Study Finds People Who Always Reach Their Goals Often Share This One Trait, And It's Not Willpower
You may think pushing through no matter how hard it gets is the key, but it's actually deeper than that.
Drazen Zigic | Shutterstock Whether it’s a New Year’s resolution or a mid-year reset, everyone loves to set goals. Not everyone loves following through with them, though. It is admittedly much easier to make a list of things that would be nice to do than it is to actually do them.
This doesn’t mean that reaching goals is impossible. Instead, it means that a different approach might be needed to tackle them. One study revealed that strong willpower is actually not the thing that helps people reach their goals most easily. It’s actually how enjoyable they are.
A study concluded that how enjoyable you make reaching a goal is the key to achievement, not willpower.
A new study published in the journal Psychological Science examined what makes it possible for people to achieve their goals. Researchers wrote, “Our main hypothesis was that intrinsic motivation would predict and cause greater goal adherence despite setting goals for extrinsic reasons.” In other words, people typically set a goal to reach external rewards, whether that’s something like losing weight or gaining recognition. But intrinsic motivation, which is linked more closely to enjoyment, is stronger.
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The researchers conducted four different studies to determine if this hypothesis was accurate. The first took a year-long look at Americans setting New Year’s resolutions. The second involved people who made goals at Chinese New Year to have a wider sample of cultures. The third study required participants to monitor the number of steps they took each day for two weeks. The fourth and final study had participants use an app that let them scan product barcodes. According to StudyFinds, which reported on the study, some participants were told to view this as a game, while others were told to view it as a way to learn information about products.
Every single study had the same conclusion and proved the researchers' hypothesis — it was intrinsic motivation that was the most effective. As StudyFinds noted, “Successful resolution-keepers don’t just grit their teeth and push through the discomfort. They discover ways to make the process genuinely enjoyable.”
This is great research, but how can you apply it to your own life?
It’s easy to read about this research and wonder how you could possibly make your own goals seem enjoyable so that it is easier to reach long-term achievement. After all, goals are not often based on things that are enjoyable. For example, a common goal is to spend less money, but no one really enjoys that.
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Researchers had some ideas. “We theorize that intrinsic motivation matters for goal adherence because it captures immediate benefits — it is the experience of a goal as an end in itself,” they said. “People adhere to long-term goals not only because they prioritize future benefits over immediate costs in goal setting, but also because they can experience the resolution as relatively less costly in the short term.”
StudyFinds said the key is in aiming for enjoyment instead of just determining why a goal matters. One example they used was exercising more. They said that goal-setters were less likely to achieve their goals if they simply chose “the most efficient workout rather than the most fun one.”
As researchers discovered, intrinsic motivation is very important.
Kendra Cherry, MSEd, defined intrinsic motivation as “an internal drive to engage in a behavior because of the inherent satisfaction of the activity rather than the desire for a reward or specific outcome.” She said that even if a goal does come with an external reward, doing it for the pure enjoyment of it means you are intrinsically motivated.
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Intrinsic motivation is essential. You can’t just rely on extrinsic motivation to do everything. You would quickly find yourself losing interest in various activities and giving up on them, which is something many people struggle with when it comes to goals. Instead, having that enjoyment will sustain and motivate you for longer.
Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer with a bachelor’s degree in English and Journalism who covers news, psychology, lifestyle, and human interest topics.
