Dr. Emily Balcetis: Tools for Setting & Achieving Goals

Goals are tools to shape who you become, and if you don't set sufficiently ambitious ones, you're unlikely to grow. 

And conversely, if you know you want to grow in some way, setting an audacious goal in that direction may be a good way to force the other smaller changes you want to make but that are less sexy to focus on.

So one thing I'm thinking about with my yearly round of goal setting is: what large goals can I set that will force me to change my life in an interesting way?

First off, goals have an endpoint. This is why many people revert to their previous state after achieving a certain goal. People run marathons, then stop exercising altogether.(...) Second, goals rely on factors that we do not always have control over. It’s an unavoidable fact that reaching a goal is not always possible, regardless of effort.(...) ... See more

Even the simplest physical act becomes enjoyable when it is transformed so as to produce flow. The essential steps in this process are: (a) to set an overall goal, and as many subgoals as are realistically feasible; (b) to find ways of measuring progress in terms of the goals chosen; (c) to keep concentrating on what one is doing, and to keep makin

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Goals that people set for themselves and that are devoted to attaining mastery are usually healthy. But goals imposed by others—sales targets, quarterly returns, standardized test scores, and so on—can sometimes have dangerous side effects.