How to Achieve Your Goals by Harnessing the Science of Motivation — Chuck B Philosophy

It is now 2021 and after the anergy of 2020, you are ready to get back to life and accomplish your goals. Hopefully, you have clearly defined those goals, if not, check out this article on developing a long-term vision and the following on setting goals.

Of course, setting goals is one thing and achieving them is something else. It is in the achieving of them that most people fail, often in just the first week. Fortunately, researcher Gabriele Oettingen has been studying what goes wrong with goal setting and how to overcome the obstacles. She summarized her research in the very practical and readable book Rethinking Positive Thinking: Inside the New Science of Motivation⁠ (Amazon).

First the bad news.

Thinking positively about what you want will not attract it to you. Sorry The Secret readers but science says “manifesting” does not work. Here is what Oettingen says on the subject “… you would be ill-advised to indulge in dreams about achieving your goals and then assume you’re well on your path to success. Life just doesn’t work that way.”

Why doesn’t dreaming about what you want make it happen? It turns out that daydreaming about what you want tricks your brain into thinking you have already achieved it. The…