How starting anew can help us set a goal

Scientific litsketch on boosting motivation

Sometimes, our lack of motivation is caused by the fact that we do not even have a goal. Research shows that we are more likely to set a goal when we feel like it’s the beginning of a new time period (Dai et al., 2015).

In an experiment, people were divided into two groups. Group One was asked to imagine that they had just moved to a new apartment for the first time in 9 years. Group Two was asked to imagine that they just moved to a new apartment for the 9th time in 9 years.

Group One that was asked to imagine that this is a new beginning for them was more motivated to achieve their personal goal than the second group. 

People are more likely to start a new goal when it’s the beginning of the new year, the first day of Spring or summer holidays, or the first time to move into a new apartment. This is because we are more likely to detach our current self from our imperfections, mistakes and failures of the past, and feel more confident to achieve a new goal. We can use this to our advantage. Before we explore how we can sustain effort to better achieve our goals, we first need to muster the strength to set a goal by creating a sense of new beginning in our life. Put off your old self with all of your past imperfections, and put on the new self. 

Dai, Hengchen, Katherine L. Milkman, and Jason Riis. "Put your imperfections behind you: Temporal landmarks spur goal initiation when they signal new beginnings." Psychological science 26, no. 12 (2015): 1927-1936.