research goal setting

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Goal missed, self hit: goal-setting, goal-failure, and their affective, motivational, and behavioral consequences.

• Department of Psychology, Technical University of Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany

Setting high and specific goals is one of the best-established management tools to increase performance and motivation. However, in recent years, potential downsides of goal-setting are being discussed. One possible downside is the high risk of failing the goal. In an approach to integrate research on the consequences of goal-failure and the basic assumptions of goal-setting theory, we investigated whether failure of a high and specific goal has detrimental effects on a person’s affect, self-esteem, and motivation. In Experiment 1, 185 participants received fictitious feedback about attaining or failing an assigned high and specific goal. In Experiment 2 with 86 participants, we manipulated goal-failure through task-difficulty and we included task choice as a behavioral measure of motivation. In both experiments, participants who failed the high and specific goal showed a decrease in affect, self-esteem, and motivation compared to participants who attained that goal. Results indicate that failing a high and specific goal can be damaging for self-related factors that may be crucial for organizational long-term outcomes. We advise organizations to consider potential undesirable effects when using goal-setting interventions.

Introduction

Over 1,000 studies have consistently shown that setting high and specific goals is linked to increased task performance, persistence, and motivation, compared to vague or easy goals ( Locke and Latham, 2002 , 2006 ). Given this empirical evidence, setting high (which means a high difficulty that only a certain percentage of individuals can reach) and specific (which means tangible information on what needs to be attained) goals has become a highly recommended motivational and leadership tool in organizations. However, in recent years, more and more studies raised concerns about possible undesirable effects of goal-setting. For example, goals can narrow the attention focus on goal-related actions, so that other important issues are missed ( Ordóñez et al., 2009 ), goals may increase risk-taking and unethical behavior ( Neale and Bazerman, 1985 ; Knight et al., 2001 ; Schweitzer et al., 2004 ), inhibit learning ( Earley et al., 1989 ; Cervone et al., 1991 ), or create an overly competitive environment ( Mitchell and Silver, 1990 ).

The current research seeks to shed light on another possible downside of setting high and specific goals: the possibility of goal-failure and the associated negative consequences. Locke and Latham (1990 , p. 349) advocated that (at least in laboratory settings) a high and specific goal “that only 10% of the subjects can reach” should be set to achieve maximum individual performance (see, e.g., Locke et al., 1989 ; Latham and Locke, 1991 ; Latham and Seijts, 1999 ; Welsh and Ordóñez, 2014 ; Welsh et al., 2019 ). However, this implies that only 10% of individuals are able to attain the high and specific goal and 90% will fail the goal. What happens to those who fail the high and specific goal? Several theories have discussed possible processes induced by goal-failure in general ( Dweck and Leggett, 1988 ; Carver and Scheier, 1990 ; Judge and Kammeyer-Mueller, 2004 ), but there is a dearth of empirical research on the consequences of failure of a high and specific goal.

We argue that failing a high and specific goal induces several processes that can harm a person’s affect, self-esteem, and motivation. Reducing such self-related factors can have serious consequences for the person as well as the organizations, for example reduced extrarole performance ( Judge and Kammeyer-Mueller, 2008 ), reduced organizational citizenship behavior ( Welsh et al., 2020 ), or increased absenteeism ( Shi et al., 2013 ). Decreased motivation may also lead to disengagement from challenging tasks ( Seo and Ilies, 2009 ) or choosing tasks with low difficulty ( Nichols et al., 1991 ).

While there is some evidence on the effects of goal-failure on affect (e.g., Martin et al., 1993 ; Grieve et al., 1994 ), to our knowledge there are little to no studies that integrate research of failure with the basic assumptions of goal-setting theory. Hence, the present research seeks to close this research gap, first, by replicating known effects of goal-failure on affect while using a high and specific goal and, second, by investigating the effects on additional self-related factors such as self-esteem and motivation that are also crucial for organizational outcomes. In the next sections, we will outline the underlying theories and potential processes that may lead to negative consequences after goal-failure of a high and specific goal. We will describe in detail the expected effects of goal-failure for affect, self-esteem, and motivation. We will then describe two experimental studies we conducted to examine those effects.

Theory and Hypotheses

Setting high and specific goals is the basic recommendation by goal-setting theory to increase performance ( Locke and Latham, 1990 , 2002 , 2006 ); however, failing these goals may induce processes that are damaging for one’s self. Goals can be described as objects of a person’s ambition that direct attention to goal-relevant activities, mobilize effort, and motivate to develop task-relevant strategies for goal-attainment ( Locke et al., 1981 ). In over 35years of research, Locke and Latham (2002) developed goal-setting theory to influence, predict, and explain performance on organizational tasks through goals. Their core findings were that high and specific goals increased performance, persistence, and motivation compared to vague or so-called “do-your-best” goals ( Locke and Latham, 1990 ).

However, most past research focused on these core findings and increasing performance as the main outcome, while ignoring potential detrimental effects on intrapersonal and self-related factors, especially when the high and specific goal is failed. Some evidence was found that high and specific goals lead to a decrease in affect, because individuals evaluate their performance relatively to a reference point ( Oliver et al., 1994 ; Thompson, 1995 ; Galinsky et al., 2002 ). Even individuals who had objectively good outcomes felt worse when they had a high and specific goal as their reference point ( Thompson, 1995 ; Galinsky et al., 2002 ). What happens when individuals fall under their reference point? Surprisingly, there is a lack of research on the consequences of failing a high and specific goal. It is important to examine the consequences of goal-failure of a high and specific goal since they are the key element of goal-setting interventions in organizations. We propose that failing the high and specific goal may induce detrimental processes for several intrapersonal and self-related factors. We chose intrapersonal factors that have been consistently demonstrated to be strongly connected with organizational outcomes and hence impairing those has the potential to harm the employee and the organization in the long-run.

First, we propose that goal-failure of a high and specific goal can damage a person’s affect. A person’s affect, which is a common indicator for well-being ( Sonnentag, 2015 ), refers to the positive or negative personal reactions to experiences ( Lazarus, 1982 ). Affect is often used as an umbrella term for mood, emotions, and evaluations. One can experience pleasant emotions or unpleasant ones ( Diener, 2000 ). Several theories support the notion that goal-failure can be harmful for a person’s affect. First, self-regulation theory suggests that behavior is meta-monitored by the individual and people seek to reduce discrepancy between their present actions and a reference value. If their progress toward that reference value is sub-standard, they experience negative affect ( Carver and Scheier, 1990 ; Moberly and Watkins, 2010 ). Second, achievement goal theory suggests that individuals with a focus on an externally-set standard view their skillset as fixed and unchangeable ( Dweck and Leggett, 1988 ). Failing the standard for them then implies that their skills are insufficient and they view the failure as a negative judgement of their competence. Thus, when individuals fail a high and specific goal, they experience a discrepancy between their skills and the goal and will experience negative affect. Negative affect can lead to severe consequences like reduced performance ( Seo and Ilies, 2009 ), exhaustion ( Halbesleben and Wheeler, 2011 ), counterproductive work behavior ( Scott and Barnes, 2011 ), and in the long-run even to burnout, which is related to increased absenteeism ( Ybema et al., 2010 ).

A number of studies have examined the consequences of goal-failure for a person’s affect. However, these studies do not directly relate to goal-setting theory. For example, in one experiment, goal level (primary vs. subgoals) and feedback of success or failure were manipulated. Participants who received a primary goal and feedback of goal-failure showed highest negative affect and decreased expectancy for future performance ( Houser-Marko and Sheldon, 2008 ). In another study, participants reported their negative affect; their ruminative self-focus, as well as their current goal and the importance of that goal eight times daily over 7 days ( Moberly and Watkins, 2010 ). It was found that low goal-success and high goal-importance were associated with high negative affect. Rumination after experiences of failure was also examined in another investigation, in which failure to attain prevention or promotion goals was manipulated by letting participants recall past failure experiences ( Jones et al., 2013 ). It was found that failure experiences lead to increased rumination and intensified negative affect, especially for promotion goal failures. In a summary on goals and affect, Plemmons and Weiss (2013) gathered previous findings on the effects of goal-failure on subsequent affect. They concluded that goal-attainment has positive effects on affect, whereas goal-failure has negative effects on affect (see Plemmons and Weiss, 2013 , pp. 121). None of these studies involved high and specific goals. We found two exceptions where high goals according to goal-setting theory were used. In one study, goal-success and goal-failure were used as mood-inducing method ( Henkel and Hinsz, 2004 ). In another investigation, goal-difficulty, goal source, and failure tolerance were manipulated in a scenario experiment in which participants were confronted with a character who fails his fictitious exam ( Kim and Clifford, 1988 ). It was found that for very difficult goals that were assigned by someone else, feelings after failure tended to be more negative. However, the authors did not find unambiguous support for the relationship between goal-difficulty and responses to goal-failure, and the goal only was presented as an item on the scenario booklet; participants did not have to complete the goal themselves.

Hence, there is some empirical evidence that goal-failure may have detrimental effects for an individual’s affect; however, research is needed to test this effect for high and specific goals that are the basic recommendation of goal-setting theory. We propose that:

H1 : Individuals who fail their high and specific goal will show a more negative affect than individuals who attain their high and specific goal.

Second, we propose that goal-failure of a high and specific goal can damage a person’s self-esteem. A person’s self-esteem reflects their evaluation of themselves and their abilities ( Rosenberg, 1965 ). Identity theory describes self-esteem as an outcome of the ratio between successes and goals ( Stets and Burke, 2000 ; Stryker and Burke, 2000 ), meaning the degree to which individuals are able to match their identity goal with their actual performance. If their identity goal matches with their actual performance, self-verification is successful. Successful self-verification leads to higher self-esteem. In contrast, disruption of the self-verification process, for example goal-failure, can have negative consequences for a person’s self-esteem. Reduced self-esteem can have severe long-term consequences, for the individual as well as for the organization, for example increased turnover cognitions/intentions ( Gardner and Pierce, 2001 ), decreased citizenship behavior ( Lee, 2003 ), and lower organizational commitment ( Van Dyne and Pierce, 2004 ). Hence, it is crucial to examine the consequences of goal-failure for self-esteem.

There is only a small body of research on the consequences of failure for a person’s self-esteem. In one study, it was found that participants who received poor exam scores showed reduced self-esteem ( Heatherton and Polivy, 1991 ). The same was found when failure was manipulated by assigning a puzzle task that was impossible to solve in the given time. Participants in the failure condition showed reduced self-esteem after the task. However, in both studies, there was no assigned high and specific goal. Both studies examined perceived failure on self-esteem and did not measure whether participants had a goal prior to the exam or the task. In another series of experiments, achievement goals were unconsciously activated with several methods ( Bongers et al., 2010 ). Participants then performed different tasks that were either easy or difficult to solve. Participants primed with achievement goals reported lower levels of self-esteem after the difficult tasks throughout all experiments. However, there were no assigned high and specific goals and success and failure were not manipulated, but depended on task difficulty condition, meaning that all participants in the difficult task condition were classified as having failed the goal, even though the goal to achieve was only unconscious and neither high nor specific.

Considering these previous findings, it becomes obvious that there are some indications that failure and more specifically goal-failure may have detrimental effects for a person’s self-esteem. The present research seeks to examine these effects when using high and specific goals. We propose that:

H2 : Individuals who fail their high and specific goal show lower self-esteem than individuals who attain their high and specific goal.

Third, we propose that goal-failure of a high and specific goal can reduce motivation for future tasks. Work-related motivation is one of the most common topics in organizational psychology and is described as “an umbrella term meant to capture the dense network of concepts and their interrelations that underlie observable changes in the initiations, direction, intensity, and persistence of voluntary action” ( Kanfer et al., 2017 , p. 339). Hence, we base our conceptualization of work motivation on the voluntarily change of intensity and persistence of an action toward any work-related activity. Work motivation affects how individuals develop their skills, the careers that they pursue, how they allocate their resources, and also affects how activities during work are tackled ( Kanfer et al., 2017 ). Setting high and specific goals is one of the best-known methods to increase work motivation. If the goal is failed, however, we propose that several other processes can be activated that are detrimental to motivation.

According to achievement goal theory, individuals with performance goals avoid challenges when confronted with obstacles, independently of their initial ability ( Dweck and Leggett, 1988 ). While trying to attain a performance goal, individuals feel that their abilities are measured. When goal-failure occurs, individuals perceive their abilities as inadequate and themselves as incompetent ( Dweck and Leggett, 1988 ). Individuals who view themselves as competent will react more positively to responsibilities than individuals who see themselves as incompetent ( Judge et al., 1997 ). Accordingly, individuals who perceive themselves as incompetent will react negatively to responsibilities and view themselves as less likely to succeed ( Judge et al., 1998 ). These individuals will react to failure with withdrawal of effort and reduced persistence ( Judge and Kammeyer-Mueller, 2004 ; Yeo and Neal, 2004 ). Considering the described definition of motivation as changes of intensity and persistence of voluntary actions, we conclude that goal-failure has the potential to reduce a person’s subsequent motivation.

There are few studies which have investigated the effects of goal-failure on subsequent motivation. Two studies manipulated goal type (learning vs. performance goals) and then used fictitious feedback of goal-failure to investigate the effects on subsequent motivation. In one study, students with a performance goal who received feedback of goal-failure performed worse in a subsequent task ( Cianci et al., 2010 ). In this study, subsequent performance was used as an indicator for changes in motivation. In another research, subjects with a performance goal avoided more difficult subsequent tasks after goal-failure ( Nichols et al., 1991 ). In this investigation, subsequent task choice after failure was used as an indicator of changes in motivation. In one study, participants completed a cycling task and received manipulated performance feedback about attaining or failing their assigned goal before completing a subsequent cognitive task ( Healy et al., 2015 ). There were no differences in subsequent performance between goal-failure and goal-attainment conditions. The authors concluded that a physical task may not have been suitable to manipulate goal-failure and that a physical task may enhance cognitive functioning, which could mask the detrimental effects of goal-failure. Again, these studies did not integrate high and specific goals. There is one exception, in which participants actually received a high goal prior to the task ( Vohs et al., 2013 ), but in this experiment, the goal was set so high that it was actually unattainable and thus, again, did not match the basic assumptions of goal-setting theory. It was found that after goal-failure, expectancy for future performance and interest in performing similar tasks, which were used as indicators of motivation, were lower.

Taken together, there is some evidence that goal-failure of performance goals can have undesirable effects on subsequent motivation. We seek to examine these effects when using high and specific goals that are the key element of goal-setting interventions. We propose that:

H3 : Individuals who fail their high and specific goal show lower motivation than individuals who attain their high and specific goal.

Overview of Studies

We conducted two experiments in which we manipulated goal-failure to examine the consequences of failure of a high and specific goal. To manipulate goal-failure, we used fictitious feedback in Study 1 and varied task difficulty in Study 2, so that goal-failure is independent from a person’s skill-level. In Study 1, we focused on the person’s affect, self-esteem, and subsequent self-reported motivation after receiving feedback of goal-failure compared to feedback of goal-attainment or no feedback. Study 2 aimed at replicating the effects found in Study 1 and examined motivation more objectively by using task choice after initial failure as a behavioral measure of motivation.

Study 1 Method

Study 1 was an online-experiment with a one-factor between-subjects design. The between-subjects factor was feedback type with three conditions: goal attained vs. goal failed vs. no feedback (control condition). Participants all received the same high and specific goal in an intelligence test and afterward a fictitious feedback whether they attained that goal or not (or no feedback at all in the control condition; the feedback is pictured in Table 1 ). As dependent variables, we measured affect, self-esteem, and subsequent motivation. The same variables were assessed before the task (baseline) and after receiving the feedback.

Table 1 . Fictitious feedback of goal-attainment/goal-failure in Study 1.

Participants and Procedure

We computed our required sample size with G * Power, optimal sample size is 111 (for between-subjects ANOVAs with three groups of Cohen’s f =0.3, type-I error probability α =0.05, and power 1-β=0.80, according to G * Power; Faul et al., 2007 ). Participants were 185 volunteers (93.5% female). Participants were randomly recruited on different online-platforms and were told that they would have the chance to test intelligence-test questions that can appear in assessment-centers. Participation was completely voluntarily; there was no payment involved. Majority of participants were employees (62.4%) of various professions (16.8% public service). Participants were not paid for participation; however, students (30.3%) received course credit if needed (only applicable to psychology students). Mean age was 28.01years ( SD =7.0). All participants were randomly assigned to experimental conditions by using a programmed randomization filter, resulting in 67 subjects in the goal-attainment condition [34.6% female; 27.73 ( SD =7.75) years old; 13.0% high school absolvent or higher; 17.3% employees; and 9.7% students], 53 subjects in the goal-failure condition [25.4% female; 28.58 ( SD =6.90) years old; 11.9% high school absolvent or higher; 16.2% employees; and 7.0% students], and 65 subjects in the no-feedback control condition [33.5% female; 27.83 ( SD =6.73) years old; 14.1% high school absolvent or higher; 17.9% employees; and 13.5% students].

