfaction.