Setting vague goals that are inconsistent with your object, can actually be a good thing, as this study showed.
If the pandemic has inspired you to run a half-marathon in the new year, or take up virtual Pilates and want to get better at it, you have contended with the challenges of goal-setting.
Thanks to research, academics are pretty familiar with how setting goals will impact behavior and performance. We know less about what makes people decide the level of their goals: for example, deciding to work out twice or three times per week.
Together with Mirjam Tuk and Bram Van den Bergh of the RSM, we embarked on a project to see how consumers can be prompted to set more-ambitious goals.