After giving their consent and confirming that they are of legal age, participants answered an online-questionnaire. In this questionnaire, we assessed demographics, covariates, and baseline data for affect, self-esteem, and motivation. Participants then all received the high and specific goal to solve seven out of 10 upcoming intelligence test items. We asked how committed participants were to that goal. Participants then solved the 10 intelligence test items. After completion, participants received fictitious feedback (or no feedback in the control condition) depending on their experimental condition. Afterwards, we assessed the post-measures for affect, self-esteem, and motivation as well as perception of the goal and the feedback as manipulation checks. All study variables were assessed immediately before or after the tasks, there were no breaks in between. Finally, participants were debriefed and dismissed.

Intelligence Test Task

In Study 1, we used 10 intelligence test items from the freely available General Intelligence-Test by Satow (2017) . These 10 items included five matrices that test spatial imagination and five number sequences that test mathematical-logical abilities. We used this task because the items all have a medium difficulty of around 0.5 (which means an item difficulty of around 50%) and participants cannot unambiguously tell if they correctly solved an item. For that reason, participants cannot be sure whether they solved the items correctly or not, which is essential for using fictitious feedback.

Dependent Variables

All scales that were originally in English were translated into German and then back-translated into English. Exact Cronbach’s α for all conditions and measurement times are listed in Table 2 .

Table 2 . Cronbach’s α for feedback type conditions and measurement times.

Affect was assessed with a short-scale version ( Wilhelm and Schoebi, 2007 ) of the Multidimensional Mood State Questionnaire (MDMQ) by Steyer et al. (1997) . The short-scale consists of six bipolar items (e.g., “tired – awake,” “tense – relaxed,” and Cronbach’s α ranged from 0.88 to 0.89) with a seven-point scale, both endpoints labeled with “ very .”

Self-Esteem

State self-esteem was assessed with the subscale performance of the State-Self-Esteem Scale by Heatherton and Polivy (1991) consisting of five items. For example, one item was “I feel confident about my abilities.” Cronbach’s α ranged from 0.80 to 0.85. The response scale ranged from 1 ( strongly disagree ) to 5 ( strongly agree ).

Motivation was assessed with three self-developed items that are based on common scales for measuring motivation. Items were “I approach even difficult tasks with motivation,” “I try everything to attain my goals,” and “When I cannot solve difficult tasks immediately, I lose interest.” Cronbach’s α ranged from 0.71 to 0.74. The response scale ranged from 1 ( strongly disagree ) to 5 ( strongly agree ).

Control Variable

We measured goal-commitment as a control variable. Goal-commitment is one of the most influential moderators of the goal-performance relationship ( Locke and Latham, 1990 ) and thus may affect the consequences of failure of a high and specific goal.

Goal-Commitment

Goal-commitment was assessed with three items by Hollenbeck et al. (1989) that were most appropriate for the goal-setting context. For example, one item was “I am strongly committed to this goal.” Cronbach’s α was 0.84. The response scale ranged from 1 ( strongly disagree ) to 7 ( strongly agree ). There were no pre-experimental differences between the groups in goal-commitment, F (2,182)=1.46, p =0.24, and η 2 =0.02.

Manipulation Checks

We used several manipulation checks to make sure participants adopted the assigned high and specific goal and also to test whether the manipulation of feedback type was successful. We asked participants to repeat their assigned goal directly after the task. One hundred seventy-two participants correctly identified the assigned goal (93%). We also asked participants to rate the assigned goal on a five-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (not at all) to 5 (very). Participants perceived the assigned goal as medium to high ( M =3.62, SD =0.83), difficult ( M =3.61, SD =0.91), reasonable ( M =3.46, SD =0.98), and fair ( M =3.56, SD =0.93). We kept participants who did not correctly identify the goal in our analyses, because further ratings indicated that all participants perceived the goal as intended. Additionally, we checked whether the fictitious feedback was perceived as credible. Participants rated the feedback as credible ( M =3.81, SD =1.96). There were no significant differences between the groups, F (2,144) =0.62, p =0.54, and η 2 =0.01 (goal-failure condition: M =3.66, SD =1.87; goal-attainment condition: M =3.72, SD =2.03).

Study 1 Results and Discussion

Descriptive statistics and intercorrelations of study variables.

Table 3 lists the means, SDs, and correlations of all study variables. All study variables correlated in an expected manner, for example, the baseline measures correlated highly with the post-measures. In preliminary analyses, we made sure that there were no baseline differences in any of the study variables, including affect [ F (2,182)=0.08, p =0.92, and η 2 =0.001], self-esteem [ F (2,182)=0.02, p =0.98, and η 2 =0.00], motivation [ F (2,182)=0.14, p =0.87, and η 2 =0.002], or goal-commitment [ F (2,182)=1.46, p =0.24, and η 2 =0.02]. We also centered and included goal-commitment, gender, and age in our analyses. These variables did not change our results when included as covariates. We, therefore, report results of analyses without these covariates.

Table 3 . Descriptive statistics and bivariate correlations Study 1.

Main Effects of Goal-Failure on Affect, Self-Esteem, and Motivation

We tested hypotheses using separate one-way ANCOVAs with centered baseline measures included as a covariate and with the between-subjects factor feedback type (three levels: goal attained, goal failed, and no feedback) for each dependent variable. We used post-hoc tests to compare the goal-failure condition with the goal-attainment condition as this comparison reflects our hypotheses.

Hypothesis 1 predicted that individuals who fail the high and specific goal will show a more negative affect than individuals who attain the high and specific goal. An ANCOVA showed a significant main effect of feedback type on affect, F (2,181)=13.44, p <0.001, and η 2 =0.13. As planned comparisons indicated, in line with what we predicted, affect was more negative for participants who failed the goal than for participants who attained the goal. There was a statistically significant difference in affect between the goal-failure condition ( M =3.78, SD =1.47) and the goal-attainment condition ( M =4.46, SD =1.40) of 0.67 ( SE =0.15), t (2,181)=4.47, p <0.001, and d =0.48. Thus, Hypothesis 1 was supported. The effect is depicted in Figure 1A . As illustrated, affect increased for participants who attained the goal, while it decreased for participants who failed the goal. Participants in the control condition showed a pattern similar to that of participants who failed the goal.

Figure 1 . Effects of feedback type on affect (A) , self-esteem (B) , and motivation (C) in Study 1.

Hypothesis 2 assumed that individuals who fail the high and specific goal will show lower self-esteem than individuals who attain the high and specific goal. An ANCOVA showed that there was no significant main effect of feedback type on self-esteem, F (2,181)=2.35, p =0.10, and η 2 =0.03. However, as planned comparisons indicated, in line with what we predicted, self-esteem was lower for participants who failed the goal than for participants who attained the goal. There was a statistically significant difference in self-esteem between the goal-failure condition ( M =3.49, SD =1.01) and the goal-attainment condition ( M =3.70, SD =0.90) of 0.22 ( SE =0.10), t (2,181)=2.16, p <0.05, d =0.22. Hypothesis 2 was supported. The effect is depicted in Figure 1B . As illustrated, self-esteem stayed at the same level for participants who attained the goal, while it was reduced for participants who failed the goal. Self-esteem levels for participants in the control conditions were in between the other two groups.

Hypothesis 3 assumed that individuals who fail the high and specific goal will show lower motivation than individuals who attain the high and specific goal. An ANCOVA showed that there was no significant main effect of feedback type on motivation, F (2,181)=2.32, p =0.10, and η 2 =0.03. However, planned comparisons indicated, in line with what we predicted that motivation was lower for participants who failed the assigned goal than for participants who attained the assigned goal. There was a statistically significant difference in motivation between the goal-failure condition ( M =3.41, SD =1.03) and the goal-attainment condition ( M =3.62, SD =0.92) of 0.21 ( SE =0.10), t (2,181)=2.11, p <0.05, d =0.22. Thus, Hypothesis 3 was supported. The effect is depicted in Figure 1C . As illustrated, motivation stayed at the same level for participants who attained the goal, while it was reduced for participants who failed the goal. Motivation levels for participants in the control conditions were in between the other two groups.

In sum, all hypotheses were supported. As predicted, affect was more negative and self-esteem and motivation were reduced when the high and specific goal was failed. Interestingly, participants who received no feedback at all showed similar tendencies throughout all dependent variables as participants who failed the goal. We assume that since we chose task items with medium difficulty, participants in the no-feedback condition were not sure about their performance and assumed that they did not attain the high and specific goal; hence, they showed similar tendencies as the participants who failed the goal. We conclude that the task we used was indeed ambiguous as we intended and the uncertainty about their own performance lead to participants’ conclusion. However, to avoid uncertainty of their performance and also being dependent of the credibility of the fictitious feedback, we sought to manipulate actual performance in a second study, rather than just manipulating the feedback about the performance. Moreover, feedback in day-to-day life reflects actual performance and is not fictitious. To manipulate actual performance, we manipulated task difficulty in Study 2, so that participants can unambiguously tell how they performed and whether they attained or failed the goal. Furthermore, we sought to test the immediate behavioral effects after failure of a high and specific goal. For that reason, we used a behavioral measure of motivation in Study 2. We will describe Study 2 in detail in the following section.

Study 2 Method

Study 2 was a laboratory experiment with a one-factor between subjects design. Between-subjects factor was goal-failure with two conditions: goal attained vs. goal failed. Participants all received a high and specific goal how many matrices they should solve in a first round. Goal-failure was manipulated through task difficulty. In a second round, participants then were asked to choose between two alternatives of the task with different difficulties. Dependent variables were motivation (task choice) in the second round as well as affect and self-esteem. Affect and self-esteem were assessed before the first round (baseline) and after the second round.

We computed our required sample size with G * Power, optimal sample size is 90 (for between-subjects ANOVAs with two groups of Cohen’s f =0.3, type-I error probability α =0.05, and power 1-β=0.80, according to G * Power; Faul et al., 2007 ). Participants were 86 volunteers (67.4% female; 61.2% employees; and 55.4% high school graduation or higher) who were recruited at several public places throughout the city at which the authors’ university is located. Participants were not paid for participation, but were able to win chocolate chips depending on their performance. Mean age was 36.70 years ( SD =15.12). All participants were randomly assigned to experimental conditions by using a common randomization table, resulting in 41 subjects in the goal-attainment condition and 45 subjects in the goal-failure condition.

After giving their consent and confirming that they are of legal age, participants answered a first paper-pencil questionnaire. In this questionnaire, we assessed demographics, covariates, and baseline data for affect and self-esteem. Participants then all received the high and specific goal to solve four out of five matrices in the upcoming “adding-to-ten” task. Participants then tried to solve the five matrices. Participants in the goal-attainment condition received matrices that were so easy that any individual with a basic skill-level in arithmetic can solve them in the given amount of time to make sure that they all attain the assigned goal. Participants in the goal-failure condition received matrices that were so difficult that it was impossible to solve them in the given amount of time to make sure that they all fail the assigned goal. We tested whether the respective task-difficulty would lead to attaining or failing the goal in pilot studies and adjusted it accordingly. Hence, goal-failure was manipulated independently from an individual’s skill-level and solely based on our experimental manipulation of task difficulty. As intended, all participants attained or failed the assigned goal corresponding to our manipulation. After that first round, participants were asked to choose between two alternatives of the previous task with different levels of difficulty (medium vs. high, connected with different rewards). After completing that second round, we assessed the post-measures for affect and self-esteem and the manipulation check. Finally, participants received their reward of their respective amount of chocolate chips (depending on how many matrices they had solved in the second round), were debriefed and dismissed.

Adding-to-Ten Task

In Study 2, we used the “adding-to-ten” task which has been used in several other studies (on the effects of goal-setting on unethical behavior) before (e.g., Mazar et al., 2008 ; Welsh and Ordóñez, 2014 ; Keith, 2018 ). The original task consists of matrices with 12 numbers with two decimal places of which two numbers sum up to 10. We used this task because it allows the respondents to unambiguously evaluate if they had solved the question correctly and because it is not viewed as one reflecting math ability ( Mazar et al., 2008 ). In this task, participants recognize their actual performance and are not dependent on our feedback. For this study, we developed three different levels of difficulty. We varied the level of difficulty by adding more columns or more decimal places. We conducted a preliminary study to test our matrices for difficulty. The final matrices had nine numbers with one decimal place for the very easy matrices, 12 numbers with two decimal places (as in the original) for the medium difficult matrices, and 36 numbers with three decimal places for the very difficult matrices (for an example, see Figure 2 ). We also measured the time it took participants to solve the very easy matrices in a preliminary study. Since participants solved five very easy matrices in less than 2min, we set the high and specific goal at four out of five matrices in 2min in the goal-attainment condition. The same goal applied to the very difficult matrices in the goal-failure condition because we expected it to be impossible to solve those in 2min. In the second round, participants had another 2min to solve as many matrices as possible.

Figure 2 . Examples for easy (top panel), medium (middle panel), and difficult (bottom panel) matrices in the “adding-to-ten” task.

All Scales that were originally in English were translated into German and then back-translated into English. Exact Cronbach’s α for all conditions and measurement times is listed in Table 4 .

Table 4 . Cronbach’s α for goal-failure conditions and measurement times.

Motivaton (Task Choice)

Motivation was measured by task choice in the second round. Participants were asked to choose between two alternatives: To solve medium difficult matrices, receiving one chocolate for every correctly solved matrix; or to solve very difficult matrices, receiving three chocolates for every correctly solved matrix. Hence, the difficult matrices were connected with a large reward, while the medium difficult matrices were connected with a small reward. We included this payoff to have an incentive to choose the difficult matrices. Choosing the difficult matrices indicated higher motivation. Task choice was measured as choice for medium difficult matrices (0=medium difficulty) or choice for difficult matrices (1=high difficulty).

Affect was assessed with the same scale used in Study 1. Cronbach’s α ranged from 0.65 to 0.75.

State self-esteem was assessed with the same scale used in Study 1. Cronbach’s α was 0.70 at both times.

Control Variables

We measured self-efficacy, risk-taking, and perceived mental arithmetic ability as control variables. Self-efficacy is, besides self-esteem, considered as one of the four core traits that constitute core self-evaluations ( Bono and Judge, 2003 ). Hence, self-efficacy is expected to correlate substantially with self-esteem and as a trait may affect the consequences of goal-failure. Risk-taking was measured because it may affect which task participants choose in the second round. Mental arithmetic ability may affect how well participants perform in the “adding-to-ten” task. There were no pre-experimental differences between the groups in any of the control variables.

Self-Efficacy

Self-efficacy was assessed with the German version of the General Self-Efficacy Short Scale (ASKU) by Beierlein et al. (2012) . The scale consists of three items, for example, “I can rely on my own abilities in difficult situations.” Cronbach’s α was 0.81. The response scale ranged from 1 ( strongly disagree ) to 5 ( strongly agree ).

Willingness for Risk-Taking

Willingness for risk-taking was assessed with the subscale “risk-taking” from the TCU Adolescent Social Functioning Form by the TCU Institute of Behavioral Research (2010) , consisting of seven items. For example, one item was “You like taking risks.” Cronbach’s α was 0.84. The response scale ranged from 1 ( strongly disagree ) to 5 ( strongly agree ).

Perceived Mental Arithmetic

Perceived mental arithmetic ability was assessed with the subscale “attitude to fast mental arithmetic” from the “Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study” (TIMSS) student questionnaire by Wendt et al. (2017) , consisting of six items. For example, one item was “Usually, I am very good at fast mental arithmetic.” Cronbach’s α was 0.88. The response scale ranged from 1 ( strongly disagree ) to 4 ( strongly agree ).

We used two manipulation checks to make sure that participants had adopted the assigned high and specific goal and that the manipulation of goal-failure was successful. We asked participants to repeat their assigned goal directly after the task. Seventy-four participants correctly identified the assigned goal (86%). We also asked participants if they attained or failed the assigned goal. All 86 participants correctly indicated that they attained the goal in the goal-attainment condition or failed the goal in the goal-failure condition. Hence, manipulation of goal-failure was successful.

Study 2 Results and Discussion

Table 5 lists the means, SDs, and correlations of all study variables. All study variables correlated in an expected manner. Experimental condition correlated highly with motivation (task choice), affect, and also with self-esteem. In preliminary analyses, we made sure that there were no baseline differences in any of the study variables, including affect [ t (84)=1.72, p =0.09, and d =0.37], self-esteem [ t (84)=0.09, p =0.93, and d =0.03], self-efficacy [ t (84)=1.67, p =0.10, and d =0.36], risk-taking [ t (84)=−1.12, p =0.27, and d =0.24], or perceived mental arithmetic ability [ t (84)=−0.43, p =0.67, and d =0.09]. Some covariates seemed to correlate highly with the dependent variables, for example perceived mental arithmetic ability with motivation (task choice) or self-efficacy with self-esteem. For that reason, we centered and included these covariates in our analyses. These variables did not change our results when included as covariates. We, therefore, report results of analyses without these covariates.

