Toward the end of the year, many of us commit to ambitious, specific goals, like cutting our screen time in half or running three miles every morning.
According to neuroscientist Dr. Anne-Laure Le Cunff, that approach often backfires.
Le Cunfu, author of Tiny Experiments: How to Live Freely in a Goal-Obsessed World, says linear goals like this are popular because they give people “the illusion of certainty.”
“They make us feel like we’re in control because we think if we have a clear vision and a clear plan and we execute that plan, we’ll be successful,” she told CNBC Make It.
But real life rarely plays out according to our best-laid plans, she says, which is why many people just repeat their New Year’s resolutions “over and over again every year” without making any progress.
Instead, she recommends approaching your goals with an “experimental mindset.” Just as scientists collect data and use the results to inform their next choices, “you can do exactly the same thing with your career and life in general.”
If you’re looking to start a new habit this year, instead of setting lofty and unrealistic goals, Le Cunf recommends doing “small experiments” with the habits you want to try.
How to create a “small experiment”
According to Le Cunff, the small experiment follows a very simple formula. “Perform (X action) for (Y period).”
Examples might be “Write 250 words every day for two weeks” or “Take a walk every day on your lunch break for a month.”
One of Le Cunfu’s favorites is “Don’t bring your cell phone into your bedroom for a week.”
According to Le Cunff, a good small-scale experiment meets four criteria: It must be “purposeful, actionable, continuous and trackable.”
To be purposeful, an experiment must involve something of “deep interest,” Le Cunff said, and a practical experiment is one that can be done “right now, using current resources.”
She explains that it’s important to run experiments continuously to collect enough data, and tracking consistency helps determine how well an experiment is working.
The key is to “reserve judgment until the experiment is complete,” Le Cunf said. Trying something new can be uncomfortable, but that’s part of the process.
Once the experiment is over, you can decide whether to incorporate the behavior into your daily life. “In fact, experimentation can be the gateway to finding new habits that work for you,” Le Cunf says.
Why this approach works
While many of us tend to “always want to aim for bigger, more impressive, more ambitious goals,” there are some pitfalls to that mindset, Le Cunf says. For example, long-term goals like “I’ll exercise every day this year” or “I’ll read a book a week” are often “too overwhelming or unrealistic.”
Le Cunf says that announcing your impressive goals to others causes your brain to get “a flood of dopamine,” which can paradoxically reduce your motivation to achieve them. After all, “we’re already getting the reward of people saying, ‘Wow, you’re so strong, you’re so ambitious.'”
In contrast, saying to someone, “I’m going to jog twice a week for a month” may sound less impressive than saying, “I’m going to jog every day for the next year,” but “if you actually do it, you’ll end up with a very healthy dose of dopamine at the end,” Le Cunff says.
Small experiments can help shift people from an results-based mindset to a curious and exploratory mindset. From this perspective, “Success is not about reaching certain predefined milestones. Success is about learning something new,” she says.
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