It is that time of year with many of us setting goals for the year ahead. The most common New Year’s resolution – set by 59 percent of us – is to do more.
But our research suggests that the way we usually set goals in exercise may not work. So what should we do instead?
Our research interviewing elite athletes suggests that one opportunity is to set open goals.
Specific goals can stop us
In general, we recommend setting specific goals, or SMARTs (where SMART stands for specific, measurable, achievable, reasonable and timely goals). It is a common goal to walk 10,000 steps a day.
This advice is largely based on goal setting theory from the 1990s. However, that theory has now evolved, with research now suggesting specific goals in some cases that will stop us from doing so.
One problem is that there are overall specific goals: you either achieve the goal or you fail.
That’s why you might feel like you’ve failed after recording “just” 9,000 steps when your goal was 10,000. In reality, 9,000 steps may be an achievement (especially on a busy day) – but with you not reaching your specific target, it can be frustrating.
When you stop making progress towards your goal, or start to feel like you’re failing, it’s easy to give up – just like many of us do with the resolutions of the Year. ‘Earth.
Used incorrectly, certain goals even cause immoral behavior (like using tools to artificially increase our degree numbers and benefit from lower insurance prices!).
Another option is to set what is called an open goal.
What are open goals?
Open goals are non-specific and exploratory, often expressed as the goal of “seeing how well I can do”. For example, professional golfers in one survey described performing at their best when they were aiming to “see how much under par I get”.
When my colleagues and I interviewed great athletes about outstanding achievements, a climber from Mount Everest described:
“I was just thinking, ‘Oh I’ll see how it goes and take it as it comes.’ I climbed higher and higher and the climb had become increasingly interesting. and difficult and comprehensive […] until I found out I had climbed like 40 meters without knowing what I was doing. “
Open goals just don’t work for big athletes – they work well in exercise too. One study found that people who were active enough did not perform better (in this study which meant they walked longer) when pursuing open goals than they did with SMART goals.
The fitness industry is already starting to pursue open goals. For example, the fitness brand Les Mills now recommends open goals (“to see how active you can be”), and the Apple Watch now includes open goals like work choice.
The psychological benefits of open goals
Open goals are not just good for achievement – they are also far more psychologically beneficial than SMART goals.
In fact, the elite athletes who first outlined open goals described how they played an important part in experiencing streaming – the pleasurable, rewarding state when it seems everything clicks in and we perform well without even having to think about it.
Follow-up studies found open goals – as opposed to SMART goals – make walking more enjoyable, make people more confident and make them feel better. That stimulates motivation and suggests that open goals can help people to stick to exercise habits for longer.
One participant stated that open goals “remove the trauma of failure”.
Why do open goals work differently to SMART goals?
Another important difference between open goals and SMART goals. When you set a SMART goal, you recognize something in the future you want to achieve it (“I want to be able to walk 10,000 steps a day”).
So pursuing SMART goals is about reducing the gap between where you are now and where you want to be – you’re always going to end up where you want to be. be. That can make you feel like your progress is slow, and slow progress doesn’t feel good.
When you set an open goal, your focus is on your starting point. If your goal is to “see how many steps I can reach today”, then as your degree number rises, it will feel like you are making progress. You might start to think, “Oh, I’m already 2,000 degrees … Now it’s 3,000 degrees … We’ll see how much I get.”
Instead of comparing where you are ought to be, you are always building on your starting point.
That makes the process a lot more optimistic – and the more optimistic we feel at exercise time, the more we want to do it over and over again.
To set your own open goals, think first about what you want to improve (for example “be more proactive”). Then specify what you want to measure, such as your daily average step count.
State your goal in an open, investigative way: “I want to see how high I can get my average daily degree count by the end of the year.”
And then get started! With an open goal, you are more likely to see progress, enjoy the experience, and stick to it until you are ready to set – and achieve – more specific goals.
Christian Swann is Associate Professor of Psychology at Southern Cross University. This article originally appeared on An Còmhradh.