Table 5 . Descriptive statistics and bivariate correlations Study 2.

Main Effects of Goal-Failure on Affect, Self-Esteem, and Motivation (Task Choice)

We tested Hypotheses 1 and 2 using separate one-way ANCOVAs with centered baseline measure included as a covariate and with the between-subjects factor goal-failure for each dependent variable. We tested Hypothesis 3 using logistic regression with goal-failure (two levels: goal attained, goal failed) as the between-subjects factor and (motivation) task choice as dependent variable since logistic regression is recommended for dichotomous dependent variables ( Mood, 2010 ).

Hypothesis 1 assumed that individuals who fail their assigned high and specific goal will show a more negative affect than individuals who attain their assigned high and specific goal. An ANCOVA showed a significant main effect of goal-failure on affect, F (1,83)=5.64, p <0.05, η 2 =0.06, and d =0.37. Participants who failed their goal ( M =3.49, SD =1.18) showed a significantly more negative affect than participants who attained their goal ( M =3.94, SD =1.24). Hence, Hypothesis 1 was supported. The effect is depicted in Figure 3A . As illustrated, affect increased for participants who attained the goal, while it decreased for participants who failed the goal.

Figure 3 . Effects of goal-failure on affect (A) , self-esteem (B) , and motivation task choice (C) in Study 2.

Hypothesis 2 assumed that individuals who fail their assigned high and specific goal will show lower self-esteem than individuals who attain their assigned high and specific goal. An ANCOVA showed a significant main effect of goal-failure on self-esteem, F (1,83)=7.10, p <0.01, η 2 =0.08, and d =0.42. Participants who failed their goal ( M =3.77, SD =0.58) showed significantly lower self-esteem than participants who attained their goal ( M =4.02, SD =0.61). Hence, Hypothesis 2 was supported. The effect is depicted in Figure 3B . As illustrated, self-esteem stayed at the same level for participants who attained the goal, while it decreased for participants who failed the goal.

Hypothesis 3 assumed that individuals who fail their assigned high and specific goal will show lower motivation than individuals who attain their assigned high and specific goal. We used task choice as a behavioral indicator of motivation. A logistic regression showed that goal-failure is a significant predictor of task choice, χ 2 (1)=27.19, p <0.001, OR=13.87, d =1.45, 95%-CI(4.5, 42.76)], with a regression coefficient of −0.26. The model explained 37.2% (Nagelkerke R 2 ) of the variance in task choice and correctly classified 76.7% of cases. Goal-failure was associated with a decreased likelihood of choosing the more difficult task. In the goal-attainment condition, 15 participants (36.6%) chose the medium difficult task and 26 participants (63.4%) chose the highly difficult task. In the goal-failure condition, 40 participants (88.9%) chose the medium difficult task and only five participants (11.1%) chose the highly difficult task. Hence, Hypothesis 3 was supported. The results are depicted in Figure 3C .

In sum, the results of Study 2 replicate and extend the findings of our previous study. Specifically, we found support for the harmful effect of goal-failure on affect and self-esteem. As expected, after goal-failure participants showed decreased affect and self-esteem, while after goal-attainment participants showed the same or slightly higher levels of affect and self-esteem. Furthermore, we demonstrated that goal-failure affects subsequent motivation in terms of task choice. After goal-failure, the majority of participants chose the easier task and avoided the challenging task.

General Discussion

Setting high and specific goals has long been recommended as one of the most effective motivational and leadership tools. Yet, setting high performance goals naturally leads to a considerable group of individuals who will fail that goal. Past research on goal-failure indicates that it can cause a variety of undesirable and potentially harmful effects, for the individual as well as for organizations; however, to our knowledge, there is little to no research that combines research on failure with high and specific goals that are the focus of goal-setting theory. Our research aimed at shedding light on this important topic by examining the effects of failing a high and specific goal on affect, self-esteem, and motivation; factors which may have crucial implications for organizations.

We conducted two studies to test for the expected detrimental effects of failure of a high and specific goal on affect, self-esteem, and motivation. Study 1 showed goal-failure of the assigned high and specific goal lead to a decrease in affect, self-esteem, and motivation. We replicated these effects in Study 2 and were able to show the behavioral consequences of the decreased motivation through task choice. In sum, we were able to show that the failure of a high and specific goal can trigger potentially harmful consequences for self-related factors and can hinder a person from tackling new challenges. We discuss theoretical and practical implications, limitations, and future directions of all the findings in the following sections.

Theoretical and Practical Implications

Our findings are an important contribution to research on goal-setting theory by combining basic assumptions of achievement goal theory with goal-setting theory. Goal-setting theory focuses on those who attain the high and specific goal and states a so-called “high performance cycle” in which individuals are satisfied with their performance and enter an ever-increasing cycle of increased motivation and performance ( Locke and Latham, 1990 , 2002 ). Even though cautionary remarks have always been made about potential pitfalls when applying goal-setting ( Locke and Latham, 2002 ), the high risk of failing that goal is widely overlooked. One theory that takes the possibility of goal-failure into account is achievement goal theory. Achievement goal theory states that goals can be framed as performance goals or learning goals. According to achievement goal theory, performance goals set an external standard. Individuals who fail that standard perceive their skills as fixed, thus, failing implies that their abilities are insufficient ( Dweck and Leggett, 1988 ). Hence, failing of a performance goal poses a threat for the self. Individuals will perceive themselves as incapable after failing a performance goal, which can be damaging for their self-image. The high and specific goals used in goal-setting interventions are usually framed as performance goals, for example, to produce a certain amount of products, to sell a certain amount, or to enroll a certain number of customers. Combining the assumptions of both theories, one can conclude that failure of a high and specific goal has the potential to pose a threat for a person’s self. We were able to confirm this notion and found that failing a high and specific goal indeed harmed self-related factors.

Our results imply that when using goal-setting interventions in organizations, potentially harmful long-term effects should be considered. Setting high and specific goals is a very commonly used motivational tool because organizations often solely focus on the immediate results, especially on performance. However, setting high and specific goals can have serious detrimental consequences. In recent years, several undesirable effects of high and specific goals have been discussed. For example, a number of studies have explored the effects of goal-setting on unethical behavior (e.g., lying and cheating). The assumption is that individual’s attention focus is narrowed on attaining the goal, so that moral standards are ignored ( Schweitzer et al., 2004 ; Ordóñez et al., 2009 ; Welsh and Ordóñez, 2014 ). Unethical behaviors may be particularly likely when attaining the goal is tied to monetary rewards ( Jensen, 2003 ). Furthermore, some researchers argue that high and specific goals make destructive leadership more likely by increasing leaders’ stress to meet deadlines ( Bardes and Piccolo, 2010 ).

Our findings show that failure of a high and specific goal can harm a person’s self and motivation. These consequences have the potential to harm not only the employee but also the organization’s results in the long-run. Our results also implicate that failure of a high and specific goal can have immediate behavioral consequences and can discourage employees from engaging in new challenges; something employees face daily in their everyday life. We recommend that organizations should find ways to sensitize supervisors and employees for the potential undesirable effects when setting high and specific goals and find ways to counteract them.

Limitations and Future Research

A first limitation of this research is that we did not test the effects of goal-failure in an actual work-setting. Hence, we cannot be sure about the external validity of the findings. However, Study 2 was conducted in the field, at several public places with a rather heterogeneous sample of mainly working adults. Study 2 also allowed a face-to-face setting, which increases psychological realism. Given the large body of converging findings across experimental laboratory and field research on goal-setting, we assume that the used experimental designs should be suited for our investigations. Still, our experimental research should be complemented by field studies in actual work-settings, preferably by longitudinal studies that investigate long-term effects of goal-setting and goal-failure.

A second limitation of our research is that we solely used self-reports to measure the person’s affect and self-esteem. To generalize the found effects, other components of a person’s well-being should be examined, for example an individual’s physical well-being and somatic health. Research showed that the fulfillment of one’s goals plays an important role when coping with stressful events ( Emmons and Kaiser, 1996 ). If a person is repeatedly faced with obstacles blocking the attainment of their goals, the person may be particularly susceptible to experiences of helplessness, which are associated with health risks ( Brunstein et al., 1998 ). Future research is needed to examine the consequences of goal-failure for a person’s physical and mental health. In addition, we only measured participants’ general affect rather than discrete emotions. It is possible that discrete emotions, like anger, anxiety, or depression, provide more information on the outcomes of the goal process than generalized affect ( Plemmons and Weiss, 2013 ). We suggest that future research examines the role of discrete emotions for processes induced by goal-failure.

Another limitation of our research is that we used a self-developed scale for measuring motivation in Study 1. Therefore, we have no information about the validity of our scale. However, we used this scale because the common validated motivation scales usually measure a more general attitude towards work, while we sought to measure motivational change toward certain work tasks. In Study 2, we included a behavioral measure of that motivational change by measuring task-choice, which is a common behavioral measure of work motivation ( Thomas and Ward, 1983 ; Nicholls, 1984 ). Thereby, we were able to combine attitudinal and behavioral measures of motivation. We suggest that these findings should be complemented by a field study with an actual work task.

An additional limitation is that we were not able to examine long-term effects of failure of high and specific goals. In organizations, individuals are confronted with new goals constantly, even if they were not able to attain previous goals. Consecutive failure of high and specific goals might induce a downward spiral of harmful consequences which, in the long-run, damage the organizational outcomes, for example, reduced OCB, increased absenteeism, and disengagement from challenging tasks and burnout ( Seo and Ilies, 2009 ; Ybema et al., 2010 ; Shi et al., 2013 ; Welsh et al., 2020 ). There are few studies which have investigated the effects of setting high and specific goals consecutively ( Welsh and Ordóñez, 2014 ; Keith, 2018 ). For example, it was found that consecutive goal-setting can have detrimental effects on an individual’s goal-commitment and perceived fairness ( Keith, 2018 ). In another study, consecutive performance goals increased unethical behavior by depleting self-regulatory resources ( Welsh and Ordóñez, 2014 ). Future research should investigate the long-term consequences of failure of a high and specific goal or consecutive failure.

Furthermore, it has to be noted that our sample in Study 1 consisted mainly of female participants (93.5%). Past research found that in an experiment, after failure, male participants chose more difficult goals in a subsequent task than did female participants ( Levy and Baumgardner, 1991 ). Additionally, it was found that individuals higher in self-esteem chose more difficult goals. We were able to control for confounding effects of base self-esteem and self-efficacy and both variables did not affect our results, which is consistent with other research on self-esteem and goal-choice ( Hollenbeck and Brief, 1987 ). We cannot be certain that our results also apply to male individuals; however, gender did not affect our results in Study 2 and past research suggests that unambiguous feedback to insure clear failure or success on a task eliminates gender differences in future success expectancies ( Feather and Simon, 1973 ; McMahon, 1973 ; Lenney, 1977 ). Nevertheless, future research should replicate our findings with male individuals to rule out possible gender differences.

Lastly, future research should explore methods to counteract the found undesirable effects. Drawing from achievement goal theory, one possible method may be goal-framing. While performance goals emphasize the attainment of an externally-set standard, learning goals emphasize increasing the own competence or mastering something new. When individuals fail a learning goal, they do not blame the failure on themselves, since they view their skills as changeable ( Dweck and Leggett, 1988 ; Welsh et al., 2019 ). Thus, failure of a high and specific learning goal should not pose a threat for a person’s self and framing the goal as a learning goal may counteract the found undesirable effects.

A second possible method to counteract these undesirable effects is to let employees experience success. Past research found that success on previous tasks may breed success on subsequent tasks ( Fan et al., 2020 ). When employees attain easy goals on previous tasks, goal-commitment increases through enactive mastery. As a result, employees increase their personally-set goals and are able to self-motivate for upcoming tasks. Hence, organizations could increase employee’s confidence and enable mastery by setting easy goals first, to create experiences of success.

A third possible method for counteracting the undesirable effects is to use self-regulatory strategies to increase one’s self-control to engage in aversive tasks. Research on the topic found that individuals who focused on the positive consequences of an aversive activity or the negative consequences for not performing it, increased their perceived self-regulatory success. Furthermore, setting goals for the activity and emotion regulation also increased self-control ( Hennecke et al., 2019 ). Hence, when failure experiences harm an employee’s motivation and well-being, self-regulatory strategies may be used to restore those resources for subsequent tasks. Especially evocation of negative affect can increase and prolong rumination after failure experiences, which in turn can increase negative affect ( Jones et al., 2013 ). There are various strategies that can be used to prevent detrimental effects on one’s affect. For example, an employee might use attentional deployment or focus on other aspects. After the affective state is already affected, an employee might regulate their emotions by reappraisal ( Boss and Sims Jr., 2008 ). Thus, we recommend the use of self-regulatory and emotion regulation strategies to replenish those resources, stay persistent, and counteract effects after goal-failure.

A final strategy for counteracting undesirable effects after goal-failure might be to positively affect goal striving as well as goal revision. It has been shown that high self-efficacy and confidence in the own abilities can facilitate successful goal striving ( Wolf et al., 2018 ). Furthermore, research found that individuals use performance-goal discrepancies to make their goal revision decisions. It was found that large discrepancies, especially over a longer period of time, led to a downward revision of their goal ( Donovan and Williams, 2003 ). Accordingly, experiences of success lead to an upward revision of their goal. Considering the previously mentioned methods to enable mastery and to create experiences of success, we assume that these methods are also suitable to positively affect goal striving and goal revision and in turn have the potential to counteract detrimental effects after goal-failure.

Our research contributes to research and practice of goal-setting by explicitly integrating research on failure with the basic recommendation of goal-setting theory and achievement goal theory. We were able to elucidate a highly possible downside of goal-setting interventions by showing that the failure of a high and specific goal can damage self-related factors like affect, self-esteem, and motivation and can also have subsequent behavioral consequences. These short-term consequences may lead to serious long-term consequences, especially when goals are failed consecutively and the person has no resources to counteract the effects. For that reason, employers need to be sensitized for the high possibility of failing a high and specific goal when using goal-setting as a motivational and leadership tool and need to take actions to counteract these undesirable effects, for example with self-regulatory or emotion regulation strategies or by experiences of success.

Data Availability Statement

The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.

Ethics Statement

Study 1 involving human participants was reviewed and approved by the Ethics committee of the Technical University of Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany. Study 2 followed the same guidelines. The participants provided their written informed consent to participate in the studies.

Author Contributions

JH will have first authorship of this manuscript, and will also be serving as the corresponding author. The author listed in the byline has agreed to the byline order and to the submission of the manuscript in this form. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

This research was supported by grant from the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, grant no. KE 1377/5–1).

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher’s Note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Acknowledgments

We thank Anabela Dubravac, Paula Lanz and Lea Strutt for data collection.

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Keywords: goal-setting theory, goal-failure, affect, self-esteem, motivation, task choice

Citation: Höpfner J and Keith N (2021) Goal Missed, Self Hit: Goal-Setting, Goal-Failure, and Their Affective, Motivational, and Behavioral Consequences. Front. Psychol . 12:704790. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.704790

Received: 03 May 2021; Accepted: 19 August 2021; Published: 21 September 2021.

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Copyright © 2021 Höpfner and Keith. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Jessica Höpfner, [email protected]

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Goal-Setting Theory

Locke, et al (1981) defined the “goal” in Goal-Setting Theory (GST) as “what an individual is trying to accomplish; it is the object or aim of an action” (p. 126). According to Moeller et al. (2012), goal setting is the process of establishing specific and effective targets for task performance. Locke, et al. (1981) also provided evidence that goal setting has a positive influence on task performance. Latham and Locke (2007) explained that “a specific high goal leads to even higher performance than urging people to do their best” (p. 291).

Before the 1960s, some researchers began to study the effectiveness of setting goals in business. The results showed that goal setting has a positive influence on workers’ performance. However, there was a lack of theoretical framework to explain why and how goal-setting influences work performance (Latham & Locke, 2007). GST served to explain human behavior in specific work situations (Locke, 1968). After a lot of experimental research done by Locke and Latham, GST was formalized in 1990 (Locke & Latham, 1990; Locke & Latham, 2002). The theory is now seen as “one of the most influential frameworks in motivational psychology” (Nebel et al., 2017, p. 102).

Previous Studies

Studies that employ GST can be divided generally into three domains. First, in academics, setting goals was shown to have a significant influence on students’ learning performance (see, e.g., Gardner et al, 2016; Locke & Latham, 1990 ; Locke & Latham,  2002 ). For example, Gardner et al. (2016) invited 127 medical students to participate in surgical skill training. They found that goal setting was effective in helping new students acquire surgical skills, especially when students develop specific strategy and goal orientations. In other words, the study found that students have better learning performance when they have clearer and more specific goals. In addition, Neble et al. (2017) had 87 students play the video game Minecraft  (Mojang, 2011), and the results showed that for those students who set specific goals, their cognitive load was lowered. Further, Moeller and colleagues (2012) conducted a five-year quasi-experimental study on the relationship between goal setting and the performance of Spanish language learners in high school. The results indicated that having high-quality goals contributed to students’ better language acquisition.

