Imagine two runners. One runs because she loves it—the stretch in her muscles, the breeze on her skin, the mental clarity. The other knows that running is healthy, so she laces up her shoes and slogs through a few miles.
Which person is more likely to stick with running over time? Obviously, it’s Runner No. 1. It’s easier to keep running when you love running. But, when we set goals for ourselves, most of us follow the example of Runner No. 2. We focus on the importance of the goal, not on how enjoyable the process of achieving it will be.
That’s a mistake, according to research from Cornell’s Kaitlin Woolley, Laura Giurge from the London School of Economics, and Chicago Booth’s Ayelet Fishbach. In a series of experiments, they find that people who enjoy the action it takes to reach a goal stick with it far longer than those who do not. The amount of value they place on achieving the goal matters less—in that it only predicts engagement in the margins.
The difference is intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation comes from doing; you have it when an action is its own reward—because it makes you happy, perhaps. Extrinsic motivation comes from achieving; a goal is important to you and offers some long-term rewards. A runner who is extrinsically motivated might want to finish a marathon in order to collect a medal.
The main experiment followed 2,000 US citizens for a full year, first recording their New Year’s resolutions and then following up about every four months to see if they were still working toward that goal and whether they were intrinsically or extrinsically motivated to keep going. The researchers judged intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation by responses to questions such as “Is this goal enjoyable for you to do?” and “Is this goal important for you to do?” They find that while participants were generally extrinsically motivated when setting their goals, variations in intrinsic motivation predicted their engagement over time. Those who were more intrinsically motivated at the start of the year stuck to their goals for longer.
A second experiment involving Chinese residents around the Chinese New Year produced similar results. The researchers asked about the resolutions that participants were making for the new year and their levels of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. They followed up to ask whether the participants were still working toward their resolutions.
Overall, US and Chinese participants set different goals. The top goal category for participants in the United States was physical health, such as losing weight and exercising more. Meanwhile, the top category for those in China was professional development, such as earning a promotion or learning a new skill. In both experiments, people who reported greater intrinsic motivation, expecting to enjoy the goals they set for themselves, were more likely to accomplish them.
It isn’t surprising that intrinsic motivation makes it easier for someone to stick with a goal, but it is interesting to see it confirmed on a large scale and with clear cultural differences between participant groups, says Woolley. “For me, what is interesting is that intrinsic motivation predicts persistence on goals that are clearly extrinsic,” adds Fishbach. “No one sets a resolution because they enjoy doing it. By the fact that you set a resolution, I can pretty much guarantee that you don’t enjoy it.” And yet, when it comes to predicting persistence, what matters is enjoyment, more so than the importance of the goal.
The research suggests a lesson: Find a way to make important things more enjoyable. When it comes to health goals, that may mean trying different workouts and healthy foods until you find some that you enjoy.
To quit smoking or save money, you could try apps that gamify savings or reward streaks of days without a cigarette, Woolley says. But intrinsic motivation is about more than fun, she explains—it’s also about doing something that makes you feel more accomplished or proud, socially connected, or cared for and loved. So you could also try replacing each cigarette with a text to a loved one, which is an example of what earlier goal-setting research—by University of Pennsylvania’s Katherine L. Milkman and Kevin Volpp and Harvard’s Julia Minson—called “temptation bundling,” pairing something that’s difficult to do with something you find rewarding.
The findings by Woolley, Giurge, and Fishbach indicate that when it comes to reaching a goal, you’ll have more success if you find a way to enjoy the journey—however you manage it.
