Goal setting means different things for different people, but, at its core, it’s a way of committing to a goal by breaking it down into a series of small, achievable steps.
It allows you to take a long-term goal that might feel completely overwhelming and map out a path that will translate the dream into reality.
Starting a business, writing a book, or changing careers — these are all massive goals that feel intimidating. You’ll have many decisions to make along the way and many times when you lose motivation.
By understanding how your mind reacts to goal setting, you can simplify the process while also maximizing the impact of your efforts. When you add in elements proven by researchers to help people achieve goals, you have powerful fuel for success.
This article will walk you through key goal-setting strategies, backed by neuroscience and statistics, to help you achieve your personal and professional goals.
Originally published in 2018, this post was updated and republished on Monday, February 21, 2022.
The Neuroscience of Setting Goals
Before we take a look at the hard facts of goal setting, it’s important to understand how the brain functions during the process of setting goals. We can do this by analyzing the different elements involved in the decision-making processes that motivate us towards particular goals.
Stanford neuroscientist Dr. Andrew Huberman discusses groundbreaking research on how our brain circuits function in goal setting and execution in an episode of The Huberman Lab Podcast.
The human brain is organized into neural circuits, a collection of brain areas that, when active, give rise to a particular behavior or thought process. For example, when you feel happy, certain brain regions activate in concert, in the same way that keys on a piano, when played in sequence, create a specific song.
By charting brain activity, neuroscientists have identified neural circuits related to goal setting. Although these circuits control goal-directed behavior, they affect multiple regions of the brain including:
The amygdala: This region of the brain is associated with fear, anxiety, and avoidance. Since many of our goal-setting behaviors are motivated by the need to avoid punishment, like embarrassment or financial ruin, the amygdala is highly activated when pursuing goals.
Ventral striatum: A part of the basal ganglia, the ventral striatum is a neural circuit that plays a prominent role in motor function and reward processing. It governs whether or not we take action in any given situation, and propels us to either act or not act.
Cortex: The cortex is the outer region of the brain consisting of many different parts. Two regions of the cortex are important when it comes to goal-related planning and emotional motivation.
The lateral prefrontal cortex controls executive functions, like planning and thinking across different timescales (short-term versus long-term goals), and the orbitofrontal cortex connects our current and future emotional state to what we expect to feel when we achieve a goal.
What’s also important to note is that it doesn’t matter what the specific goal is. Any goal, whether related to health, career, family, or relationships, involves stimulating the same neural circuitry and will be treated and processed the same way by the neural circuits in your brain.
But what does this knowledge mean for you? When you leverage neuroscience in a conscious and meaningful way, you empower yourself to achieve your goals.
9 Goal Setting Statistics and Facts
Now that we know how the brain reacts to goal setting, let’s take a look at the process itself. You’ve likely already come across a lot of advice when it comes to goal setting.
Goal setting acronyms
Acronyms for goal setting — SMART, PURE, CLEAR, SMEAC — dominate the self-help space. These methods can help, but they don’t consider the way our brains actually work when it comes to goal setting and goal achievement.
If you’re in over your head with alphabet soup, follow these facts about goal setting, based on neuroscience and backed by statistics.
1. Your Surroundings Influence Your Goal Setting
Your circle matters
Surrounding yourself with a positive support system — whether that’s friends, loved ones, or mentors — greatly improves your chances of success in achieving your goals.
Here’s why:
- A supportive social circle can help encourage you and show you how to stay motivated throughout challenging situations.
- Career coaches and mentors provide expert guidance and resources for personal and professional development.
- Inspiring people lift you up and help you get back on track when things don’t go as planned.
When setting goals, it’s important to create a circle of supportive people to help you stay motivated along the way.
It’s equally important to avoid nay-sayers and toxic people who impulsively shut down your ideas.
2. Conscious Decisions Are Key for Goal Completion
Consiously working towards your goal
According to a study by The American Society for Training and Development (ASTD), the probability of completing a goal increases by 25% if you consciously decide to work towards that goal.
But don’t stop there with conscious decision-making. Whether you’re aware of it or not, you’re making decisions about which actions to take towards your goals based on value.
According to Neuroscience News, the retrosplenial cortex (RSC) is the area of the brain where value decisions are made. They found that this region relates to choices, such as deciding on which restaurant to eat at for dinner. After making a decision, our brains update the RSC with new information, like whether we enjoyed the meal or not. These fresh impressions can then be used to make more informed value decisions in the future.
You can apply this to goal completion if you consciously make value decisions each step of the way. Start by assessing your options; Choice A versus Choice B. Compare those options and see which provides more value with regards to achieving the next steps in your goal.
As you progress, pause and assess the work you’ve already completed. Make conscious choices for the next steps. Does it make sense to stay on the same course? Or do you need to pivot to a new direction for better results?
3. Goals That Align With Your Core Values Are More Impactful
Goals that align with your core values are going to feel inherently more satisfying to complete. They are also more effective when it comes to propelling you towards what you’re trying to achieve.
By dedicating yourself to and achieving goals that closely align with what you believe in, you’ll find it much easier to stay motivated and persevere, especially when things get tough.
Determine the goals you want to achieve and decide whether or not that goal is worth pursuing.
4. Scheduling Specific Actions – Not Deadlines – Is More Effective
Have you ever said things like:
- I want to start a family by the time I’m thirty.
- I want to build a business by age forty.
- I want to write a book by fifty.
- I want to become a millionaire by age sixty.
Setting yourself up for failure
We often create arbitrary time limits to achieve goals and feel like a failure when we miss the deadline. We wind up feeling discouraged and tend to give up too soon.
