What’s the secret to achieving your goals without burning out? How can you make progress while preserving your mental energy?
In Willpower, Roy Baumeister and John Tierney reveal the science behind self-control and goal achievement. Their research shows that creating a goal action plan and finding the right motivation can help you accomplish more while using less willpower.
Read on to learn how to develop an effective goal action plan that aligns with your values and natural tendencies.
Why You Need a Goal Action Plan
The authors say that the basis of self-control is setting clear goals and then working to achieve those goals. The key is to do so while spending as little of your limited willpower as possible, so you don’t become tired and give up. You can achieve this with effective planning and motivation.
This is because willpower is, in essence, how you force yourself to stay on task and do things you don’t want to do. Having a goal action plan helps you to stay on task and minimizes the need for further decision-making (which, remember, requires willpower). Similarly, the right motivation makes you want to do a task, rather than needing to spend a great deal of willpower to force yourself to do it. Therefore, these two strategies minimize how much willpower you actually have to use while pursuing your goals.
We can illustrate this principle with a metaphor. Imagine that you’re a car, and your willpower is your fuel. Forcing yourself to stay on task and do something you don’t enjoy is like driving up a steep hill—it requires a lot of power, and therefore a lot of “fuel.” On the other hand, effective goal action plans and the right motivations will instead put you at the top of a hill, allowing you to coast down much more easily.
| Neurodivergence Affects Willpower Use Baumeister and Tierney’s tips for minimizing willpower use won’t work for everyone. For instance, people with ADHD are likely to struggle with making plans and following through on them, and they’re liable to lose interest in tasks no matter what motivations they have. As doctors Edward Hallowell and John Ratey explain in ADHD 2.0, people with ADHD often struggle with planning and following through on plans due to differences in their ability to organize, prioritize, and carry out tasks. Therefore, making plans is often a frustrating ordeal; such people tend to overlook important steps, pursue too many goals at once, and under- or overestimate how long certain tasks will take. Furthermore, the brain’s natural reward system also functions differently in the ADHD brain, being oriented toward immediate gratification rather than long-term goals. As a result, following a plan—which is meant to reduce willpower use—often requires a great deal of willpower. For example, someone with ADHD might have a set gym schedule, but find that the immediate pleasure of playing video games is more compelling than the long-term benefits of regular exercise, so they can only stick to that plan through sheer willpower. Hallowell and Ratey say that the best way for people with ADHD to stay focused and motivated (in other words, the way for them to spend the least willpower) is to seek out challenges that play into their natural interests. For instance, someone who has trouble sticking to an exercise plan might find that they really enjoy doing martial arts and will go to classes eagerly instead of trying to force themselves to go to the gym. |
How to Make a Goal Action Plan
The authors say that, in addition to helping you stay on task, goal action plans are helpful due to the psychological phenomenon known as the Zeigarnik effect. This effect states that people tend to remember unfinished tasks more clearly than finished ones, which explains why unfinished tasks tend to persistently occupy your thoughts and drain your mental energy.
However, making a plan to complete those tasks can greatly reduce how much time you spend dwelling on them and how much they worry you. Therefore, having a clear goal action plan will largely undo the Zeigarnik effect, even before you’ve finished everything that you’re worried about.
(Shortform note: Contrary to what Baumeister and Tierney write here, many psychologists frame the Zeigarnik Effect as a positive thing, noting that it has the potential to boost memory and motivation. In the original study, psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik found that people who didn’t finish certain tasks remembered specific details about those tasks much more clearly than those who were able to complete them. Subsequent studies have shown that unfinished tasks motivate people to go back to them. This suggests that you can use the Zeigarnik Effect to your advantage by intentionally stopping mid-task—for instance, if you’re writing a report, stop in the middle of a section to take a break rather than finishing that section and starting a new one when you get back.)
When it comes to making those goal action plans, Baumeister and Tierney recommend making monthly schedules for yourself, rather than daily, weekly, or yearly ones. They say this approach provides you with a beneficial balance between structure and flexibility, allowing you to adapt to unforeseen circumstances while maintaining a clear direction toward your goals. In contrast, planning more than a month in advance can leave you scrambling to update your plans as unforeseen circumstances arise, while only planning a day or a week at a time can cause you to lose sight of your long-term goals.
(Shortform note: The rule of thumb to schedule one month at a time may not be the best approach for everyone. In Limitless, learning coach Jim Kwik explains that experts have identified four kinds of genius, each of whom excels at different skills and different ways of thinking. If you’re extremely good with details (what Kwik calls a steel genius), you might find it more natural and more effective to plan out individual weeks in great detail. Conversely, if you’re an excellent long-term planner (a tempo genius) you’d likely find that the opposite is true: You get the best results when you plan far more than a month in advance, and your plans are designed well enough to allow for flexibility if something you didn’t foresee comes up.)
Finally, Baumeister and Tierney warn that having too many different objectives can lead you to a state of mental paralysis characterized by endlessly cycling thoughts, unhappiness, and a lack of motivation. Therefore, it’s crucial to prioritize your goals in a way that aligns with your values. That way, if you find that you don’t have the time or energy to achieve all of your goals, you can still be certain you’re working toward the goals that are most important to you.
For example, if you value your family more than anything else, it’s likely that working so you can support them will be one of your top priorities. Since you’d devote a lot of time and mental energy to that goal of earning money for your family, other goals—such as, say, losing weight—would have to move farther down your list of priorities.
(Shortform note: In addition to aligning your goals with your values, it’s important to make sure your goals are aligned with one another. In Goals!, Brian Tracy writes that you may unintentionally sabotage yourself by setting conflicting goals, meaning goals that are impossible to pursue at the same time. For instance, if you wanted to have children and write a book in your spare time, you’d be setting yourself up for failure; caring for a young child all but guarantees that you won’t have enough free time to get a book written. Therefore, you’d have to decide which goal is more important to you—you could either wait to have children until your book is finished or wait to write the book until your children are older and don’t need constant attention.)
Exercise
What’s one specific plan or motivation you could take advantage of to conserve your willpower? For example, suppose you want to get better control of your temper. You could make a plan, such as “The next time I’m tempted to raise my voice, I’ll walk away instead, then come back when I’ve calmed down.” Alternatively (or additionally), you could motivate yourself to stay calm in stressful situations by thinking about the impact your temper has had on a loved one in the past.