Second, Latham and Locke (2007) pointed out in their study that, in the field of organization and human resource management, goal setting can have an impact on employees’ behavior and performance in the workplace. Based on this idea, 108 middle level banking managers in Indonesia were invited by Aunurrafiq et al. (2015) to investigate whether setting goals could have a positive impact on their managerial performance. They provided evidence that goal specificity, goal participation, and goal commitment are significant factors in enhancing managers’ managerial performance. In addition, Brown and Latham (2000) invited 36 unionized employees in a Canadian telecommunications company to test the effectiveness of three ways to increase employees’ performance. Their results indicated that the employees with specific and challenging goals reached higher performance levels than those who set goals along with self-instructions to do their best.

Third, goal setting has also been popularized in the field of sports. According to Weinburg and Butt (2014), “Setting goals can help athletes prioritize what is the most important to them in their sport and subsequently guide daily practices by knowing what to work on” (p. 343). Locke and Latham (1985) concur. In Locke and Latham’s (1985) study, they found that setting goals can be more effective in sports because the performance of sports is easier to measure. In another study, Burton et al. (2010) investigated the impact of incorporating goal setting and goal strategies between highly effective and less effective athletes among 570 college athletes who participated in 18 sports at a university. The results indicated that goal setting had a positive impact on their performance, and the athletes who set goals and implemented goal strategies more frequently tended to be both more effective than others and have better sports performance. Finally, a study conducted by Bueno et al. (2008) on the effectiveness of goal setting on endurance athletes’ performance indicated that goal setting is effective in increasing efficacy, which leads to better performance in endurance sports.

Model   of Goal-Setting Theory

This model in Figure 1 is adapted from Locke and Latham (2002) and consists of three parts: concepts, constructs, and a proposition. The concepts include key factors that affect peoples’ performance, with moderators and mediators that might affect the goals that are set. The constructs indicate that these concepts impact people’s performance and motivation. The proposition shows that a specific and challenging goal, combined with regular feedback, can increase motivation and productivity so that people can perform better. These model aspects are described below.

Locke (1990) pointed out that there are some significant factors that can impact an individual’s performance: core goal properties (e.g., specificity, challenge), moderators (e.g. ability, feedback, goal commitment), and mediators (e.g., choice, effort). Latham (2003) pointed out in one study that individuals who have specific, challenging, but attainable goals have better performance than those who set vague goals or do not set goals. Meanwhile, individuals should possess ability and have commitment to the goal to have better performance.

For the part of moderators, Locke (1990) explains ability as whether people possess skill or knowledge to finish the task. Feedback is also needed for people to decide whether they should put forth more effort or change their strategy. Moreover, goal commitment refers to whether individuals have the determination to realize the goal. In addition to ability, feedback, and commitment, task complexity is also considered important; it indicates that people tend to have better performance when the tasks are more straightforward. In addition, situational resources, the related resources or materials provided for individuals to achieve their goal, are also essential. Finally, self-efficacy refers to whether people are confident in doing something and that it will affect their goals and performance (Locke & Latham, 1990).

For the part of mediators, choice means that people will make an effort towards the goal-relevant activities when they choose to set specific and difficult goals. Furthermore, persistence refers to how long people will stick to the goal and if individuals are willing to spend time on achieving it. If so, they may have better performance (Locke & Latham, 1990). Finally, a specific, high goal needs a strategy to attain it.

According to the discussion above, with these important factors (e.g. specificity, challenge, ability, feedback, effort) in the concepts, people tend to have better performance and are more willing to face new challenges. Performance consists of a variety of behaviors, from test-taking to running a competitive race.

Proposition

To conclude, the proposition of GST is that when the concepts are optimal for an individual, better performance can result. What is optimal for each individual is a subject for research.

Using the Model

Goal-setting theory could be used in different domains such as teaching or research. In teaching, for example, this theory could be used as an instructional procedure to improve students’ writing performance for those who have difficulty in learning writing. By setting specific goals of what will be written in each paragraph, students may perform better in their writing class (Page & Graham, 1999). In addition, Nebel, et al. (2017) mentions that GST can also be used while using educational video games such as Minecraft ; goal setting can reduce students’ cognitive load when they set specific goals. Moreover, players who use educational video games and follow a specific learning goal can be impacted affectively by goal setting. In other words, students tend to become more engaged and show greater passion in finishing the task when they have clear goals. Moreover, Idowu, et al. (2014) invited 80 senior secondary school students to investigate whether goal setting skills are effective for students’ academic performance in English, and the results indicated that the incorporation of a goal setting strategy can enhance students’ academic performance in English. In other words, teachers can encourage students to create goals that can support their academic performance.

In the research area, studies investigate the influence of GST on language learners’ motivation and self-efficacy, which can better help language learners and language experts understand how to set up different goals affecting students’ self-efficacy and motivation in language learning (Azar et al., 2013). For future study, researchers could integrate goal-setting and self-efficacy theories to explore outcomes and the reasons for them, or studies could use GST with young children to see whether the theory applies across ages.

To conclude, goal setting can play a significant role in enhancing people’s motivation and performance. People who set specific, challenging goals and commit to these goals are more likely to try their best and persist in achieving the goals, which can lead to better performance and success.

Aunurrafiq., Sari, R. N., & Basri, Y. M. (2015). The moderating effect of goal setting on performance measurement system-managerial performance relationship.  Procedia Economics and Finance, 31 , 876-884.

Azar, H. F., Reza, P., & Fatemeh, V. (2014). The role of goal-setting theory on Iranian EFL learners’ motivation and self-efficacy.  International Journal of Research Studies Language Learning, 3 (2), 69-84.

Brown, T., & Latham, G. P. (2000). The effects of goal setting and self-instruction training on the performance of unionized employees .  Relations Industrielles / Industrial Relations, 55 (1), 80-95.

Bueno, J., Weinberg, R.S., Fernandez, C., & Capdevila, L. (2008). Emotional and motivational mechanisms mediating the influence of goal setting on endurance athletes’ performance.  Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 9 (6), 786-799.

Burton, D., Yukelson, D., Weinberg, R., & Weigand, D. (1998). The goal effectiveness paradox in sport: Examining the goal practices of collegiate athletes.  The Sport Psychologist, 12 (4), 404-418.

Chen, X., & Latham, G. P. (2014). The effect of priming learning vs. performance goals on a complex task.  Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes. 125 (2), 88-97.

Gardner, K.A., Diesen, D.L., Hogg, D., & Huerta, S. (2016). The impact of goal setting and goal orientation on performance during a clerkship surgical skills training program.  The American Journal of Surgery, 211 (2), 321-325.

Idowu, A., Chibuzoh, I., & Louisa, M. (2014). Effects of goal-setting skills on students’ academic performance in English language in Enugu Nigeria.  Journal of New Approaches in Educational Research (NAER Journal), 3 (2), 93-99.

 Latham, G. P. (2003). Goal setting: A five-step approach to behavior change.  Organizational Dynamics, 32 (3), 309-318.

Latham, G. P., & Locke, E. A. (2007). New developments in and directions for goal-setting research.  European Psychologist, 12 (4), 290-300.

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Preorder my new book and get $400 of bonuses, the science of achievement: 7 research-backed tips to set better goals.

Setting goals can transform your life. Goals can help you get in shape, improve your finances, learn a new language, or finally launch that business.

But goal-setting can also leave you miserable. Burnout, stress and disillusionment are high on the list of potential side effects.

The crucial difference between success and burnout often comes down to how your goals are designed. Done wisely, setting goals can be a positive experience—not just successful, but life-affirming. Here are seven research-based suggestions to help you design better ones.

1. Aim for Hard, but Believable

For over four decades, psychologist Edwin Locke has been central in research on goal-setting. His research has three consistent findings :

• Setting goals improves performance.
• Hard goals improve performance more than easy ones.
• Specific targets work better than simply trying to “do your best.”

Early research on goal-setting found that there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between difficulty and performance. 1 This means that easy goals lead to weak efforts, but so do goals that are too hard. The key factor here seems to be that goals need to be challenging, but also believable to be effective. If you don’t think you can actually reach a goal, you won’t.

Thus the best goals to set are those that demand effort from you, but you’re confident you can achieve if you put in the effort.

2. Use the 80% Rule

How do we build motivation to pursue our goals? Psychologist Albert Bandura developed the concept of self-efficacy to explain why some people eagerly face challenges while others shrink. If you don’t feel you’ll be successful, why bother?

The danger is that self-efficacy can create either a vicious or a virtuous cycle. If you don’t feel you’ll be successful, you don’t put effort into your goals. This leads to failure and seemingly confirms your inability. The reverse is also true: you can pick successful goals, achieve them and steadily boost your confidence.

One way to build confidence is the 80% rule. Psychologist Barak Rosenshine, in his review of successful teaching , found that this was approximately the success rate students should experience while in school. Too much success, and you’re likely not picking hard enough goals. Too little, and you can fall into the confidence trap.

One way to calibrate this is to set smaller goals (think 30 days) and track your success rate. If you’re under 80%, try setting a more achievable target. If you’re over 80%, try something a little more ambitious.

3. Deadlines Are Poison for Creative Problem-Solving

A significant exception to the power of specific, challenging goals involves creative problem-solving. In tasks that require complex thinking, such as learning, problem-solving or creative work, goal-setting can backfire .

Why is this? It’s because these activities require the full use of your working memory. Working memory is a psychological concept that corresponds roughly to mental bandwidth. It’s been known for several decades that the amount of things we can keep in mind at one time is limited—and often less than we think.

A stressful deadline to come up with a creative solution can hurt. The goal itself occupies so much space in your working memory that you have little left to try out new possible solutions. In these cases, you’re better off in a relaxed state with minimal distractions.

Of course, here we have a conflict. Goal-setting works by marshaling motivation and energy to reach a goal. Without goals, we often fail to put in the effort needed to achieve. However, if we are thinking about the goal while we’re working, we lose that mental bandwidth to develop creative solutions. How do we fix this?

One way is to set goals to work on a creative problem for a chunk of time without interruption or expectation of results. This allows you to focus on the task and gives your mind more space to think of solutions.

4. Visualize Failure

A common suggestion for goal-setting is to visualize success. But visualizing failure might work even better.

Psychologist Peter Gollwitzer suggests a key ingredient to the success of your goals is what he calls implementation intentions . These are when you visualize difficulties that might come up in pursuing your goal and decide in advance how you will handle them.

Many goals get derailed by events that are unexpected but not unimaginable. You get sick two weeks into an exercise program. Your exam gets rescheduled. You were ready to start your business, but the permits are delayed.

Imagining obstacles in advance and deciding your response can make those responses more effective when the time comes. Since your motivation is usually highest when setting the goal, this planning can keep you from abandoning your goal when things get difficult.

5. Keep it to Yourself (At Least to Start)

Should you tell other people about your goals? Surprisingly the answer is sometimes no.

In addition to implementation intentions, Peter Gollwitzer also studied the effects of telling people about the goals you want to achieve. Interestingly, his research found that telling people about your goals can substitute for actually taking action . Why is this?

Gollwitzer explains the results in terms of his theory of symbolic self-completion . According to this theory, we all want to maintain our image in the eyes of others. To do that, we display signals of our self-identity. Announcing our goals can make us feel like we have sent that signal, and our motivation to achieve the actual goal can go down.

This suggests we should focus first on taking action, not talking about it.

6. Break it Down and Make Yourself Accountable

Why do we procrastinate? The common perception is that procrastination is caused by perfectionism. People who need to do everything perfectly waste time getting started.

Except research doesn’t bear this out. In a comprehensive review, psychologist Piers Steel found perfectionism didn’t predict procrastination . What did? Unpleasant tasks and impulsive personalities.

One difficulty with setting goals is that our motivational hardwiring doesn’t cope well with the future. When a deadline is far off, and the immediate work isn’t always fun, we’re likely to slack. This persists until shortly before the deadline when the fear of failure spurs us to action. Unfortunately, as we discussed in point 3, these last-minute efforts aren’t ideal for complex work.

The key is to break down your goals into smaller, daily actions. If you know what needs to be done today, you’re in a much better position to act on it.

It is even better is if you can create a compelling incentive to stick to the daily plan. A powerful tool for overcoming procrastination is precommitment. Telling a friend or spouse that you’ll give them money for each day you miss your plan is a surefire strategy to stay committed.

Less extreme solutions can also include following a “don’t break the chain” strategy. Once you’ve set your daily plan, keep a tally of how many days in a row you’ve followed it. The goal is not to miss a day. If you do, reset your tally and start over.

For goals that don’t break down into simple, daily habits, you can still focus on daily actions. Break the goal into smaller milestones that have short-term deadlines. The closer you can move your goals to the present, the more successfully they will guide your behavior.

7. Set Goals You Want to Achieve (Not Just Those You Feel You Should)

Much of the stress and disillusionment people experience with goals comes from setting ones that aren’t truly their own. When we work on the goals of other people, goals we feel pressure to achieve but don’t actually want, the result is often misery.

Self-determination theory was developed by psychologists Edward Ryan and Richard Deci. They found that external incentives, such as paying someone to complete an otherwise interesting puzzle, could crowd out internal motivation. People would play the puzzle while being paid to, but they would play less when the rewards stopped.

They argue that many of the goals we pursue are only partially our own. We chase them because we feel we should, but they are somewhat “alien” to our deeper selves. Since these goals mainly just fulfill social expectations, they are harder to motivate ourselves toward consistently.

I suspect that the prevalence of these goals is why many have soured on goal-setting altogether. They have too many goals that aren’t truly their own. As a result, they are poorly motivated to achieve them, often fail to put in adequate effort, and experience stress and burnout.

For goal-setting to be life-affirming, the goals pursued have to feel deeply meaningful to you. Getting in touch with what you really want out of life, and separating out the things you merely think you “should” want, is perhaps the most essential part of goal-setting. A good life isn’t measured by the sum of your achievements, but by the meaning you attach to them. Choose wisely.

• Atkinson, John W. “Towards experimental analysis of human motivation in terms of motives, expectancies, and incentives.” Motives in fantasy, action and society (1958): 288-305.

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MSU Extension

Achieving your goals: an evidence-based approach.

John Traugott, Michigan State University Extension - August 26, 2014

To achieve goals, write them down, make a plan and solicit support from a friend.

Setting and attaining goals is an important step in achieving success academically, in the working world and in life in general. Often people identify well defined goals and start out gung-ho and motivated toward achieving them, only to look back weeks later wondering where they got off track. New research suggests strategies to overcome this problem, providing empirical evidence that writing down your goals, committing to action steps and developing a support network dramatically increases success in attaining them. Michigan 4-H Youth Development offers strategies to help you achieve the goals you set.

A widely accepted goal setting practice is to decide what you want to obtain or achieve and then write down a “SMART” goal. SMART goals are S pecific in that they define the who, what, when and where of your goal. SMART goals should also be M easureable, so you can track your progress and they should be something that is personally within your ability to A ttain. Finally, they should be something that is R ealistic for you to achieve and set within a specific T imeframe.     

The next phase, where many goal setters fall short, is to plan the steps you need to take and then put your plan into action. Questions to consider include:

• What activities do I need to complete to achieve my goal and in what timeframe?
• What resources do I need?
• Who can help me achieve my goal?

Additionally, you need to anticipate potential problems and brainstorm possible solutions. Find a supportive friend or network to help you stay on track with your goal and touch-base weekly with those friends to resolve issues and to assist in staying focused on success.

A recent study by Psychology Professor Dr. Gail Matthews confirms the importance of the steps above to achieve goals, providing empirical evidence that supports the practice of writing down goals and committing to action steps. Her research also highlights the effectiveness of goal setters soliciting a supportive friend to hold them accountable for completing their action steps through weekly progress updates. Matthews’s study broke participants into five groups, each with different instructions. The first group had unwritten goals, the second wrote their goals down, the third wrote down both goals and action commitments, the forth wrote goals and actions and gave them to a friend, and the fifth group gave their written goals and actions to a friend and also provided weekly updates.

The results of the study showed that 76 percent of participants who wrote down their goals, actions and provided weekly progress to a friend successfully achieved their goals. This result is 33 percent higher than those participants with unwritten goals, with a success rate of only 43 percent of goals achieved. This study shows the value of taking the time to write down your goals, create an action plan and develop a system of support to hold yourself accountable for achieving your goals.

Michigan State University Extension offers a variety of educational articles, programs and resources to learn more about setting career related, academic and personal goals.

This article was published by Michigan State University Extension . For more information, visit https://extension.msu.edu . To have a digest of information delivered straight to your email inbox, visit https://extension.msu.edu/newsletters . To contact an expert in your area, visit https://extension.msu.edu/experts , or call 888-MSUE4MI (888-678-3464).

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The Importance, Benefits, and Value of Goal Setting

We all know that setting goals is important, but we often don’t realize how important they are as we continue to move through life.

Goal setting does not have to be boring. There are many benefits and advantages to having a set of goals to work towards.

