Tell me this hasn\u2019t happened to you: At the end of the year, you brainstorm several goals. You start the New Year full of determination and enthusiasm. But after several weeks, you get distracted and lose ground.<\/p>\n\n
Months later you realize you\u2019ve made no real progress. You either feel lousy and quit, or feel lousy and try again\u2014only to experience the same dynamic.<\/p>\n
But what if I told you it takes only two little words to break out of that cycle?<\/p>\n
It\u2019s easy to get distracted and derailed, even when we\u2019re pursuing goals that really matter to us. The problem is that progress takes willpower, and willpower is like a muscle. Flex it a lot, and it wears out.<\/p>\n
To make progress and achieve our goals we need to give our willpower a break without losing momentum. How?<\/p>\n
I love running today, but that doesn\u2019t mean it came easy. As much as I knew I needed to run, unless the weather outside was amazing I sometimes got stuck. I had to decide each time that running was good for me and helped me reach my fitness goals.<\/p>\n
Seems like a small decision, right? But willpower researchers<\/a> say every decision wears us down to some degree. If we make enough decisions we can drain our energy so low that we won\u2019t make the right call, even if we know it\u2019s a good idea.<\/p>\n That can kill our goals faster than anything. It\u2019s what kills most New Year\u2019s Resolutions after just a few weeks.<\/p>\n The solution is to remove the decision. Instead of choosing to run in the moment, I started laying out my running gear in advance<\/a>. I didn\u2019t have to decide\u2014just follow the decision I had already made the night before.<\/p>\n Without realizing it at the time, I was creating what goal researchers call an implementation intention<\/em>. In my 5 Days to Your Best Year Ever<\/a><\/em> goal-setting course, I refer to it as contingency planning<\/em>.<\/p>\n Think of it as a simple if\/then statement created as a pre-response. That way, whatever obstacle we face, we\u2019ve already decided how to get past it. Those are the magic words: if<\/em> and then<\/em>.<\/p>\n This kind of contingency planning works by first creating a cue, and then \u201cforg[ing] an association between that cue and a response that is instrumental for obtaining one\u2019s goal,\u201d say researchers Thomas L. Webb and Paschal Sheeran<\/a>.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s say your goal is to leave the office every day at 5 p.m. on the nose to be with your family. But you have phone calls, coworkers coming to talk, last-minute meetings, and more.<\/p>\n Every new request requires you to decide what matters more: leaving, or the urgent requests that keep coming up. It wears down you resolve, and suddenly you\u2019re now walking out the door at 5:45.<\/p>\n To get past these obstacles, you could create a series of implementation intentions designed to address all the things that might keep you late. Here are just four:<\/p>\n Whatever your goal, the trick is to simply think through the contingencies that will prevent you from achieving it. Once you\u2019ve thought through the most likely hangups, you can pre-respond so you know what to do the second they occur.<\/p>\n Consider one goal that matters to you right now. Maybe it\u2019s a goal you missed for 2016. What would it take to achieve it in 2017?<\/p>\n A good way to answer that question is to consider what got in your way this year. Now, craft a few implementation intentions to address those obstacles. Like the examples above, put these in the first person and commit to reviewing them often.<\/p>\n Contingency planning smooths out the friction we experience trying to maintain momentum and gives us a way to overcome obstacles. Once you\u2019ve used them a few times, they\u2019ll become second nature. I don\u2019t have to remind myself to go running any longer. It\u2019s just what I do.<\/p>\n It might take a little imagination to think through the potential obstacles to your goals, but it\u2019s worth it. According to researchers Peter M. Gollwitzer and Gabriele Oettingen<\/a>, in almost a hundred studies with more than 8,000 total participants, implementation intentions like these had a significant impact on helping people maintain momentum and reach their goals.<\/p>\n If that weren\u2019t enough, research by Webb and Sheeran shows that implementation intentions can help us reach our goals faster<\/em>.<\/p>\n\t\tPlanning to Win<\/h3>\n
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Try Creating Your Own<\/h3>\n