Here's a link to some interesting new research on setting and attaining goals. It's a pretty dense read, but here's the short version:
The researchers worked with 2 scenarios, dieting and sports performance.
Dieting
For the dieting experiment, they had one group set a goal of eating half of their usual amount of some "bad for you" food of their choice: pizza, ice cream, etc. They had the other group set the same goal, but to also come up with an "if-then" statement like "If I get a craving for X, I'll ignore it".
Sports Performance
For this experiment (tennis match), they split the participants into 3 groups:
Conclusions
In both experiments, they found that the participants that came up with an "if-then" plan ahead of time performed way better than those that didn't. And they didn't even track whether the participant actually followed through with their "if-then".
For the dieters, it was about a 50% improvement over the non "if-then" group. For the tennis players, it was even more dramatic. The control group scored an average of 15% worse than they did on previous matches. The affirmation group averaged 10% worse, and the "if-then" group came out almost 25% better.
Actionable Content
So what do we do with this? Well, maybe instead of psyching yourself up with "I will make 10 cold calls today", you go with "I will make 10 cold calls today. If I get nervous, I'll remind myself that my target and I are both just people. If I start rambling, I'll take a deep breath and remind myself of the key question I'm asking. If I get bored, I'll picture sitting in the new Lambo."
Remember, it doesn't matter if you actually end up doing the "then" portion of the "if-then". The key is just that you came up with the "if-then" statement in the first place.
The researchers worked with 2 scenarios, dieting and sports performance.
Dieting
For the dieting experiment, they had one group set a goal of eating half of their usual amount of some "bad for you" food of their choice: pizza, ice cream, etc. They had the other group set the same goal, but to also come up with an "if-then" statement like "If I get a craving for X, I'll ignore it".
Sports Performance
For this experiment (tennis match), they split the participants into 3 groups:
- A control group that didn't do anything special.
- A group that gave themselves a positive affirmation like "I will do my best, and play with concentration and effort."
- A group that came up with a few possible negative states that they might be in during the match, like "tired", "scared", "trouble concentrating", etc. For each of these, they thought of an appropriate if-then response: "If I notice that I'm feeling nervous, I'll tell myself to calm down, and tell myself that I'll win."
Conclusions
In both experiments, they found that the participants that came up with an "if-then" plan ahead of time performed way better than those that didn't. And they didn't even track whether the participant actually followed through with their "if-then".
For the dieters, it was about a 50% improvement over the non "if-then" group. For the tennis players, it was even more dramatic. The control group scored an average of 15% worse than they did on previous matches. The affirmation group averaged 10% worse, and the "if-then" group came out almost 25% better.
Actionable Content
So what do we do with this? Well, maybe instead of psyching yourself up with "I will make 10 cold calls today", you go with "I will make 10 cold calls today. If I get nervous, I'll remind myself that my target and I are both just people. If I start rambling, I'll take a deep breath and remind myself of the key question I'm asking. If I get bored, I'll picture sitting in the new Lambo."
Remember, it doesn't matter if you actually end up doing the "then" portion of the "if-then". The key is just that you came up with the "if-then" statement in the first place.
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