Setting goals helps trigger new behaviors, helps guides your focus and helps you sustain that momentum in life.

Goals also help align your focus and promote a sense of self-mastery. In the end, you can’t manage what you don’t measure and you can’t improve upon something that you don’t properly manage. Setting goals can help you do all of that and more.

In this article, we will review the importance and value of goal setting as well as the many benefits.

We will also look at how goal setting can lead to greater success and performance. Setting goals not only motivates us, but can also improve our mental health and our level of personal and professional success.

Before you continue, we thought you might like to download our three Goal Achievement Exercises for free . These detailed, science-based exercises will help you or your clients create actionable goals and master techniques to create lasting behavior change.

This Article Contains:

The importance and value of goal setting, why set goals in life, what are the benefits of goal setting, 5 proven ways goal setting is effective, how can goal setting improve performance, how goal setting motivates individuals, why is goal setting important for students, a look at the importance of goal setting in mental health, the importance of goal setting in business and organizations, 10 quotes on the value and importance of setting goals, a take-home message.

Up until 2001, goals were divided into three types or groups (Elliot & McGregor, 2001):

• Mastery goals
• Performance-approach goals
• Performance-avoidance goals

A mastery goal is a goal someone sets to accomplish or master something such as “ I will score higher in this event next time .”

A performance-approach goal is a goal where someone tries to do better than his or her peers. This type of goal could be a goal to look better by losing 5 pounds or getting a better performance review.

A performance-avoidance goal is a goal where someone tries to avoid doing worse than their peers such as a goal to avoid negative feedback.

Research done by Elliot and McGregor in 2001 changed these assumptions. Until this study was published, it was assumed that mastery goals were the best and performance-approach goals were at times good, and other times bad. Performance-avoidance goals were deemed the worst, and, in fact, bad.

The implied assumption, as a result of this, was that there were no bad mastery goals or mastery-avoidance goals.

Elliot and McGregor’s study challenged those assumptions by proving that master-avoidance goals do exist and proving that each type of goal can, in fact, be useful depending on the circumstances.

Elliot and McGregor’s research utilized a 2 x 2 achievement goal framework comprised of:

• Mastery-approach
• Mastery-avoidance
• Performance-approach
• Performance-avoidance

These variables were tested in 3 studies. In experiments one and two, explanatory factor analysis was used to break down 12 goal-setting questions into 4 factors, as seen in the diagram below.

Confirmatory factor analysis was used at a later date to show that mastery-avoidance and mastery-approach fit the data better than mastery alone.

The questions for these studies were created from a series of pilot studies and prior questionnaires. Once all of the questions were combined, a factor-analysis was utilized to confirm that each set of questions expressed different goal-setting components.

Results of these studies showed that those with a high motive to achieve were much more likely to use approach goals. Those with a high motive to avoid failure, on the other hand, were much more likely to use avoidance goals.

The third experiment examined the same four achievement goal variables and revealed that those more likely to use performance-approach goals were more likely to have higher exam scores, while those who used performance-avoidance goals were more likely to have lower exam scores.

According to the research, motivation in achievement settings is complex, and achievement goals are but one of several types of operative variables to be considered.

Achievement goal regulation, or the actual pursuit of the goal, implicates both the achievement goal itself as well as some other typically higher order factors such as motivationally relevant variables, according to the research done by Elliot and McGregor.

As we can clearly see, the research on goal setting is quite robust.

Mark Murphy the founder and CEO of LeadershipIQ.com and author of the book “ Hard Goals : The Secret to Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be ,” has gone through years of research in science and how the brain works and how we are wired as a human being as it pertains to goal setting.

Murphy’s book “ Hard Goals: The Secret to Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be” combines the latest research in psychology and brain science on goal-setting as well as the law of attraction to help fine-tune the process.

A HARD goal is an achieved goal, according to Murphy (2010). Murphy tells us to put our present cost into the future and our future benefit into the present.

What this really means is don’t put off until tomorrow what you could do today. We tend to value things in the present moment much more than we value things in the future.

Setting goals is a process that changes over time. The goals you set in your twenties will most likely be very different from the goals you set in your forties.

Download 3 Free Goals Exercises (PDF)

These detailed, science-based exercises will help you or your clients create actionable goals and master techniques for lasting behavior change.

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Edward Locke and Gary Latham (1990) are leaders in goal-setting theory. According to their research, goals not only affect behavior as well as job performance, but they also help mobilize energy which leads to a higher effort overall. Higher effort leads to an increase in persistent effort.

Goals help motivate us to develop strategies that will enable us to perform at the required goal level.

Accomplishing the goal can either lead to satisfaction and further motivation or frustration and lower motivation if the goal is not accomplished.

Goal setting can be a very powerful technique, under the right conditions according to the research (Locke & Latham, 1991).

According to Lunenburg (2011), the motivational impact of goals may, in fact, be affected by moderators such as self-efficacy and ability as well.

In the 1968 article “ Toward a Theory of Task Motivation ” Locke showed us that clear goals and appropriate feedback served as a good motivator for employees (Locke, 1968).

Locke’s research also revealed that working toward a goal is a major source of motivation, which, in turn, improves performance.

Locke reviewed over a decade of research of laboratory and field studies on the effects of goal setting and performance. Locke found that over 90% of the time, goals that were specific and challenging, but not overly challenging, led to higher performance when compared to easy goals or goals that were too generic such as a goal to do your best.

Dr. Gary Latham also studied the effects of goal setting in the workplace. Latham’s results supported Locke’s findings and showed there is indeed a link that is inseparable between goal setting and workplace performance.

Locke and Latham published work together in 1990 with their work “ A Theory of Goal Setting & Task Performance ” stressing the importance of setting goals that were both specific and difficult.

Locke and Latham also stated that there are five goal-setting principles that can help improve your chances of success.

• Task Complexity

Clarity is important when it comes to goals. Setting goals that are clear and specific eliminate the confusion that occurs when a goal is set in a more generic manner.

Challenging goals stretch your mind and cause you to think bigger. This helps you accomplish more. Each success you achieve helps you build a winning mindset.

Commitment is also important. If you don’t commit to your goal with everything you have it is less likely you will achieve it.

Feedback helps you know what you are doing right and how you are doing. This allows you to adjust your expectations and your plan of action going forward.

Task Complexity is the final factor. It’s important to set goals that are aligned with the goal’s complexity.

Why the secret to success is setting the right goals – John Doerr

Goal setting and task performance were studied by Locke and Latham (1991). Goal setting theory is based upon the simplest of introspective observations, specifically, that conscious human behavior is purposeful.

This behavior is regulated by one’s goals. The directedness of those goals characterizes the actions of all living organisms including things like plants.

Goal-setting theory, according to the research, states that the simplest and most direct motivational explanation on why some people perform better than others is because they have different performance goals.

Two attributes have been studied in relation to performance:

In regard to content, the two aspects that have been focused on include specificity and difficulty. Goal content can range from vague to very specific as well as difficult or not as difficult.

Difficulty depends upon the relationship someone has to the task. The same task or goal can be easy for one person, and more challenging for the next, so it’s all relative.

On average though the higher the absolute level is of a goal, the more difficult it is to achieve. According to research, there have been more than 400 studies that have examined the relationship of goal attributes to task performance.

According to Locke and Latham (1991), it has been consistently found that performance is a linear function of a goal’s difficulty.

Given an adequate level of ability and commitment, the harder a goal, the higher the performance.

What the researchers discovered was that people normally adjust their level of effort to the difficulty of the goal. As a result, they try harder for difficult goals when compared to easier goals.

The principle of goal-directed action is not restricted to conscious action, according to the research.

Goal-directed action is defined by three attributes, according to Lock & Latham.

• Self-generation
• Value-significance
• Goal-causation

Self-generation refers to the source of energy integral to the organism. Value-significance refers to the idea that the actions not only make it possible but necessary to the organism’s survival. Goal-causation means the resulting action is caused by a goal.

While we can see that all living organisms experience some kind of goal-related action, humans are the only organisms that possess a higher form of consciousness, at least according to what we know at this point in time.

When humans take purposeful action, they set goals in order to achieve them.

Locke and Latham have also shown us that there is an important relationship between goals and performance.

Locke and Latham’s research supports the idea that the most effective performance seems to be the result of goals being both specific and challenging. When goals are used to evaluate performance and linked to feedback on results, they create a sense of commitment and acceptance.

The researchers also found that the motivational impact of goals may be affected by ability and self-efficacy, or one’s belief that they can achieve something.

It was also found that deadlines helped improve the effectiveness of a goal and a learning goal orientation leads to higher performance when compared to a performance goal orientation.

Research done by Moeller, Theiler, and Wu (2012) examined the relationship between goal setting and student achievement at the classroom level.

This research examined a 5-year quasi-experimental study, which looked at goal setting and student achievement in the high school Spanish language classroom.

A tool known as LinguaFolio was used, and introduced into 23 high schools with a total of 1,273 students.

The study portfolio focused on student goal setting , self-assessment and a collection of evidence of language achievement.

Researchers used a hierarchical linear model, and then analyzed the relationship between goal setting and student achievement. This research was done at both the individual student and teacher levels.

A correlational analysis of the goal-setting process as well as language proficiency scores revealed a statistically significant relationship between the process of setting goals and language achievement (p < .01).

The research also looked at the importance of autonomy or one’s ability to take responsibility for their learning. Autonomy is a long-term aim of education, according to the study as well as a key factor in learning a language successfully.

There has been a paradigm shift in language education from teacher to student-centered learning, which makes the idea of autonomy even more important.

Goal setting in language learning is commonly regarded as one of the strategies that encourage a student’s sense of autonomy (Moeller, Theiler & Wu, 2012)

The results of the study revealed that there was a consistent increase over time in the main goal, plan of action and reflection scores of high school Spanish learners.

This trend held true for all levels except for the progression from third to fourth year Spanish for action plan writing and goal setting. The greatest improvement in goal setting occurred between the second and third levels of Spanish.

In one study , that looked at goal setting and wellbeing, people participated in three short one-hour sessions where they set goals.

The researchers compared those who set goals to a control group, that didn’t complete the goal-setting exercise . The results showed a causal relationship between goal setting and subjective wellbeing.

Weinberger, Mateo, and Sirey (2009) also looked at perceived barriers to mental health care and goal setting amongst depressed, community-dwelling older adults.

Forty-seven participants completed the study, which examined various barriers to mental health and goal setting. These barriers include:

• Psychological barriers such as social attitudes, beliefs about depression and stigmas.
• Logistical barriers such as transportation and availability of services.
• Illness-related barriers that are either modifiable or not such as depression severity, comorbid anxiety, cognitive status, etc.

For individuals who perceive a large number of barriers to be overcome, a mental health referral can seem burdensome as opposed to helpful.

Defining a personal goal for treatment may be something that is helpful and even something that can increase the relevance of seeking help and improving access to care according to the study.

Goal setting has been shown to help improve the outcome in treatment, amongst studies done in adults with depression. (Weinberger, Mateo, & Sirey, 2009)

The process of goal setting has even become a major focus in several of the current psychotherapies used to treat depression. Some of the therapies that have used goal setting include:

• Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT)
• Cognitive and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CT, CBT)
• Problem-Solving Therapy (PST)

Participants who set goals, according to the study, were more likely to accept a mental health referral. Goal setting seems to be a necessary and good first step when it comes to helping a depressed older adult take control of their wellbeing.

Most of us have been taught from a young age that setting goals can help us accomplish more and get better organized.

Goals help motivate us and help us organize our thoughts. Throughout evolutionary psychology, however, a conscious activity like goal setting has often been downplayed.

Psychoanalysis put the focus on the unconscious part of the mind, while cognitive behaviorists argue that external factors are of greater importance.

In 1968, Edward A. Locke formally developed something he called goal-setting theory, as an alternative to all of this.

Goal-setting theory helps us understand that setting goals are a conscious process and a very effective and efficient means when it comes to increasing productivity and motivation, especially in the workplace.

According to Gary P. Latham, the former President of the Canadian Psychological Association, the underlying premise of goal-setting theory is that our conscious goals affect what we achieve. Our goals are the object or the aim of our action.

This viewpoint is not aligned with the traditional cognitive behaviorism, which looks at human behavior as something that is conducted by external stimuli.

This view tells us that just like a mechanic works on a car, other people often work on our brains, without us even realizing it, and this, in turn, determines how we behave.

Goal setting theory goes beyond this assumption, telling us that our internal cognitive functions are equally important, if not more, when determining our behavior.

In order for our conscious cognition to be effective, we must direct and orient our behavior toward the world. That is the real purpose of a goal.

According to Locke and Latham, there is an important relationship between goals and performance.

Research supports the prediction that the most effective performance often results when goals are both specific and challenging in nature.

A learning goal orientation often leads to higher performance when compared to a performance goal orientation, according to the research.

Deadlines also improve the effectiveness of a goal. Goals have a pervasive influence on both employee behaviors and performance in organizations and management practice according to Locke and Latham (2002).

According to the research, nearly every modern organization has some type of psychological goal setting program in its operation.

Programs like management by objectives, (MBO), high-performance work practices (HPWP) and management information systems (MIS) all use benchmarking to stretch targets and plan strategically, all of which involve goal setting to some extent.

Fred C. Lunenburg, a professor at Sam Houston State University, summarized these points in the International Journal of Management, Business, and Administration journal article “Goal-Setting Theory of Motivation” (Lunenburg, 2011).

Specific: Specificity tells us that in order for a goal to be successful, it must also be specific. Goals such as I will do better next time are much too vague and general to motivate us.

Something more specific would be to state: I will spend at least 2 hours a day this week in order to finish the report by the deadline . This goal motivates us into action and holds us accountable.

Difficult but still attainable : Goals must, of course, be attainable, but they shouldn’t be too easy. Goals that are too simple may even cause us to give up. Goals should be challenging enough to motivate us without causing us undue stress.

Process of Acceptance : If we are continually given goals by other people, and we don’t truly accept them, we will most likely continue to fail. Accepting a goal and owning a goal is the key to success.

One way to do this on an organizational level is to bring team members together to discuss and set goals.

Feedback and evaluation : When a goal is accomplished, it makes us feel good. It gives us a sense of satisfaction. If we don’t get any feedback, this sense of pleasure will quickly go away and the accomplishment may even be meaningless.

In the workplace, continuous feedback helps give us a sense that our work and contributions matter. This goes beyond measuring a single goal.

When goals are used for performance evaluation, they are often much more effective.

Learning beyond our performance : While goals can be used as a means by which to give us feedback and evaluate our performance, the real beauty of goal setting is the fact that it helps us learn something new.

When we learn something new, we develop new skills and this helps us move up in the workplace.

Learning-oriented goals can also be very helpful when it comes to helping us discover life-meaning which can help increase productivity.

Performance-oriented goals, on the other hand, force an employee to prove what he or she can or cannot do, which is often counterproductive.

These types of goals are also less likely to produce a sense of meaning and pleasure. If we lack that sense of satisfaction, when it comes to setting and achieving a goal, we are less likely to learn and grow and explore.

Group goals : Setting group goals is also vitally important for companies. Just as individuals have goals, so too must groups and teams, and even committees. Group goals help bring people together and allow them to develop and work on the same goals.

This helps create a sense of community, as well as a deeper sense of meaning, and a greater feeling of belonging and satisfaction.

17 Tools To Increase Motivation and Goal Achievement

These 17 Motivation & Goal Achievement Exercises [PDF] contain all you need to help others set meaningful goals, increase self-drive, and experience greater accomplishment and life satisfaction.

Created by Experts. 100% Science-based.

A goal properly set is halfway reached.

Everybody has their own Mount Everest they were put on this earth to climb.

You cannot change your destination overnight, but you can change your direction overnight.

It’s better to be at the bottom of the ladder you want to climb than at the top of the one you don’t.

Stephen Kellogg

If you don’t design your own life plan, chances are you’ll fall into someone else’s plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much.

All who have accomplished great things have had a great aim, have fixed their gaze on a goal which was high, one which sometimes seemed impossible.

Orison Swett Marden

The greater danger for most of us isn’t that our aim is too high and miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.

Michelangelo

Give me a stock clerk with a goal and I’ll give you a man who will make history. Give me a man with no goals and I’ll give you a stock clerk.

J.C. Penney

Intention without action is an insult to those who expect the best from you.

Andy Andrews

This one step – choosing a goal and sticking to it – changes everything.

Setting goals can help us move forward in life. Goals give us a roadmap to follow. Goals are a great way to hold ourselves accountable, even if we fail. Setting goals and working to achieving them helps us define what we truly want in life.

Setting goals also helps us prioritize things. If we choose to simply wander through life, without a goal or a plan, that’s certainly our choice. However, setting goals can help us live the life we truly want to live.

Having said that, we don’t have to live every single moment of our lives planned out because we all need those days when we have nothing to accomplish.

However, those who have clearly defined goals might just enjoy their downtime even more than those who don’t set goals.

For more insightful reading, check out our selection of goal-setting books .