Author James Clear suggests focusing on doing the action, not on achieving a specific goal by a certain date. We need to create schedules, not deadlines.
Daily planning can help create a schedule that creates clear priorities and paths for achieving your goals. The key is to set aside time each day to work toward your goal, and then focus on refining and optimizing how that time is spent every day.
5. Visualizing Is Crucial for Success
You’ve probably heard of visualization as an effective way of planning and achieving long-term goals. (You know, closing your eyes and imagining yourself succeeding in your goals through the use of visual images in your brain.)
Visualizing vs seeing
Scientists have found a much better approach to planning ahead. Instead of visualizing, you can use actual images to help facilitate goal achievement.
In one experiment, scientists investigated the savings behaviors of two groups of participants. The first group was tasked with imagining themselves in thirty or forty years and envisioning how much money they would need to save for retirement.
The second group didn’t have to imagine; they were provided with digitally aged photos of themselves that presented visually how they would look in thirty or forty years.
The research found that the latter group, those who saw virtual images of their aged selves, were far more inclined to sacrifice immediate monetary rewards, and instead save for the future. The visual tools bridged the gap between the current self and a long-term goal with powerful results.
You can apply this principle to your future goals by hanging an image of yourself or an image of your goal somewhere you pass by often, like in your office. Make it a habit to focus your attention on the image for 30 to 60 seconds each time you pass it.
Your mind may drift. That’s okay. Try to bring your attention back to that visual focus. This practice trains your brain and body into a state of action, oriented towards pursuing your goal.
6. Planning Ahead Sets the Stage for Success
The human brain tends to think in terms of both short, medium, and long-term timescales. We’re exquisitely good at working toward future goals over very long periods. When you leverage this aspect of neuroscience through planning ahead, you take huge strides toward success.
Assign a due date to your goal
Research shows your chances of completing a goal increase to 40% if you assign a date by which you’ll complete that goal. You have to put skin in the game by consciously deciding on a due date.
Putting a date to your goal also makes things more tangible, and gives you a clear endpoint to work towards.
But we also know that arbitrary deadlines aren’t as effective as scheduling specific actions. A series of mini due dates is even better.
The probability of success increases to 50% if you create a detailed plan of how you will accomplish your goal. By sitting down and meticulously plotting all of the steps required to meet your goal, you’ve just cut out the chances of not realizing success by half.
7. Saying Your Goals Out Loud Can Help You Reach Them
A goal-setting statistic worth knowing is that by vocalizing your goal, you increase the probability of completing it by 10%.
Researchers found that just saying “I want to write a book” or, “I want to climb that mountain” can create the necessary self-motivation to get you started down the path towards achieving your goal.
8. Mistakes Are Inevitable — And Invaluable
You’ve heard it before: you learn from your mistakes. Don’t underestimate that adage. Scientific literature tells us that when we make an error, although it may feel frustrating, it’s a powerful way to learn.
A 2018 study published in Science Daily observed that we do indeed learn better through trial and error. Their research found that students who make mistakes while studying learn the information better, especially when the mistake is a near miss, or close to the actual answer.
Dr. Huberman confirms this theory. He explains that when trying to learn something, you want the task to be sufficiently difficult so that you are hitting the mark about 85 percent of the time (or making mistakes about 15 percent of the time). Think of it like raising the bar just slightly out of your reach, so that you push yourself incrementally toward unknown knowledge, and learn without becoming overwhelmed.
Sure, you want to set high goals, but you want to make them attainable in stages.
Making big goals manageable
Set your big goals, then break them down into small, actionable steps. That way you can work toward your goals little by little, and continue to get better as you progress through each small step.
When you set big goals, success won’t happen overnight. Starting a successful business, building a meaningful partnership, learning a new skill — all of these take time and commitment to master.
Along the way, you will inevitably make mistakes. You may become discouraged and feel like you want to give up. But making mistakes shouldn’t be a reason to quit. Instead, embrace errors to empower learning. Through mistakes, your brain becomes more alert, with a higher level of focus and higher probability of learning whatever you’ve set your mind to.
9. Accountability Drastically Improves Your Chances of Success
Taking accountability
Taking responsibility for your life, and truly committing to your goals, means taking accountability. Goal accountability means that you are 100% committed to doing what needs to be done in order to achieve your goals.
People have a much greater chance of achieving their goals if they have an accountability partner – someone who can support big endeavors, or even join in participating.
A 2015 study published in JAMA Network of Internal Medicine observed the influence of behavior between couples: a positive change in one partner’s health behavior, like quitting smoking, losing weight, or increasing exercise, is more likely to influence a positive change in the other partner.
If you share common goals with a friend or family member, work together toward achieving them in the following ways:
- Hold each other accountable by celebrating when you complete goals.
- Keep each other motivated when you struggle or make mistakes.
- Meet for regular accountability appointments to check in on progress and help each other stay on track.
If you commit to someone else that you are going to accomplish a certain goal, you’ve just increased the chances of meeting that goal to an astonishing 65%.
And if you hold purposeful and regular accountability appointments with someone you’ve committed to about the status of your progress, you’ll increase the probability of achieving your goal to 95%.
That’s huge, and reduces your chances of failure to a mere 5%.
So, now that you have a more comprehensive understanding of the neuroscience behind goal setting and some powerful strategies to fuel your success, what is the first step that you’ll take towards achieving your goals?
We offer group coaching bootcamps designed to help you reach your goals, whether it’s becoming a strong leader or reinventing your career. Each session is full of powerful tools, resources, and support to help you succeed, both short- and long-term.
Check them out here: SoulSalt Group Coaching Bootcamps.