Personal Goals Can Be a Shortcut to Professional Success
New research makes the case for a spillover effect
The weeks leading up to the new year involve a kind of déjà vu: The vague sense, as we brainstorm all the things we’d like to accomplish come January, that we’ve made these plans already.
“Haven’t I been here before?” I wondered last night, as I downloaded a half-dozen apps that will supposedly help me practice guitar, drink eight glasses of water each day, and learn to do the splits.
Honestly, I’m not even sure. I can’t really remember the things I vowed to do this time last year. But new research suggests that just the act of setting goals can be valuable, if you do it right: According to a new study in the journal Contemporary Educational Psychology, taking the time to think deeply about what you want to accomplish — regardless of what that is — can have a positive ripple effect throughout your life.
In the study, student volunteers were asked to reflect on their ideal life, identify the goals that would help them attain it, and write out a detailed plan for how to achieve those goals, including how they would overcome any obstacles they expected to encounter.
When the study authors followed up a year later, the students who’d done the exercise showed 20…
