In our annual New Year episode, we look back at what we accomplished in the previous year and set goals for the next one. Unfortunately, over the past two years my success rate hasn't been good - 33% to be exact. I’m not the only one with this problem. Goals are inherently hard and life can take us in different directions that move the finish line. Still, it’s obvious that we need help, so in today’s episode, we bring on a guest who knows a whole lot about goals and motivation.
Episode Guest
Hengchen Dai is an assistant professor of Organizational Behavior at the Olin Business School at Washington University in St Louis, and she holds a PhD from The Wharton School at University of Pennsylvania. Her main stream of research applies insights from behavioral economics and psychology to motivate people to behave in line with their long-term best-interests both inside and outside of the workplace (e.g., avoiding counterproductive behaviors, maintaining a healthy lifestyle).
In this episode...
We discuss strategies to increase your chances of achieving your goals in 2017.
– A temporal landmark or “Fresh Start” will help motivate goal pursuit.
– Reengage goals with a range
– Give yourself skin in the game (stickk.com)
– Reduce cognitive load when choosing between a “should” and a “want”
– Utilize temptation bundling
– Plan B is not an option!
What are your goals? Share them in the discussion forum below!
Goal 1: A safe goal. You’re fairly sure that you can do it, but it’s not a sure thing and you’ll need to work at it.
Goal 2: You’re 50/50 whether you can do this. It’s a reach — something that you either have never done before or you haven’t done in a very, very long time, possibly in a previous life.
Goal 3: A BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) in the purest sense. You’ve never done it, and you’re sincerely not even sure if you are capable of it. All the stars will need to align to make it happen. Some luck might be involved. This is the goal that, as you write it down, you feel butterflies and nerves over even making it public.
Additional Resources
Check out these links to additional episode content.