Want to Set Goals That Stick? Follow These 7 Tips from Psychologists Who Specialize In It
This simple framework can help you turn a goal into a second-nature behavior—for real.
By Kylie Gilbert•
If you have trouble actually sticking with the goals you set each year, welcome to the club. Studies and surveys regularly suggest that many people who set New Year’s resolutions give up on them before January is over. This resolution roadblock isn’t just relegated to the start of the year, though—many folks struggle with how to set goals or follow through with new objectives, whether they begin in January or July.
The problem is that we often set ourselves up for failure before we even start, whether by choosing goals that aren’t realistic or tied to our values—or by not coming up with a game plan for when life gets chaotic.
So, we spoke to psychologists who specialize in habit formation and motivation to help you do things differently. Below, learn how to set goals more effectively—and actually stick with them.
What Are Goals and Why Are They Important?
A goal is the specific, desired outcome you hope to achieve through consistent effort. “You’ll only do a behavior if it serves some purpose for you, so you have to have a goal in mind,” says Benjamin Gardner, PhD, a psychology professor at the University of Surrey who researches behavior change and habit formation.
Setting and reaching any type of healthy goal can lead to benefits like improved self-esteem and enhanced wellbeing. More specifically, fulfilling fitness and wellness goals tied to moving your body more can provide advantages for your physical health too.
Even smaller movement goals can lead to compelling health improvements. For example, one study found that if you run for just five or 10 minutes a couple of times a week, you can lower your risk of cardiovascular disease and overall mortality risk.
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How to Set Goals
Goal setting is the strategy that turns your goal into reality. While there’s no one “right” way to go about it, it’s “a process that establishes specific, time-based behavior targets that are measurable, achievable, and realistic,” according to the American Psychological Association (APA).
But how can you actually turn your goal from a good intention into lasting behavior change? Here are a handful of research-backed, psychologist-recommended insights on how to set goals that’ll stick:
1. First, Really Think About Your ‘Why’
“Sometimes we get too caught up in the ‘how’ of reaching goals and we don’t spend enough time within ourselves thinking about the ‘why’—and if we don’t know why we’re doing something, we’re probably going to be a lot less persistent in working toward it,” says psychologist Scott Glassman, PsyD, an expert in health behavior change and motivation and director of the Master of Applied Positive Psychology Program at Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine.
Start by asking yourself: “Why do I want to do this?” Ideally, your “why” should feel important and meaningful to you. This intrinsic motivation may also help you stay on track when working towards your goals: A 2016 study published in the journal Health Psychology found that intrinsic motivation was linked with greater adherence to exercise programs.
Clarifying your “why” can also create an “engine of change” because when we’re in touch with our values in a deliberate, intentional way, we tend to align our behavior with satisfying those values, Glassman explains. “If you just have the thought ‘I love to be creative,’ suddenly the importance of being creative has kind of been awakened and you’ll be more likely to take actionable steps to paint or write or do something that’s creative.”
So, if your goal is to start doing Pilates once a week, spending time thinking about your motivation—for example, wanting to improve your posture or build strength—is an important step in and of itself, Glassman says. “Thinking about the reasons for setting out on that path actually helps somebody become more committed to staying on that path once they start.”
2. Make Your Goals Specific
The SMART criteria for goal-setting—that is, setting goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timed—came from the business world but is often recommended by psychologists more broadly.
That first “S” and last “T” are important because setting goals that are too broad or vague (like “eat healthier” or “exercise more”) without an established timeframe or plan for achieving those objectives likely won’t be as effective. Instead, make your goal something specific, like “I want to take a 10-minute Peloton mat Pilates class at home three days a week for a month.”
That same objective-setting framework can be used with any type of personal goal. For example, rather than saying “I want to read more,” make your goal something measurable by drilling down how many books you want to read, such as “I want to read three books before March 31.” (More on measurability in just a bit.)
3. Aim for Achievable-but-Challenging
Confidence is a huge piece of effective goal setting, so it’s important that your goal doesn’t feel totally out of reach, Glassman says. “You can have a goal that’s important to you, but if you don’t feel like you’ll be successful in achieving it, there’s likely going to be less energy and motivation to pursue that goal.”
Indeed, “a lot of people will say that they want to change their behavior, but it’s overly ambitious,” Gardner adds. For example, if you’ve never run a mile, signing up for a marathon the following month probably isn’t super realistic (or safe) right off the bat.
Instead, aim for a goal that’s realistic, but also a bit of a challenge, Gardner recommends. “Choose a goal that most of the time seems slightly too far out of reach, but that if you keep doing the behavior, you’ll be able to attain it,” he says.
Remember, too, that it’s OK to start smaller and ramp up over time. For example, instead of aiming for 10,000 steps a day, you can start at 5,000 steps and build up 1,000 steps at a time, Gardner says.
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4. Set ‘Approach Goals’ Instead of ‘Avoidance Goals’.
Sometimes, your goal might be to stop doing something, like doomscrolling before bed so you get better sleep. This is what’s known as an “avoidance goal.” However, setting an “approach goal,” or something that moves you toward your desired outcome versus moving away from an undesired routine, is often a better way to change your behavior. Research has also found that approach goals are associated with greater positive emotions and psychological wellbeing than avoidance goals.
That might require a simple shift in your thinking: Rather than avoiding scrolling, make your goal the action you want to start doing to improve your sleep, like reading or doing some breathing exercises before bed.
5. Visualize Reaching Your Goal
You can think of a goal as a vision of what you’d like your future to look like. In fact, Glassman says that simply visualizing yourself reaching a goal and imagining the good feelings that come along with it—say, how energized you’ll feel if you eat more fruits and vegetables—may make you more likely to succeed. He points to research on the topic and says that when you visualize having attained your goal, it creates positive emotion—and that positive anticipatory effect built around your clear mental image can help solidify your commitment and make it more likely you’ll reach your goals.
