Goal Aversion

When we set goals, especially goals that are aligned with our vision & values, we are generally filled with excitement and motivation.

Yet, why is it that 87% of New Year Resolutions fail? A new year resolution is often a goal we set for ourselves with great joy & motivation. We often are filled with the magic of the fresh start effect and convinced that we will pull through. So why do most them fail?

For each goal, there are two opposing forces: Desire & Aversion. If the desire component is the strongest then we might (just might!) reach our goal. Yet, very often, the aversion component wins.

In this article, let’s explore: what is goal aversion, and how can we overcome it in order to reach our goals.

When you set the goal initially, you have pink-coloured glasses. You can only see how wonderful it will be to accomplish it, how great it will feel, and all the energy is placed on the feeling of accomplishment.

Let’s take the most classic New Year Resolutions: to exercise more, to lose weight, to travel more. In these examples, you see yourself looking fit & great, or traveling extensively around the world.

As you start to work towards these goals, in the process of achieving them, you are faced with dealing with the obstacles, the challenges along the way, and the compromises & sacrifices you need to make to achieve the goals.

For instance: to exercise more might require getting up earlier, or sacrificing your after-work evening, to lose weight could mean giving up some of the food you enjoy most, and to travel more could require a lot of money, time and extra organisation.

The pink-coloured glasses go away and though the goals are still tempting, the actual path to get there can sometimes seem daunting, or overwhelming. That’s when goal aversion comes into play.

According to the book ‘Intentional’ by Chris Bailey, the characteristics of aversion are:

• boring

• unpleasant

• frustrating

• far off in the future

• unstructured

• meaningless

The good news here is that, by anticipating that you will feel aversion, you can put in place systems, habits and ways of thinking, to best deal with aversion & resistance when this happens.

There are several ways to best deal with goal aversion:

• Track Progress

One of the reasons it’s hard to stay motivated when you kick off a new journey towards achieving your goal is because it can be difficult to track progress. And if you don’t see progress, you get discouraged (or at least I do!). Having a system in place to track milestones, wins along the way and seeing your making progress is one of the most important aspects to overcome goal aversion.

• Increase Enjoyment

This can be both through decreasing boredom, frustration, and actually increasing enjoyment. The best hack in the world to achieve anything is to make the journey so enjoyable that you actually WANT to go to the gym, or to Spanish classes, or to sit down & write your 1000 words/day. Anything you can do to ramp up enjoyment & fun will help!

• Accountability

Accountability can keep you on track, but I would say it’s best to rely on this least because you don’t want to just be doing something in order to please somebody else, but because you actually want to be doing it (hence increasing enjoyment instead). Accountability is a nice bonus, and an extra help but not the only way to overcome goal aversion.

• Process > Outcome

Being too focused on the outcome & end goal can actually be discouraging. It can take a lot longer, a lot more time and a lot more effort to reach your goal so if all you want is to get there, it can burn through your energy quite quickly. On the other hand, putting all your energy into making the process enjoyable, or at least compelling enough to take action regularly is what matters most.

• Reflection

Often we don’t pause to ask ourselves why the goal, or the process towards the goal feel so challenging: is it boredom? Is it not structured enough? Is it taking longer than you thought?

The clearer you are on the mental & emotional blocks, the easier it is to move past the aversion and take action. For greater reflection, either journaling or coaching can help to highlight blind spots.

Reaching goals successfully comes down to: having a clear & compelling vision, breaking it down into a plan/ strategy and taking daily (or regular) actions towards it.

What gets in the way? Our aversion to some aspects of the journey and path to get there. To remove this aversion, we need to dig deeper and see what is holding us back, and find ways (tracking, enjoyment, accountability…) to keep us on track!

Once we have overcome this aversion, and put in place systems that work best for us, the rate of success & completion of goals goes up tremendously!

Enjoy the journey,

Katie

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