The Psychology of Goal-Setting Success

I am a student of goal-setting success. Early in my career I began to notice that I was more likely to meet some of my goals than others. Being curious, I began to experiment and reflect on which goals led to fairly effortless success and which ones might predictably end in frustration.

My most reliable strategies for goal-setting success found their way into InPower Intentions, but along the way it became clear to me that there were psychological elements at work behind successful goals, and once I learned to use them I started to hack my own productivity hacks for greater success.

Why goals work–or don’t

Our brains are meaning-making machines. All day, every day, they sort, prioritize, and capture some information, organizing it into constellations of meaning and memory while letting other data move on to be forgotten, at least consciously.

Goals that take advantage of this natural, effortless, and powerful ability to create meaning tend to have a greater impact on our success. They do this by helping us organize a vision of our future that draws us forward with purpose and focus. 

With a goal pulling us through the chaos of our days, we more easily navigate the overwhelm to identify information and actions that will lead to success and let the rest go without giving it too much of our precious energy.

A goal’s ability to give us a vision of our future, one that helps us navigate the present, is pretty straightforward. However, that’s just the mechanics, not why it’s successful.

The secret to success–letting go of being successful

The best goals pull us forward into the future so we can see more clearly what we couldn’t see before about how to succeed. With these new insights and perspectives, innovation is more likely.

From that future vantage point, we must be willing to redefine our visions of success—our goals—in order to be successful in the world as it is, instead of how we envisioned it in the past when we set our goals in the first place.

We must let go of our older vision of success in order to achieve what can be achieved in our new present. And a willingness to let go of what no longer serves us is a good habit to cultivate for all kinds of reasons.

Clients sometimes struggle with this concept for good reason. After all, tenacity and determination are critical to achieving difficult things. So I explain it this way, staying committed and relentless in pursuing the highest version of the outcome is important. Getting stuck to each step along the way, or to a single way the objective can be achieved, will limit you, frustrate you, and–ultimately–cause so much stress and frustration you’ll sacrifice health and relationships if you’re not careful. The art of success lies in the space between understanding and doggedly pursuing the highest version of the outcome while being willing to let go of a lot of time, energy, and ego along the way.

Practically speaking… The 4 R’s

So much for the psychology. What should we do?

As my clients all know, I strongly advise setting aside regular, periodic reflection time to review and refresh your goals and intentions. 

It’s in this Regular Review, Reflection and Refining of your goals (the 4 Rs) that your desired future becomes more likely. 

Scaling the psychology of goal-setting success (for leaders)

Great, but what about team and organizational goals? If you’re a leader it’s not enough to be able to achieve personally meaningful goals; other people come along for the ride and are instrumental to our success—or not. 

Leading others to achieve group goals is a bit more complicated because, people. Essentially, the same principles apply, but with the added complication of needing to get people’s visions, motivations and actions aligned. 

Once people are aligned, the psychology of goal-setting scales to become the Sociology of Goal-setting and truly amazing things can happen. 

When Goals Are Not Enough

Focusing on traditional goals (like SMART goals) is a wonderful way to stay focused, but it’s frankly not enough for success. How do you choose among possible goals? How do you prioritize when the actions you need to take to meet your goals conflict and smash into each other in the hustle and bustle of your average day?

These dynamics are why I like combining goals with intentions, which operate at a higher level and are more flexible. At the end of the day, staying focused requires a lot of mental hacks, so I enjoy working with them together. My clients seem to enjoy it, too, as between the two, you can find places to put both general and specific definitions of success. In this sense, they operate a lot like John Doerr’s Objectives (Intentions) and Key Results (Goals). Not exactly the same, but organized along the same principles. This is why I like bringing OKRs into my client’s organizations whenever I can. It systematizes both ends of the spectrum of aspirations and hard work. 

Whatever you do, make sure you have a compelling vision of your future. Make sure you invite others into it. Keep refining it as you achieve bits and pieces of it. With such aspirations pulling you forward you can’t help but succeed.

Article excerpted from an InPower Women Mastermind member newsletter from 2021 and revisited again in 2024.

Join Our Women's Mastermind