6. Talk to Someone About Your Goal—and Your Action Plan
Simply talking about your goal with someone else can help reinforce it, Glassman says. For example, maybe you tell a friend your plan to exercise three days a week, starting slowly with a manageable, reasonable goal of three times a week for 10 minutes each time. “Hearing yourself say that to someone else is really effective in solidifying commitment and increasing confidence,” he says.
Having someone you trust who’s in the loop on your goals, like a partner or best friend, can also be helpful when you need a cue to action, he says. In other words, they can be that accountability partner to give you a little nudge when you need it.
7. Track Your Progress Along the Way
Remember, goals should be measurable—so don’t forget to establish both a timeline for reaching your goal and check-in points to track your progress. “If you’re not getting feedback, you won’t know if you need to make adjustments,” Glassman says.
That feedback could come from a fitness tracker, for example, but you can also keep a journal to observe your progress and emotions along the way, he suggests. For example, you could reflect on obstacles you’re facing and how you’re overcoming them. “There has to be self-reflection, an evaluative process, either along the way or at different mile markers on the road of change,” Glassman says.
You can also set weekly Activity Goals in the Peloton App to monitor your progress and stay motivated along the way. Whether you want to work towards a number of active days, a number of workouts, total workout time, or all three, the Peloton App makes it easy to follow your progress.
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Tips for Sticking with Your Goals
When working towards a new goal, sometimes we can (understandably) feel deflated and lose our motivation; other times, life simply gets in the way and disrupts our progress. When that happens, here are a few expert-backed tips for staying or getting back on track:
Make the First Step Automatic
Knowing how your brain forms habits to reach new goals may help you stay or get back on track.
Specifically, thinking about instigation and execution habits can help you make your routine work for you. Instigation habits are the initial triggers that get you started on a behavior, like the decision to lace up your gym shoes, Gardner explains. Execution habits, on the other hand, are the smaller, repetitive actions that follow once you’ve started, like the specific exercises in your workout routine, he says.
Sometimes, the thing you need to automate, or make a habit, isn’t the behavior itself—it’s the preparation, Gardner says. Meaning: If you can simplify the instigation habit—aka automate that first step or remove decision-making around the start—you’re more likely to continue with the rest of the sequence. For example, simply packing your gym bag could be an easy instigation habit to unlock the rest of the sequence that leads you to your workout goal, he says.
Tie Your Action to a Reward
While intrinsic motivation is extremely valuable, there’s a time and place for extrinsic motivation too: Sometimes, pairing your action with a reward can do wonders in helping you stay on track.
For example, you could try listening to your favorite podcast only when you’re exercising to motivate yourself to meet a movement goal. “It’s tying your behavior to something pleasant so that even if you don’t want to do it, you’ll feel like you’re missing out by not doing it,” Gardner says.
Come up with a Plan for Facing Obstacles
The path to meeting new goals usually isn’t a perfectly linear process, and you’re bound to run into some roadblocks along the way. That’s why it’s important to have an action plan and a coping plan, Gardner says. “It’s planning for how to achieve something and how to not stop achieving it.” In other words, how will you deal with obstacles that might get in the way of your goal?
For example, maybe your goal is to exercise for 30 minutes a day, five days a week. Your action plan is to take a Peloton class before work every morning, but your coping plan on days you accidentally sleep in is to take a restorative yoga class before bed that night instead.
Remember That If You Stick with It, the Easier It Will Become
Sometimes, it’s hard to find motivation in the precise moment we need it to act on our goal. That’s when habit—a repeated action that becomes automatic and feels weird if you don’t do, like brushing your teeth—can step in.
“Think of habits and goals as teammates,” Gardner says. “Your goal, or your intention, usually does a lot of that work. But if that player is tired, you can give the ball to habit.” On a dark, freezing morning, you might not want to get out of bed and exercise, but if you have a strong habit, it can carry you through.
There’s no universal length of time it takes to form a habit, but according to Gardner, most people find that a new behavior becomes more ingrained and easier to do within a couple of weeks. And simply knowing that your goal will eventually require less willpower the more you do it might just be the motivation needed to stay the course on those hard days, he says.
Practice Self-Compassion When You Slip Up
Sticking to our goals requires discipline, but it also requires flexibility.
Remember, everyone hits setbacks along the way. Maybe a work deadline gets in the way of the hour-long yoga class you committed to taking once a week, for example, or perhaps you simply skip out on your routine one day. When this happens, it’s easy to beat ourselves up in the moment—but this negative self-talk tends to just backfire.
“The more demanding and angry you get with yourself, the more critical you get with yourself, the less likely you are to want to continue,” Glassman says.
Self-compassion is an antidote. It reminds us it’s OK to slip up, and even if our trajectory isn’t what we thought it would be, it doesn’t make us less valuable, Glassman says. And remember: A slip isn’t a fall. Just because you missed one workout doesn’t mean you might as well throw in the towel on the whole week.
Celebrate Small Wins Along the Way
Whether you write it in a journal or tell a friend, taking time to just acknowledge our wins along the way can actually tap into the neurobiological underpinnings of goal-motivated behavior, Glassman says.
By celebrating wins (which sometimes requires taking a smaller view of “success”), we can light up the reward system in our brains and increase our levels of hope and encouragement, he says. It makes sense: “When you feel good about small steps of progress, which we often miss, we are more likely to continue because there’s that positive jolt of dopamine,” Glassman explains.
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This content is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute individualized advice. It is not intended to replace professional medical evaluation, diagnosis, or treatment. Seek the advice of your physician for questions you may have regarding your health or a medical condition. If you are having a medical emergency, call your physician or 911 immediately.
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