We hope you enjoyed reading this article. Don’t forget to download our three Goal Achievement Exercises for free .

• Elliot, A. J., & McGregor, H. A. (2001). A 2 x 2 achievement goal framework. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80 (3), 501-519.
• Locke, E. A. (1968). Toward a theory of task motivation and incentives.  Organizational Behavior and Human Performance ,  3 (2), 157-189.
• Locke, E. A., & Latham, G. P. (1991). A theory of goal setting & task performance. The Academy of Management Review, 16 (2), 212-247.
• Locke, E. A., & Latham, G. P. (2002). Building a practically useful theory of goal setting and task motivation. American Psychologist, 57 (9), 705-717.
• Lunenburg, F. C. (2011). Goal-setting theory of motivation. International Journal of Management, Business, and Administration, 15 (1), 1-6.
• Moeller, A. J., Theiler, J. M., & Wu, C. (2012). Goal setting and student achievement: A longitudinal study. The Modern Language Journal, 96 (2), 153-169.
• Murphy, M. (2010). HARD goals: The secret to getting from where you are to where you want to be. New York, NY: McGraw Hill.
• Weinberger, M. I., Mateo, C., & Sirey, J. A. (2009). Perceived barriers to mental health care and goal setting among depressed, community-dwelling older adults. Patient Preference and Adherence, 3 , 145-149.

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3 Goal Achievement Exercises Pack

Goal Setting Research

There might be affiliate links on this page, which means we get a small commission of anything you buy. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. Please do your own research before making any online purchase.

There is impressive science behind the theory of goal setting. This post is a sampling of the research on goal setting, in chronological order.

This goal setting research list contains most of the high points on our understanding of the importance of goal setting found by scientists, psychologists and other researchers over the past 40+ years.  Enjoy.

To learn more about achieving great things and the importance of goals check out goal setting theory .

Table of Contents

Improving Job Performance Through Training in Goal Setting

20 tree logging operators were randomly assigned to either a 1-day training program in goal setting or a control group. The additional wood cut over the following 3 months by those in the goal-setting group was estimated to be worth a quarter of a million dollars. Absenteeism fell and production increased.

A Review of Research on The Application of Goal Setting in Organizations

“Twenty-seven studies on goal setting were reviewed to evaluate the practical feasibility of goal setting in organizations and to evaluate Locke's theories of goal setting . The organizational research reviewed provides strong support for Locke's proposition that specific goals increase performance and those difficult goals, if accepted, result in better performance than do easy goals.”

Joint Effect of Feedback and Goal Setting on Performance: A Field Study of Residential Energy Conservation

In this study, the effect of goal difficulty and frequent feedback for encouraging energy conservation was assessed.

80 families were placed into one of four groups:

Those in the difficult goal group were asked to cut their energy consumption by 20%, while those in the easy group were asked to cut their consumption by 2%. Those in the frequent feedback group were told three times a week how much their consumption had declined.

The only group whose consumption fell a significant amount was the frequent feedback + difficult goal group. For the duration of the study, their consumption fell an average of 14%.

Abstract here .

Interrelationships Among Employee Participation, Individual Differences, Goal Difficulty, Goal Acceptance, Goal Instrumentality, and Performance

Over a ten-week period, weekly productivity goals were either assigned by the manager or set jointly with the employee.

As all 41 subjects were typists, the performance was easy to measure (e.g. it's easy to measure the number of pages typed, the frequency of errors, and so on). The primary purpose of the study was to show that goals that are jointly set will generate more motivation than those which are ‘forced'. This hypothesis was proven wrong. Later studies would show that goal acceptance requires understanding the reasons why a goal was set, not being a part of the goal-setting process .

Other findings from this study:

• Those who had difficult goals performed higher.
• Those with a high need for achievement and an internal locus of control set more difficult goals.
• Goal setting was more effective for those employees with high self-esteem, and for those who felt working harder would be rewarded.

Goal Setting and Task Performance

“Results from a review of laboratory and field studies on the effects of goal setting on the performance show that in 90% of the studies, specific and challenging goals led to higher performance than easy goals, “do your best” goals or no goals. Goals affect performance by directing attention, mobilizing effort, increasing persistence, and motivating strategy development. Goal setting is most likely to improve task performance when the goals are specific and sufficiently challenging, Ss have sufficient ability (and ability differences are controlled), feedback is provided to show progress in relation to the goal, rewards such as money are given for goal attainment, the experimenter or manager is supportive, and assigned goals are accepted by the individual. No reliable individual differences have emerged in goal-setting studies, probably because the goals were typically assigned rather than self-set. Need for achievement and self-esteem may be the most promising individual difference variables.”

Goal Difficulty vs. Performance

“A previous review of the goal-setting literature found strong evidence for a linear relationship between goal difficulty and task performance (assuming sufficient ability), and more recent studies have supported the earlier findings. Four results in three experimental field studies found harder goals led to better performance than easy goals:”

• Increasing Productivity With Decreasing Time Limits: A Field Replication of Parkinson's Law , 1975 (tree logging).
• Interrelationships Among Employee Participation, Individual Differences, Goal Difficulty, Goal Acceptance, Goal Instrumentality, and Performance, 1978 (typists).
• A Study of The Effects of Task Goal and Schedule Choice on Work Performance, 1979.

“Twenty-five experimental laboratory studies have obtained similar results with a wide variety of tasks:”

• Knowledge of Score and Goal Level as Determinants of Work Rate, 1969 (addition).
• Studies of The Relationship Between Satisfaction, Goal Setting, and Performance, 1970 (reaction time and addition).
• The Effects of Participation in Goal Setting on Goal Acceptance and Performance, 1975 (coding task).
• A Two-Factor Model of The Effect of Goal-Descriptive Directions on Learning From Text, 1975 (prose learning).
• Additive Effects of Task Difficulty and Goal Setting on Subsequent Task Performance 1976 (chess).
• Role of Performance Goals in Prose Learning, 1976 (prose learning).
• The Motivational Strategies Used by Supervisors: Relationships to Effectiveness Indicators, 1976 (card sorting).
• Effects Achievement Standards, Tangible Rewards, and Self-Dispensed Achievement Evaluations on Children's Task Mastery, 1977 (color discrimination).
• Systems Analysis of Dyadic Interaction: Prediction From Individual Parameters, 1978 (figure selection task).
• The Interaction of Ability and Motivation in Performance: An Exploration of The Meaning of Moderators, 1978 (perceptual speed).
• Effects of Goal Level on Performance: A Trade-off of Quantity and Quality, 1978 (brainstorming, figure selection and sum estimation tasks).
• Importance of Supportive Relationships in Goal Setting, 1979 (brainstorming).
• The Effects of Holding Goal Difficulty Constant on Assigned and Participatively Set Goals, 1979.
• The Effect of Beliefs on Maximum Weight-Lifting Performance, 1979.
• Another Look at The Relationship of Expectancy and Goal Difficulty to Task Performance, 1980 (perceptual speed).

Goal Specificity vs. Performance

“Previous research found that specific, challenging (difficult) goals led to higher output than vague goals such as “do your best”. Subsequent research has strongly supported these results… Twenty four field experiments all found that individuals are given specific, challenging goals either outperformed those trying to “do their best”, or surpassed their own previous performance when they were not trying for specific goals:”

• Improving Job Performance Through Training in Goal Setting, 1974 (tree logging).
• Changes in Performance in a Management by Objectives Program, 1974 (marketing and production workers).
• Assigned Versus Participative Goal Setting With Educated and Uneducated Woods Workers, 1975 (tree logging).
• The “Practical Significance” of Locke's Theory of Goal Setting, 1975 (truck loading).
• Effects of Goal Setting on Performance and Job Satisfaction, 1976 (sales personnel).
• Effects of Assigned and Participative Goal Setting on Performance and Job Satisfaction, 1976 (typists).
• Effect of Performance Feedback and Goal Setting on Productivity and Satisfaction in an Organizational Setting, 1976 (customer service).
• The Role of Proximal Intentions in Self-Regulation of Refractory Behavior, 1977 (dieting).
• Performance Standards and Implicit Goal Setting: Field Testing Locke's Assumption, 1977 (keypunching).
• Blue Collar to Top Executive, 1977 (ship loading).
• Different Goal Setting Treatments and Their Effects on Performance and Job Satisfaction, 1977 (maintenance technicians).
• Importance of Participative Goal Setting and Anticipated Rewards on Goal Difficulty and Job Performance, 1978 (engineering and scientific work).
• The Effects of Assigned Versus Participatively Set Goals, and Individual Differences When Goal Difficulty is Held Constant, 1979 (clerical test).
• and performance appraisal activities, coding, managerial training, card sorting, die casting, customer service, and pastry work (see the study for citations).

“Twenty laboratory studies supported the above results either partially or totally (see the study for list).”

Feedback vs. No Feedback

“Integrating the two sets of studies points to one unequivocal conclusion: neither [feedback] alone nor goals alone is sufficient to affect performance. Both are necessary. Together they appear sufficient to improve task performance.”

Why Does Goal Setting Often Lead to Improved Performance?

“1. Direction. Most fundamentally goals direct attention and action. 2. Effort. Since different goals may require different amounts of effort, an effort is mobilized in proportion to the perceived requirements of the goal or task. Thus, more effort is mobilized to work on hard tasks (which are accepted) than easy tasks. Sales (1970) found that higher workloads produce the higher subjective effort, faster heart rates, and higher output per unit time than lower workloads. 3. Persistence . Persistence is nothing more than directed effort extended over time; thus it is a combination of the previous two mechanisms. 4. Strategy Development. While the above three mechanisms are relatively direct in their effects, this last mechanism is indirect. It involves developing strategies or action plans for attaining one's goals.”

Participatory vs. Forced

“Participation has long been recommended by social scientists as a means of getting subordinates or workers committed to organizational goals and/or of reducing resistance to change. However, an extensive review of the participation in decision-making literature by Locke and Schweiger (1979), found no consistent difference in the effectiveness of top-down (“autocratic”) decision making and decisions made with subordinate participation:”

• Goal Characteristics and Personality Factors In a Management By-Objectives Program, 1970.
• Effects of Goal Setting on Performance and Job Satisfaction, 1976.
• Different Goal Setting Treatments and Their Effects on Performance and Job Satisfaction, 1977.
• Assigned Versus Participative Goal Setting With Educated and Uneducated Woods Workers, 1975.
• Effects of Assigned and Participative Goal Setting on Performance and Job Satisfaction, 1976.
• Importance of Participative Goal Setting and Anticipated Rewards on Goal Difficulty and Job Performance, 1978.
• The Effects of Assigned Versus Participatively Set Goals, KR, and Individual Differences When Goal Difficulty is Held Constant, 1979.
• The Effects of Participation in Goal Setting on Goal Acceptance and Performance, 1975.
• Importance of Supportive Relationships in Goal Setting, 1979

“There appear to be two possible mechanisms by which participation could affect task motivation. First, participation can lead to the setting of higher goals that would be the case without participation. Second, participation could, in some cases, lead to greater goal acceptance than assigned goals.”

“Likert has pointed out that when assigned goal setting is effective as in the above studies, it may be because the supervisors who assign the goals behave in a supportive manner. It may be that being supportive is more crucial than participation in achieving goal acceptance. Participation itself, of course, may entail being supportive.”

“Further, it is possible that the motivational effects of participation are not as important in gaining performance improvement as are its cognitive effects . Locke found that the single most successful field experiment on participation to date stressed the cognitive benefits; participation was used to get good ideas from workers as to how to improve performance efficiency.” -Participative Decision-Making: An Experimental Study in a Hospital, 1973.

Full study here .

The Importance of Union Acceptance for Productivity Improvement Through Goal Setting

“Interviews were conducted with union business agents on conditions necessary for their support of a goal-setting program. Subsequent to the interviews, goals were assigned to 39 truck drivers. The results were analyzed using a design that included a comparison group (N= 35). The results showed a significant increase in productivity for the drivers who received specific goals. When the conditions necessary for the union's support of the goal-setting program were no longer met, there was a wildcat strike.” – Abstract

The study was estimated to have saved the company $2.7 million dollars through increased productivity.

The Effect of Goal-Setting and Daily Electronic Feedback on In-Home Energy Use

300 households were assigned to one of six groups, with 4 of those groups being given a goal to reduce household energy consumption by 10% during the following year. Of those four groups, one received daily feedback (IND), another monthly feedback (MEF), another was instructed to monitor their energy consumption by themselves (SMO), and another received only information about how to conserve energy, receiving no feedback (INF).

As can be seen in the chart below, over the following year the groups reduced their energy consumption in proportion to how frequently they received feedback, with the daily feedback group going above and beyond the 10% goal and reducing consumption by 12% for some time.

Improving Safety Performance With Goal Setting and Feedback

Three departments that were lagging behind in their compliance with safety guidelines were selected for this year-long study. During the 3 month baseline period, average safety compliance (e.g. wearing leather gloves while welding; clearing away tripping hazards, etc…) was around 55%. Compliance was estimated using four observers, who made a total of 167 observations throughout the entire study. After the baseline period, employees were given an hour-long safety training session. Compliance increased by about 10%.

After another three months, employees were told to set the challenging goal of increasing compliance to 90%. During the following 4 months, compliance once again increased by about 10%. Finally, a large graph was hung in a prominent location in each department, containing the department's average safety compliance (similar to the graph below). Compliance immediately shot up above the goal target, showing that a goal is much more likely to be successfully pursued when frequent feedback is provided (the graph was updated three times a week).

“People tend to subconsciously set their own goals when they receive performance feedback.”

 Goal Setting Research:  1997

Integrating “classic” and “contemporary” approaches to achievement motivation: a hierarchical model of approach and avoidance achievement motivation..

This study introduces the trichotomous model of achievement motivation, combining the mastery/performance model with the approach/avoidance model into the trichotomous mastery, performance-approach, and performance-avoidance model:

“Thus, three independent achievement goals are posited: A mastery goal focused on the development of competence or the attainment of task mastery, a performance-approach goal focused on the attainment of competence relative to others, and a performance-avoidance goal focused on the avoidance of incompetence relative to others. Master and performance-approach goals are construed as approach orientations… whereas performance-avoidance goal is construed as an avoidance orientation.”

“Performance goals were presumed to lead to the “helpless” response pattern upon failure because failure directly implies a lack of ability; learning goals , on the other hand, were posited to lead to the “mastery” response pattern, because failure feedback could simply be construed as helpful information in the process of developing competence or mastering a task.”

“Individuals high in need for achievement are drawn to achievement activities because they anticipate the pride that they will experience if successful, whereas those high in fear of failure find achievement activities averse because they anticipate the shame that they will experience if unsuccessful.”

This model was later expanded by others into a 2×2 framework (performance-approach, performance-avoidance; mastery-approach, mastery-avoidance).

 Goal Setting Research:  2000

The effects of goal setting and self-instruction training on the performance of unionized employees.

“This study assesses the effectiveness of goal setting, goal setting plus training in self-instruction, and being urged to do one's best on the performance of unionized employees (n = 32). Appraisals were made prior to and 10 weeks following three interventions. ANCOVA indicated that employees who set specific, difficult goals had significantly higher performance than those in doing one's best and those doing goal setting plus self-instruction.” – Abstract

However, despite the claims of the abstract, while the results are statistically significant, the effect size is small enough to call into question the effectiveness of the intervention (e.g. the numbers all look pretty much the same):

 Goal Setting Research:  2001

A 2 x 2 achievement goal framework..

Until 2001, when this study was published, goals were divided into three types: mastery, performance-approach, and performance-avoidance

A mastery goal was one where a person tried to accomplish something in absolute or intrapersonal terms, e.g. setting a new personal best or learning a new skill. A performance-approach goal was one where a person tried to do better than their peers, e.g. scoring higher or getting promoted. A performance-avoidance goal was one where a person tried to avoid doing worse than their peers, e.g. avoid embarrassment or negative feedback.

Until this study, it was assumed that mastery goals were the best, performance-approach goals were sometimes good and sometimes bad, and performance-avoidance goals were always bad. The implicit assumption was there were no bad mastery goals (in other words, no mastery-avoidance goals.)

This study challenged that assumption by first proving that master-avoidance goals exist, and second proving that each goal type can be useful, depending on the circumstances.

Study details here . Full study here .

Goal Setting Research:  2002

Building a practically useful theory of goal setting and task motivation.

This is another of Locke's goal-setting literature reviews.

“We found a positive, linear function in that the highest or most difficult goals produced the highest levels of effort and performance. Performance leveled off or decreased only when the limits of ability were reached or when commitment to a highly difficult goal lapsed.”

“We found that specific, difficult goals consistently led to higher performance than urging people to do their best. In short, when people are asked to do their best, they do not do so. This is because do-your-best goals have no external referent and thus are defined idiosyncratically. This allows for a wide range of acceptable performance levels, which is not the case when a goal level is specified.”

