4 Psychology Hacks to Help You Stick to Your Goals

There’s something about a new year that feels fresh and motivating. In 2020, we’re not only entering a new year but a whole new decade. What a great opportunity to reflect, refresh, and turn a new leaf! But goal-setting and goal-achieving are surprisingly hard to pull off. How many times have you started a new year feeling gung-ho about exercising only to have your enthusiasm fizzle by February? Or told yourself you were going to meditate daily and then never even get started on your path to inner tranquility?

Motivation is a tricky thing. But there's good news—your past struggles down mean you can't find success in the future. Motivation is like an engine you can tune. As long as you tinker with it the right way, it'll perform better.

Let’s look at four psychological hacks for tinkering with your particular motivation engine as you set your goals for 2020.

1. Set a learning goal instead of an achievement goal

Usually, when we set goals, we think of what we want to achieve, what thresholds we want to be able to say we crossed.

• Lose 20 pounds
• Earn a 3.5 GPA
• Get a promotion at work

These goals are specific and concrete. That's good, at least! But research shows that setting long-term performance goals based on achievement outcomes may not be as effective as setting goals for what you want to learn.

Entering MBA students who set goals for the skills and knowledge they wanted to gain—like learning to network effectively—felt more satisfied by the end of their program and earned higher GPAs compared to their peers who set achievement-based goals like earning a high GPA.

So, let's look at an alternative to the weight loss goal I just mentioned. Instead of setting a goal to lose 20 pounds, a better one might be improving your nutrition knowledge by learning five new healthy lunch recipes. Not only does this offer a more specific target, it feels a lot more achievable.

2. Make sure the goal is attached to a life value

How do you choose your goals? Are they inspired by what your friends are doing? Are they prescribed to you by doctors, bosses, teachers, or other authority figures? Where your goals come from has a big impact on whether you’ll achieve them. One place they could come from is your own life values.

Values are not the same as goals. Imagine you’re sailing a boat on the ocean. Goals are like the islands on the horizon that you...

Keep reading on Quick and Dirty Tips