When a new year comes around, people tend to set a new year’s resolution. This may be something broad like “live a happier life” or something specific such as “run in a marathon this year.” These new year’s resolutions are set by people at the beginning of the year, but they tend to be abandoned by year’s end. How do people stick to their goals if they commonly become discarded? Research suggests that combining types of goals might be the answer.
Why Do New Year’s Resolutions Fail?
According to the study, motivation is hard to maintain as the year goes on. People tend to establish new year’s resolutions that are broad and need continuous input to sustain. For example, if your new year’s resolution is to “work out,” this is broad. How do you plan on doing this? Go on a walk every day? Go to the gym? It is not very well defined. As for the continuous effort, broad goals tend to not have definite ends. Goals like lifestyle changes can continue past the month of January or past the year that the resolution was set in.
Based on Goal-Setting Theory, setting defined goals, i.e. subordinate goals, should help maintain actions towards new year’s resolutions. These goals help get people started on the actions that they wish to take in the short-term. However, subordinate goals alone may not work. New year’s resolutions tend to be broad and require people to change their behaviour for longer periods of time. They have to continuously make an effort towards their goal, while also avoiding getting side-tracked and overcoming setbacks, and the loss of motivation. Instead, subordinate goals and long-term broad goals, superordinate goals, should work together.
What are Superordinate and Subordinate Goals?
Superordinate goals are long-term abstract goals. They are goals that are less specific, but represent values that are important to people.
An example of a superordinate goal would be “to live a healthy life.” This is a vague statement, as there are many ways to “live a happy life,” but it ultimately shows what a person values: their health.
Due to the nature of superordinate goals, people are continuously striving towards them. It may take a long time to fulfill superordinate goals but this effort is more gradual and focused over time.
Subordinate goals are short-term defined goals. They are goals that are more specific, but are less important to people than superordinate goals.
An example of a subordinate goal would be to “go to the gym.” It’s a clear goal that tells a person exactly what needs to be done, but those requirements do not have to be long-lasting. Someone could go to the gym once, and their goal is completed.
Subordinate goals are great starting points, but it is easy to give up early and they provide less incentive to keep moving forward.
In short, superordinate goals are vague, important goals that are harder to start and complete, but keep motivation overtime. Subordinate goals are defined, less important goals that are easier to start but harder to maintain over longer periods of time.
Why Should Goal Types be Combined?
Researchers agree that goals exist on a “goal hierarchy,” where superordinate goals are top priority and subordinate goals are low priority to complete. Despite this goal hierarchy, the goal types help each other if they are combined. Superordinate goals may be more important than subordinate goals, but they are useful together. If a subordinate goal is linked to a superordinate goal, people become more motivated. For example, the subordinate goal “go to the gym” is connected to the superordinate goal “to live a healthy life” because going to the gym is one way to live a healthier life.
The combination of goal types helps people stay on track while having the motivation to continuously pursue their goals.
The Study
This was a Swiss study conducted in late 2016 and early 2017. It was a three-month study of 256 participants that categorized participants in four groups:
Those who set a superordinate goal
Those who set a subordinate goal
Those who set both types of goals
Those who set no additional goals beyond their self-set new year’s resolution.
Participants with superordinate goals were asked the reasons why they set those goals, while participants with subordinate goals were asked the steps they planned to take in achieving their goals. At the end, they were asked to evaluate their efforts before and after the study, their perception of success towards their goals, and intentions to continue striving towards their goal past the study period.
Results
Participants who focused on a subordinate goal perceived their efforts as more successful compared to those who focused solely on a superordinate goal. On the other hand, focusing on a superordinate goal increases the chances of the individual pursuing their goals further. Compared to focusing on one goal type or the other, focusing on both goal types helped more towards goal pursuit. As such, completing a subordinate goal in order to progress towards a superordinate goal is helpful.
Study Limitations
Since new year’s resolutions vary greatly, the perception of effort is different across participants. For example, the resolution to work out every month has a different set of circumstances than the resolution to get more sleep. The steps, the time investment, and effort in achieving goals are very different. It is suggested that a study using participants with the same goals would be better in properly assessing results of goal combination.
Another limitation to the study is the start date. Due to the recruitment of participants, some participants started the study before new year’s day and some started after the new year. Some people may have already started steps towards their new year’s resolution before they began the study.
Author’s Note
I am guilty of being one of those people who never stick to their new year’s resolution. I tried setting yearly goals in the past but they never stuck around until the end of the year. I do not make them anymore, but this study has given me something to think about. With the knowledge that setting subordinate goals as smaller milestones within the quest towards superordinate goals can help, I hope that future goals can be set and maintained.
Source
Höchli, B., Brügger, A., & Messner, C. (2020). Making New Year’s Resolutions that Stick: Exploring how Superordinate and Subordinate Goals Motivate Goal Pursuit. Applied Psychology: Health and Well-Being, 12(1), 30–52. https://doi.org/10.1111/aphw.12172.
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