“Other factors being equal, expectancy is said to be linearly and positively related to performance. However, because difficult goals are harder to attain than easy goals, the expectancy of goal success would presumably be negatively related to performance. The apparent contradiction between the two theories is resolved by distinguishing expectancy within versus expectancy between goal conditions. Locke, Motowidlo, and Bobko (1986) found that when goal level is held constant, which is implicitly assumed by valence–instrumentality–expectancy theory, higher expectancies lead to higher levels of performance. Across goal levels, lower expectancies, associated with higher goal levels, are associated with higher performance.”

“Goals affect performance through four mechanisms. First, goals serve a directive function; they direct attention and effort toward goal-relevant activities and away from goal irrelevant activities…Second, goals have an energizing function. High goals lead to greater effort than low goals. This has been shown with tasks that (a) directly entail physical effort, (b) entail the repeated performance of simple cognitive tasks, such as addition; (c)include measurements of subjective effort, and (d) include physiological indicators of effort. Third, goals affect persistence. When participants are allowed to control the time they spend on a task, hard goals prolong effort. Fourth, goals affect action indirectly by leading to the arousal, discovery, and/or use of task-relevant knowledge and strategies.”

“An assigned goal is as effective as one that is set participatively provided that the purpose or rationale for the goal is given. However, if the goal is assigned tersely (e.g., “Do this . . . ”) without explanation, it leads to performance that is significantly lower than for a participative set goal… the primary benefit of participation in decision making is cognitive rather than motivational in that it stimulates information exchange. For example, Latham et al. (1994) found that with goal difficulty level controlled, participation in goal setting had no beneficial effect on performance. However, people who participated with others in formulating task strategies performed significantly better and had higher self-efficacy than those who did not participate in formulating strategies.”

“When the goal is very difficult, paying people only if they reach the goal (i.e., a task-and-bonus system) can hurt performance. Once people see that they are not getting the reward , their personal goal and their self-efficacy drop and, consequently, so do their performance. This drop does not occur if the goal is moderately difficult or if people are given a difficult goal and are paid for performance (e.g., piece rate) rather than goal attainment.”

“Self-efficacy enhances goal commitment. Leaders can raise the self-efficacy of their subordinates (a) by ensuring adequate training to increase mastery that provides success experiences, (b) by role modeling or finding models with whom the person can identify, and (c) through persuasive communication that expresses confidence that the person can attain the goal.”

“For goals to be effective, people need summary feedback that reveals progress in relation to their goals. If they do not know how they are doing, it is difficult or impossible for them to adjust the level or direction of their effort or to adjust their performance strategies to match what the goal requires. If the goal is to cut down 30 trees in a day, people have no way to tell if they are on target unless they know how many trees have been cut. When people find they are below target, they normally increase their effort or try a new strategy.”

“As the complexity of the task increases and higher-level skills and strategies have yet to become automatized, goal effects are dependent on the ability to discover appropriate task strategies.”

“Goals are, at the same time, an object or outcome to aim for and a standard for judging satisfaction… People with high goals produce more because they are dissatisfied with less. The bar for their satisfaction is set at a high level. This is why they are motivated to do more than those with easy goals… The highest degree of anticipated satisfaction averaged across all grade outcomes, was for students with a goal of C, and the lowest was for students with a goal of earning an A.”

“Numerous studies have shown that setting a specific difficult goal leads to significant increases in employee productivity.”

“We noted earlier that on tasks that are complex for people, learning goals can be superior to performance goals. However, there have been almost no studies examining the use of both together. Intriguing findings have been obtained by Harackiewicz, Barron, Carter, Lehto, and Elliott (1997) with college students. Performance goals improved grades but did not affect interest, whereas learning goals enhanced interest in the class but did not affect grades.”

 Goal Setting Research:  2005

Avoidance goals can be beneficial: a look at smoking cessation.

In this study, the authors examined the use of avoidance goals for helping 591 smokers quit. Avoidance goals have already been repeatedly shown to do worse than approach goals. The reason the authors tried again was that they split avoidance goals into two types: prevention and cure.

“As with traditional conceptualizations of avoidance goals, some avoidance goals involve preventing a negative state from occurring (e.g., I do not want to get cancer). However, other avoidance goals involve curing a negative state that already exists (e.g., I want to get rid of chronic cough).”

The reason why cure-avoidance goals might be more effective than prevent-avoidance goals:

“Researchers have argued that trying to stay away from a state elicits anxiety, which in turn undermines how much effort people will put forth to work on the goal. Moreover, even if progress is made on a prevent goal, the difficulty of detecting the continued absence of something may make the progress hard to recognize. For example, people trying to prevent developing cancer may find it difficult to detect a reduction in the risk of developing cancer and thus have a hard time determining whether they have made any progress on their goal.

In contrast, to prevent goals, it may be easier to detect progress when working to meet a cure goal.”

In this study, the smokers were asked why they wanted to quit. From what they wrote, their goals were coded:

“Goals were coded as an approach when the goal described something the participants wanted to get as a result of quitting (e.g., I want to get healthy). Goals were coded as prevent when the goal described something that was not currently true that they wanted to avoid (e.g., I do not want to develop lung cancer). Goals were coded as a cure when the goal described something that was currently true that the participant wanted to get rid of (e.g., I want to stop others from nagging).”

Those with a higher percentage of cure-avoidance goals were more likely to have quit:

 Goal Setting Research:  2006

The hierarchical model of approach-avoidance motivation.

This is a high-level review paper. See Integrating “Classic” and “Contemporary” Approaches to Achievement Motivation , 1997, for an introduction to the hierarchical model.

“Approach motivation may be defined as the energization of behavior by, or the direction of behavior toward, positive stimuli (objects, events, possibilities), whereas avoidance motivation may be defined as the energization of behavior by, or the direction of behavior away from, negative stimuli (objects, events, possibilities). Five aspects of this definition are considered further in the following.”

“A core premise of the hierarchical model is that the approach-avoidance distinction is fundamental and basic to motivation, so much so that it may be used as a conceptual lens through which to view the structure and function of self-regulation.”

“Goals are posited to serve a directional function in motivation. That is, goals focus on a specific, cognitively represented endpoint, and serve to guide the individual’s behavior toward or away from that endpoint. Goals are conscious, intentional commitments, although once in place in the cognitive system, they may be activated and may operate in automatic, non-conscious fashion”

“In the hierarchical model, goals are not sufficient to account for motivated behavior, it is also necessary to consider the motivation underlying goals. This motivation comes from many different sources and many be represented in many different ways.”

Integrating Theories of Motivation

In this paper, the authors highlight their new theory of motivation – temporal motivation theory. This theory combines several other motivation theories into one. In particular:

• Expectancy Theory , which states that the more likely a goal is to be accomplished and the larger the potential reward, the greater the motivation (e.g. if a student thinks he is stupid, he might not put in any effort to study, thinking the endeavor to be pointless).
• Hyperbolic Discounting , which states that the further away a reward is into the future, the less it is worth now (e.g. receiving $150 ten years from now would be worth much less to most people than receiving $150 in the next five minutes).
• Impulsivity , which states that for people who are more impulsive, future rewards are worth a lot less than for those who are less impulsive (e.g. impulsive kids have trouble studying because the future is worth less to them).

More on temporal motivation theory here .

Goal Setting Science: 2007

Improving motivation and goal setting for return to work in a population on sick leave: a controlled study.

“The objective of this study was to examine the effect of an intervention focused on motivation, goal setting, and planning of return to work. A total of 2,795 people, across 6 municipalities, on sick leave for at least 21 days received a questionnaire; 1,256 with a self-assessed poor prognosis for fast return to work were eligible for the study. An examination by a specialist in social medicine, followed by additional counseling by a social worker, was offered to 510 residents in two municipalities and accepted by 264 (52%). The goal was to enhance motivation, goal setting, and planning of return to work. The duration of the sick leave and the chance of being gainfully employed were analyzed. The intervention neither shortened sick leave periods nor increased the likelihood of gainful employment after one year. A low-cost counseling program addressing motivation, goal setting, and planning of return to work did not improve vocational outcomes or reduce the duration of sick leave.” – Abstract

The actual goal-setting intervention used was not discussed in the study, making it difficult to learn useful information (e.g. certain kinds of goal setting could be more or less useful for helping people get employment).

Goal Setting Science:  2008

Self-efficacy and resource allocation: support for a nonmonotonic, discontinuous model.

The relationship between goal difficulty and motivation is complex. There are four different theories that attempt to describe that relationship. What is problematic is that there is evidence for each of the theories. This study provides a brief review of the conflicting literature, as well as providing its own support for one of the theories.

The positive model is the most widely believed, perhaps in part because it is also the most intuitive. The easier a task, the more likely it can be accomplished. There is no point in expending energy (motivation) if it will just be wasted. Conversely, if the goal is certain to be achieved, it makes sense to expend energy trying to accomplish it – the energy won't be wasted, as the reward will definitely be acquired.

The negative model stands in direct contradiction of the positive model. The idea is that in order for a more difficult goal to be accomplished, more energy must be expended (e.g. in improving one's skills). On the other hand, if success is all but guaranteed, it would be a waste to allocate more than the minimum (e.g. there's no point getting excited and motivated about the goal of eating breakfast – that's a waste of mental energy and glucose; if you want to eat breakfast, it will probably happen, excitement or not).

According to the inverted U model, motivation is a function of expectations of success multiplied by the value of the incentive, which in turn is the inverse of expectations of success. Although this model would seem to be a compromise of the positive and negative models, it would be more accurate to consider it an extension of the positive model. This is because it makes one of the same assumptions as the positive model, which is that low expectations of success are de-motivating and that high expectations of success are motivating. The reason this model is an extension is because of the second assumption that it makes – if a goal is easy to accomplish, it must offer a small reward; conversely, if a goal is hard to accomplish, it must offer a large reward.

The inverse U comes from the multiplication of goal difficulty with implied reward size:

Low difficulty is good, but implies low reward, and thus low motivation (.9 * (1-.9) = .09).High difficult is bad, but implies high reward, and thus low motivation (.1 * (1-.01) = .09).Medium difficulty is OK, but implies medium reward, and thus high motivation (.5 * (1 – .5) = .25).

The discontinuous model should be considered an extension of the negative model. Motivation is low for easy goals because the brain is frugal – there is no point getting excited and wasting energy on something simple and easy, like eating breakfast, taking a shower, sending an e-mail, etc… As goal difficulty increases, motivation rises in step – for example, getting a training certification requires more energy than taking a shower, which the brain provides by increasing motivation. Note, an implicit assumption this model makes is that more difficult goals are also more rewarding. For self-set goals, this is a reasonable assumption (e.g. memorizing the entire dictionary is hard but not motivating… of course, what reasonable person would set a goal like that?)

This model is an extension in that after a certain level of difficulty, motivation immediately drops to near zero. The assumption is that past a certain point, people will feel the task is too challenging – that even with a high level of motivation, their resources or abilities are not enough.

I personally believe the discontinuous model is the most accurate, in part because it best fits with my life experience, and in part, because it is supported by Piers Steel, the motivation scientist I respect the most. Ironically, the positive model better fits Piers's own theory of motivation, so I'm not sure why he supports the discontinuous model in his book, The Procrastination Equation , instead.

According to Edwin Locke, “The apparent contradiction between the two theories is resolved by distinguishing expectancy within versus expectancy between goal conditions. Locke, Motowidlo, and Bobko (1986) found that when goal level is held constant, which is implicitly assumed by valence–instrumentality–expectancy theory, higher expectancies lead to higher levels of performance. Across goal levels, lower expectancies, associated with higher goal levels, are associated with higher performance.”

Said differently, the contradiction can be reconciled by treating goal difficulty and goal expectancy as separate constructs – to maximize motivation, you want high expectancy, but also high perceived difficulty. How to have high expectancy and also the high difficulty is another matter, as usually, the two constructs have an inverse relationship (e.g. becoming a billionaire is a high difficulty but very low expectancy).

Goal Setting Science: 2009

The relationship of procrastination with a mastery goal versus an avoidance goal.

Goals can be classified into many different dimensions. One of the most popular models is the 2×2, approach vs. avoidance vs. mastery vs. performance model:

To better understand what each of these dimensions mean, you can read this page on goal setting  or this study which first proposed this model . Although past research agreed that mastery goals are negatively correlated with procrastination (that is, those who make mastery goals are less likely to procrastinate), while avoidance goals are positively correlated with procrastination (that is, those who make avoidance goals are more likely to procrastinate), there has been no consensus on which dimension is more important – mastery/performance or avoidance/approach.

As can be seen in the table below, the avoidance/approach dimension is more important for predicting procrastination than the mastery/performance dimension. Specifically, those with a mastery-approach orientation were the least likely to procrastinate, while those with a mastery-avoidance orientation were the most likely to procrastinate.

Study details here . Abstract here .

Goal Setting Science: 2011

Performance and learning goals for emotion regulation.

In an attempt to feel better after experiencing negative emotions , different people use different strategies. Some talk about their problems with others, other try to distract themselves from thinking those negative thoughts, others try to find something positive from the experience.

There are two strategies that people can use on their own, without help from others: a cognitive reappraisal, and thought suppression/rumination. Cognitive reappraisal is a strategy so effective in dealing with negative emotions that an entire field of psychotherapy has developed around it – cognitive-behavioral therapy. Essentially, it involves re-framing negative events and thoughts into positive ones.

For example, since I was 13 I've experienced a wide variety of health problems. At first, I thought about the problem negatively. However, I gradually started looking for the ‘silver lining'. Because of those health problems, I developed a number of positive health habits , like regular exercise, I developed a degree of persistence and self-confidence I doubt I would have without having had such a large problem to tackle, and I learned how to think critically, having had to deal with dozens of doctors providing false information. Now when I think back to those years of physical pain, I see an experience to be proud of, rather than one to complain and feel bad about.

Thought suppression and rumination are as ineffective as cognitive reappraisal is effective. Rumination involves thinking through, over and over, what went wrong and why. Although one would think that ‘processing' the emotion would cause it to subside, usually the opposite happens, causing the negative emotion to persist. This is because what we focus on grows stronger. Expressing anger, for example, simply makes one angrier. However, that doesn't make suppression effective.

Thought suppression is a strategy of avoidance, e.g. watch TV and eat sugary food in an attempt to redirect attention elsewhere. It seems obvious that there are two strategies for dealing with negative emotion – either express it or suppress it. However, neither work. It's the third option – cognitive reappraisal, that does the job (or think about happy times, get support from friends, etc…).

Those with a performance-avoidance goal towards emotion regulation were most likely to use a rumination/suppression strategy, while those with a mastery goal towards emotion regulation were most likely to use a cognitive reappraisal strategy.

Achievement Motives and Emotional Processes in Children During Problem-Solving: Two Experimental Studies of Their Relation to Performance in Different Achievement Goal Conditions

What goal types are most effective for encouraging performance and happiness in children?

In this study, two personality variables and three experimental conditions were investigated. Those with a high motive to achieve success performed better and reported higher satisfaction and happiness than those with a high motive to avoid failure. In addition, those with a high motive to avoid failure reported higher anxiety and worry. As personality variables are difficult to change, while this information is interesting, it is not yet useful.

Of the three experimental conditions, those who were told to write a mastery goal did the best. Compare the mastery instructions with the performance instructions:

However, the personality type of participants impacted the effect of goal type (performance vs. mastery). Those high in motive to achieve success performed better in the mastery than in the performance conditions, and those with a high motive to avoid failure did even worse in the performance-avoidance condition.

Finally, one proven way to improve your happiness and life satisfaction is to focus on goals that truly matter. To get started, check out this FREE printable worksheet and a step-by-step process that will help you set effective SMART goals .

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This is EXTREMELY helpful. Thank you!!!

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The Science of Goal Setting: How to Achieve Your Boldest Goals in 2021.

This is the time of year when most people set new goals. Unfortunately, many of these goals are abandoned after less than a month. 

How is greatness actually achieved? 

Aristotle once said, “ excellence is an art won by training and habituation .” But, what training and habits really work?  

We want to show you how to think big in 2021. 

What does it take to accomplish the impossible? That is the question at the center of Steven Kotler’s new book The Art of Impossible , available for pre-order now . 

You’ll have to read the book to get the whole easy-to-follow, how-to format that can significantly improve your life and performance. 

One of the chapters in Steven’s book is all about goals. 

The Do’s and Don’ts of Goal Setting

Learning the right way to set goals is one of the simplest ways to enhance performance. 

It also doesn’t require exceptional talent to work. 

There is a right and wrong approach to goal setting. 

Setting the wrong goals, or even setting a good goal the wrong way will decrease your chance of success. 

If you’re tired of performance falling short of your goals, read on to learn the right way to set goals. It’s the foundation for leveling up your game for good. 

One of the great high-performance philosophers of all time, Seneca, said, “ If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable .”

It’s a metaphor for saying that setting goals are key. Otherwise, you’re just spinning in the wind, working hard, but not really getting anywhere. 

The good news is that there is actually solid neuroscience to back how to set goals properly. 

The first step might surprise you. 

