A key driver of motivation is through effective goal setting. But how do we set goals which will motivate us and how do we make sure we follow through on them? One way to do this is to think about why we want to achieve something ahead of time, making sure we use SMART goals1 and employ techniques such as bookending. Read on to find out more.
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Tag: goals
How to achieve your goals by using implementation intentions.
Implementation intentions and behavioural follow-through
Like many people (I suspect!) I am sometimes not so good at following though on my goals. Here are a bunch of things which this week I fully intended to do, but failed epically to achieve. Note this is the abridged version – the full list runs to 3 volumes.
- Buy light bulbs for the kitchen
- Call an old friend I ran into on the train last week (Hello J!)
- Lose weight
- Write down when my annual leave is on our kitchen calendar
- Call a work colleague to discuss a new project
- Write up some work related expense forms
For many of these things I actively thought about doing them several times a day (as well as whilst cooking crazily calorie laden food in a near pitch-black kitchen).I’m not alone here – these sort of goals only seem to account for around 30% of the variance in our behaviour. Now, I am a reasonably well motivated guy, so why the apparent multiple lack of follow through? Part of the is probably due to the way I formulate my intentions.
Continue reading “How to achieve your goals by using implementation intentions.”