Goal Setting [Read this piece of information] BPharm 5

At the beginning of each year, it is common to hear people talk about setting New Year’s
resolutions. Becoming healthier by eating better, increasing activity and fitness levels, and losing
weight are popular resolutions. As common as it is to set New Year’s resolutions, it seems
almost as common to hear about people breaking their resolutions. Somehow, the good
intentions behind many people’s resolutions fail to ever materialize into sustained change.
Goal-Setting Theory, a popular motivation model, helps give explanation to why people hold to
or fail to meet their resolutions. Research on goal setting and performance has identified that
goals, to be motivating, should be specific, challenging, accepted, and provide feedback.

“I want to lose 10 pounds by Valentine’s Day” is a much more specific goal than, “Over the next
year, I want to get rid of the spare tire around my middle.” Goal specificity gives people exact
targets and timelines against which to measure their performance. Accomplishing a series of
small, incremental, and short-term goals gives the goal setter the ability to see movement toward
the overall goal. Goals that are challenging are more motivating than goals that are too hard or
too easy.

Setting a fitness goal of being able to run a mile in four minutes might be unrealistically difficult
for many resolution makers and eventually cause them to give up prematurely in frustration.
Setting a fitness goal of being able to run a mile in 20 minutes is probably too easy for many
people and would not drive people to focus, train, and significantly alter their behaviors to attain
that goal. People do things that they believe in and find important to do. When goals are not
accepted by the people who are responsible for meeting them, performance is less likely to occur
than when people endorse and accept the responsibility for making them happen. If people do not
accept ownership and responsibility for meeting their goals, they will be more likely to give up
on them when distractions and difficulties arise.

When people know how their current actions and levels of performance stack up against
expected performance, they can sustain acceptable performance or make corrective actions to
bring unacceptable performance back into line with expectations. Someone who has lost only
two pounds at the end of January while striving toward a “Lose 10 pounds by Valentine’s Day”
resolution should realize that corrective actions are needed. Waiting until Valentine’s Day to first
step on a scale does not permit the goal setter to make corrective actions or maintain successful
strategies during the performance period. For resolutions to become realities, they should be
specific, challenging (that is, neither too easy nor too hard), accepted, and have ways of
measuring attained performance against predefined standards. The things that lead to
successfully attaining New Year’s resolutions are the same things that contribute to goal
attainment in organizations by individuals and groups. If one of your New Year’s resolutions is
to accomplish greater things at work, try implementing the principles of Goal-Setting Theory.