Why SMART Goals Are Not That Smart 

Steven Kotler says, “ we are all capable of so much more than we know, but you can’t figure that out intellectually, you have to live your way into your capability .” 

The SMART Goal method is very popular. It teaches you to set goals that are: 

• Measurable. 
• Attainable. 
• Time-based. 

While not all bad, this formula has a fatal flaw. 

By determining ahead of time what is “attainable” you are undercutting your success. We are actually poor judges of what we can accomplish. Instead of setting a ceiling for what is attainable before you even try, you want to think big, really big.

Ditch the “A” from SMART goals entirely. 

The only way to achieve something truly great is to start by thinking big. Don’t limit your potential. 

The world is full of big thinkers who have actually accomplished the impossible! 

The 3 Types of Effective Goals  

To learn the most effective way to set goals, you need to know the types of goals you can set. 

Here are three types of goals. 

• High Hard Goals — these goals are the big targets you are aiming for. Setting high hard goals increases focus and persistence. 
• Chunked Goals — these are the goals that you slice and dice into annual, quarterly, monthly, and weekly goal markers to stay on track. 
• Clear Goals — tiny steps that add up to big results. 

If High Hard Goals are like a mission, then your clear goals are the steps you take to complete the mission. 

The way you approach each of these types of goals is just as important as making a distinction between them. 

The best way to write goals is to start in the reverse: 

• Define your High Hard Goal. 
• Reverse engineer that goal into smaller goals. 
• Execute against the smaller goals until the High Hard Goal is accomplished. 

High Hard Goals Explained

University of Toronto psychologist Gary Latham and University of Maryland psychologist Edwin Locke have studied goal-setting theory for decades. What their research has found is that setting big goals leads to the greatest outcomes. 

A High Hard Goal is your big target that motivates and focuses all the smaller goals you set along the way. 

A High Hard Goal is different from a mission statement in that it should contain a practical go-do. 

For example, if your mission is to “help end world hunger” a High Hard Goal that aligns with that mission statement would be “create a non-profit that makes plant-based proteins affordably available to parts of the world experiencing food shortages.” 

High Hard Goals give you an aim to focus your attention and energy. They have also been proven to make you more persistent. 

To really make High Hard Goals work for you, Latham and Locke found certain moderators need to be in place. 

Two of the biggest impact moderators to pull off High Hard Goals are: 

• Commitment. 

When you believe what you’re doing and are passionate about the purpose behind it, High Hard Goals work best. 

Goals In The Goal Setting Stack

If you want to generate extraordinary results and unlock new levels of achievement and abundance, you have to map your goals. 

When you’re chunking your goals, here are the different goal markers you’ll want to include. 

• High Hard Goals. 
• Annual Goals. 
• Quarterly Goals. 
• Monthly Goals. 
• Weekly Goals. 

When all of these goal chunks are aligned your purpose, passion and pursuits combine to make you unstoppable. 

Finally, write your upcoming clear goals every night before bed to focus the next day and ensure you end your work with a win. 

We actually provide a tool that takes all of the guesswork out of goal stacking in our Zero to Dangerous Training Course . 

Clear Goals Explained 

We have learned that flow states have triggers . flow follows focus, so flow triggers heighten attention, drive awareness into the present and put the focus on present actions.

Clear goals are one of the most effective flow triggers. These are the tiny steps that take place over a much smaller timeframe. A High Hard Goal may take you a year (or more) but a clear goal is a small win to check off during your day. 

An example of a clear goal would be I’m going to write 500 words of this blog post between 8 am and 9 am today . 

Clear goals generate flow by showing you where and when to put your attention. When you have a clear goal your mind doesn’t wander because it knows what to do. This reduces distraction and cognitive load (unnecessary information is filtered out). When you set clear goals—your concentration tightens, motivation increases, action and awareness merge, and you’re pulled into flow—where you think and perform best. 

The most important thing to remember is that a clear goal must be “clear.” It’s a specific step needed to achieve success in a present action. 

Think about when an NFL receiver is wide open but fails to score because they drop the pass while turning towards the endzone. They started thinking about the bigger goal of scoring a touchdown before accomplishing the clear goal of “catch the pass.” 

Don’t skip ahead to the bigger goals. Focus on accomplishing one clear goal, then moving on to the next one. Otherwise, your bigger goals will actually distract you from taking the important and necessary actions (clear goals) in the present. 

From a neuroscience perspective, every time you check off a clear goal, you get a little rush of dopamine. This powerful chemical keeps you motivated to keep crushing it. 

Goal Setting to Win

Successful goal setting is all about determining where you want to end up with High Hard Goals aligned to your mission and purpose. 

Chunk goals along the way towards achieving your High Hard Goal to keep you on the right track. 

Set your Clear Goals as a to-do list every night before bed to reduce the cognitive load of knowing what to do and where to start when you wake up. 

How do you know how many clear goals to put on your list? Experimentation. 

Some people can crush eight clear goals a day, some only four, and others somewhere in-between. Find the clear goal number that challenges you every day without making you feel anxious and frustrated. Everyone’s sweet spot is a little different. You’ll also know whether to increase the challenge of your clear goals each day if you start to fall behind in your goal-setting stack.  

Bonus tip: determine what “winning the day” looks like for you. If you can clearly define your day as a win, you have done a good job of setting clear goals.  An additional recommended goal-setting resource: Goal Setting Theory by Edwin A. Locke, Gary P. Latham.

Our flagship flow training, Zero to Dangerous helps you accomplish your wildest professional goals while reclaiming time, space, and freedom in your personal life.

If you want 500% boosts in productivity and a lot more time spent deep in flow, start here., flow research collective.

Goal Setting Is Not the Problem

Goals are key to living the life you want..

Posted April 6, 2024 | Reviewed by Tyler Woods

• What Is Motivation?
• Find a therapist near me
• We are designed to achieve goals.
• Many different words are used to indicate the same goal-achieving process.
• Our lives are the goals we pursue.
• Having a goal to help others achieve their goals can help with our own goal achievement.

Recently, I saw a post on LinkedIn promoting a TED talk about setting goals. I was really interested in the headline because I’m a big fan of goals. With that in mind, you can perhaps imagine my surprise when I discovered that the TED talker took the position that goal-setting was something to be avoided . Not only that, but after about seven minutes and 45 seconds, the TED talker told the audience that “the only way to fail in life is to set a goal.”

To say I was amazed at this suggestion would be a severe understatement. Kind of like calling the Grand Canyon a bit of a ditch.

If I had to make a statement about goals and their importance, I would say exactly the opposite! My position is that the only way to succeed in life is to set a goal. In fact, I would go so far as to say that nothing happens in the absence of goals. Even traumas , tragedies, and mayhem are what they are only because they wreak havoc with goals.

I could push things a bit further and suggest we can’t not have goals. Even avoiding goals is a goal. We are designed as goal-achieving creatures. Goals are us.

The different views about goals that the TED talker and I have might be definitional. The TED talker defined goals as “the end towards which effort is aimed” and then went on to discuss how limiting something like “the end” is. Even if we accept this as a definition of goals, “the end” doesn’t have to mean “kaput.”

Achieving my goal of getting a Ph.D. didn’t ever feel like the end. Quite the opposite. For me, the Ph.D. signalled a whole new beginning with a much greater range of options. I felt the same way about achieving my goals of getting married and becoming a dad. Both of these events marked the beginning of wonderful new adventures.

Yet there’s absolutely no reason why “goals” have to be defined the way the TED talker said they were defined.

But the TED talker did say how he thought goals were defined and then, based on this definition, his suggestion was that, instead of setting goals, we focus on objectives because “objectives” are limitless.

Well, maybe objectives are limitless, and maybe they aren’t. A quick Google search reveals that the terms “goal” and “objective” can be considered to be very similar and, in fact, are sometimes even used interchangeably.

We could get caught up in how similar or different goals and objectives might be but surely the much more important matter is, are you living the life you want? Call the activity that fills your day whatever you like. To what extent are you doing what you want to be doing?

After listening to the TED talk, it seemed to me that we might get a lot further in being all that we want to be if we focused more on the “thing” a word depicts rather than the word itself. Do the words “goal” and “objective” describe two different “things”?

In fact, there’s a whole bunch of words that all signal the same process. Words like aim, dream, intent, purpose, ambition, point, desire, motive, aspiration, and mission indicate the same process described by the words “goal” and “objective.”

It’s the process that’s crucial to understand if you want contentment and well-being to be more constant features of your daily landscape. What you call that process is much less important.

The process, in this case, is the business of creating and maintaining experiences we care about. There’s an even simpler way of saying all that. Actually, one word will do. The word is “control.” Control is what every living thing does to keep itself living.

Bonsai trees control and so do pink fairy armadillos. The bonsai process is a very cool example of interacting controllers. A few years ago, I was an avid bonsaier. I’m sure I will be again. With each of my bonsais, I had a clear idea of how I wanted the miniature tree to look, and I nipped and cut leaves and branches to get the look I wanted. I used wire as well to make sure the branches grew as I wanted them to.

The reason I had to do all that artful manipulating was because the itty bitty trees were controllers, too. The trident maple and the swamp cypress forest sprouted leaves and branches according to their own design, not the ideas I had. And I had to make sure that, in all my clipping and snipping, I didn’t interfere too much with the tree’s controlling. On occasion, a branch I had been coaxing to take a particular form would actually whither and die. A couple of times, a whole tree stopped controlling and ended up as a lifeless twig.

The same process can be spotted in lots of other daily activities. Pets offer great examples. At the moment, I have several pairs of finches in cages in our house. The reason the cages are necessary is because the little feathered controllers’ ideas of where they would like to roost and spend their time are different from my ideas. I get evidence of that if I forget to pay attention when I open a cage door to top up their seed containers.

We frequently see people walking their dogs past our house. The reason that people have leashes connecting them with their dogs is because dogs are controllers, too. The paths of a dog on or off a leash are very different.

Control is all around us. Our towns and cities are the way they are because people have certain ideas, dreams , and, dare I say it, goals. These inklings produce buildings and bridges and the daily bustle of social life . Perhaps the most incredibly ironic and fabulous quirk of our goal-achieving nature is that having a goal to help others achieve their goals actually helps with our own goal satisfaction.

Understanding the beautiful, ubiquitous, natural phenomenon of control might help us all do what we do more efficiently and harmoniously.

Tim Carey, Ph.D. , is the Chair Country Health Research and Innovation at Curtin University.

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Submitted by Jonas Meckling on Thu, 03/21/2024 - 16:41

This project aims to illuminate the role of public institutions in this process within the United States, first by mapping the functions of different commercialization institutions (for example, goal setting, derisking, imposing discipline, facilitating learning, coordinating policies, or managing conflict) and then analyzing their links with policy and commercialization outcomes. The International Energy Agency estimates that 35% of cumulative emission reductions necessary to achieve the Paris climate goals hinge on technologies that are currently only at the prototype or demonstration phase. As such, our capacity to achieve a clean energy transition at the speed and scale necessary to avoid irreversible global catastrophe depends on our ability to guide these technologies through commercialization and widespread adoption. This project aims to illuminate the role of public institutions in this process within the United States. Such institutions include, for instance, the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E). The project will map the functions of different commercialization institutions (for example, goal setting, derisking, imposing discipline, facilitating learning, coordinating policies, or managing conflict) and then analyze their links with policy and commercialization outcomes.  The project will help us understand how to best design programs and agencies to effectively support the commercialization of clean energy technologies. 

We are hiring several students for the project. The primary tasks would be:

1) Triangulating between different sources—such as government documents, websites, secondary literature, and interviews—to identify institutions for our sample. Some examples of relevant institutions include Innovation Hubs, ARPA-E, programs within the Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office, and specific institutional provisions within the Inflation Reduction Act. 

2) Qualitative inductive and deductive coding of the design features relevant to each institution within the sample. This will help us build up the dataset that will serve as the foundation for the rest of the project. 

Proficiency in Excel as well as some level of prior training in public policy, political science, or social sciences more broadly is necessary. Please highlight your relevant coursework in your application. It would also be helpful to know how many hours per week you would like to work on the project. Most importantly, we are looking for students with a genuine interest in the project and a keen willingness to learn. 

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Is CERN activating the world’s most powerful particle accelerator for the April 8 eclipse? No

Cern restarted its large hadron collider after a regular winter stop for maintenance. it is unrelated to the eclipse. .

As people around the country await the April 8 total eclipse, conspiracy theories about a Switzerland-based nuclear research facility have some social media users on edge. In their view is CERN, also known as the European Organization for Nuclear Research.

“Why is CERN being reactivated on April 8, the same day as the infamous eclipse?” asked a  March 29 Facebook post , referencing what it called the group’s plan to activate “the large hadron collider” on the day of the eclipse. “My gut instinct is that something really big is being planned for that day… perhaps a total takedown of both the grid and society in general worldwide.” In  another post  April 1, a man in a baseball cap speculated that CERN is deliberately starting back up April 8 to “open up a gateway, a portal.”

(Screenshot/Facebook)

These posts were flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our  partnership with Meta , which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

It is not unusual for scientists to conduct research during an eclipse, when the sun’s corona becomes visible and areas in totality go briefly dark in the moon’s shadow.  Total solar eclipses   allow researchers “to study Earth’s atmosphere under uncommon conditions.” NASA, for example, is launching three sounding rockets on the day of the eclipse to study its effects on the ionosphere (a mission that also became a  subject of   misinformation ).

But CERN’s research is different. The primary research focus of CERN — an acronym derived from the French name “Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire” — is  particle physics , or “the study of the fundamental constituents of matter and the forces acting between them.” The organization seeks to find answers about the  universe’s fundamental structure .

CERN houses the Large Hadron Collider, the  most powerful particle accelerator in the world , which measures around 16.8 miles (27 kilometers) in circumference. The collider’s aim, as  Britannica explains , is to “understand the fundamental structure of matter by re-creating the extreme conditions that occurred in the first few moments of the universe according to the big-bang model.”

CERN spokesperson Sophie Tesauri told PolitiFact in an email that the collider’s activities have nothing to do with the April 8 eclipse.

“What we do at CERN is doing particle physics with accelerators such as the LHC, and this has little to do with astrophysics in a direct way,”  Tesauri said. “So there is no link between the solar eclipse on Monday 8th April, and what we do at CERN.”

CERN has an  accelerator complex  composed of machines with “increasingly higher energies.” A beam of particles is injected by one machine to the next one, bringing the beam to a higher energy — and the Large Hadron Collider is the last element in this complex.

“Hadrons” are a group of particles that include protons and ions. In the Large Hadron Collider,  two beams  travel in opposite directions at nearly light speed and are made to collide. In 2012, Large Hadron Collider experiments led to the discovery of the  Higgs boson particle , a particle named for British physicist Peter Higgs, who in the 1960s postulated about the existence of a particle that interacted with other particles at the beginning of time to provide them with their mass.

Tesauri told PolitiFact that the accelerator complex is restarted every year after a brief winter technical stop, when beam production ceases so that the accelerators can undergo maintenance. Restarting an accelerator like the Large Hadron Collider “requires a full commissioning process in order to check that all equipment works properly.”

“Now that all the checks have been performed, the LHC is ready to provide particle collisions to the LHC experiments, and first collisions for this year should actually happen today 5th April,” Tesauri said in her email. “This will mark the beginning of the physics run for 2024.”

The beams were initially expected to enter collision April 8, according to a  March 14 report . It said, “Depending on how work progresses, this milestone may shift forwards or backwards by a few days.”

On April 5, CERN  announced  that the Large Hadron Collider achieved its first stable beams in 2024, “marking the official start of the 2024 physics data-taking season.” The statement said that from March 8 to April 5, the Large Hadron Collider was set up to handle the beam and tested for any issues.

“Although the solar eclipse on 8 April will not affect the beams in the LHC, the gravitational pull of the moon, like the tides, changes the shape of the LHC because the machine is so big,” CERN’s announcement said. This phenomenon is not unique to an eclipse; a  2012 news release  discussed distortions in the machine brought about by a full moon.

According to CERN’s frequently asked questions page, the Large Hadron Collider is  expected to run over 20 years , “with several stops scheduled for upgrades and maintenance work.”

Conspiracy theories surrounding CERN’s work have been circulating for  years . In a statement to  Verify  fact-checkers, CERN said that its research “captures the imagination of lots of people, which is why CERN has been featured in a lot of science fiction books / even movies, around the world.” CERN said works inspired by its research are fictional and “should not be confused with the actual scientific research.”

False claims about the group’s work are so common that the organization addresses some common theories on its  FAQ page : No, it won’t “open a door to another dimension,” and no, it won’t “generate black holes in the cosmological sense.”

We rate the claim that CERN is activating its Large Hadron Collider in connection with the April 8 solar eclipse False.

More from Poynter:

• MAN ON MOON: Reflections on how mankind and the media came together on the surface of the moon 50 years ago
• Gannett journalists in the solar eclipse’s path go on strike
• What if newsrooms treated every day like eclipse day?

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