Have you ever set a goal for yourself, only to find that as the days goes by you get no closer to achieving your goal? You feel like you are just spinning your wheels and accomplishing nothing. This happens to almost everyone. Oftentimes the difficulties stem from the goal being too large. I’ve written before about creating SMART goals. I have also written about taking small steps to reach your larger goals. Both of the prior posts stress the importance of breaking down your goals to a manageable level. By doing so you will more likely achieve what you want.
There is an additional benefit to breaking your big goals down into smaller mini-goals. That benefit is that as you get closer to achieving your goal, you will then begin to work faster towards achieving it. The first observation of this was in 1931 when lab rats were observed to move faster towards the end of the maze when there was food present. This phenomenon has been coined the “goal-gradient hypothesis.”
Goal-Gradient Hypothesis
Rats are one thing, but does it apply to humans? As a matter of fact, Columbia University professor Ran Kivetz tested goal-gradience on humans in a well known study. In this study, the first group of people received “coffee cards” that provided for a free cup of coffee after 10 purchases. This group was given a card with 10 blank squares and a final square that read “Free Cup of Coffee.” The data collected included how long it took for each individual to get the free coffee.
To test the goal-gradient hypothesis, the researchers then provided a second group with coffee cards that required 12 purchases before receiving a free cup of coffee. These cards had 12 blank squares and a final square for the free cup of coffee. The spin, though, was that the researchers gave the second group a “head start” by premarking the first two squares. Even though the card required 12 purchases, this group, like the first group, only needed to buy 10 cups of coffee to claim the free cup of coffee. Sure enough, the researchers found that the second group moved more quickly in purchasing the ten coffees than the first group. The lesson from this study is that if you break your large goals down into smaller goals, you will achieve the large goals faster. It also helps to give yourself a head start.
Real Life Application
With the New Year coming up, some people like to make resolutions. In reality, resolutions are just large goals. The surest way to be successful is to break those resolutions down into smaller mini-goals. What goals do you want to set for yourself in 2018? The first step in achieving them is to write them down.
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