Colorado State University - Global Campus
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“Plans are useless, but planning is essential.” Some form of that quote has been attributed to several different people, including former president and World War II general Dwight Eisenhower, but the idea is sound.
Plans change all the time. You might have planned to get a degree in four years, start a business, and become a successful CEO, all before the age of 30, but life threw you a curveball. Financial obstacles, family issues, or simply the realization that you want to do something else with your life can all upend the best-laid plans.
But even if the plans don’t work out, the act of making those plans is crucial. When you’re planning anything, from a simple camping trip to your whole career, there are a few vital steps that will help you accomplish your goals and create a new reality:
All of these steps are crucial when it comes to seeing a goal through to the end.
That’s the idea behind implementation intentions. Introduced by psychologist Peter Gollwitzer, an implementation intention is essentially an “if-then” plan. By structuring your goals around statements like “If X happens, I will do Y in order to achieve Z,” you’ll cover more contingencies and be better prepared for whatever comes your way.
First, let’s look at some of the most common reasons that people fail at their goals:
Failing to Get Started
Getting Derailed
An implementation intention turns abstract goals — writing a novel, losing weight, getting your degree, quitting smoking, saving money, or anything else — into clear, concrete steps with a well-defined behavior and context. You’re adding a what, why, and where to your plan.
There are two different pieces of this puzzle. First, identify the action that you need to take in order to achieve your goal and how you’ll know when it’s time to take that action. Let’s say your goal is to exercise more. Lay out the action in an “if-then” format as follows: If I’ve just gotten home from work and the weather is nice, I’ll go for a 30-minute walk.
The next piece is to look for potential obstacles and make a plan for dealing with them. Potential obstacles might include:
Give yourself specific instructions for all the obstacles you come up with. If you didn’t sleep well, have a glass of cold water, and go for your walk in ten minutes. If you’re feeling sluggish, take a shorter walk. If you had a hard day at work, bring some calming music on your walk. If it’s raining, climb up and down the stairs at your apartment building instead.
We’ve all set a grand goal and fallen short, simply because we hit an obstacle and then started coasting or spinning our wheels, failing to get back on track. Implementation intentions can help with these universal problems by making sure that you’re prepared for the shortfalls that usually knock goals off course.
The best part is that you can use this idea for anything and everything. Whether you want to save for a trip, lose the last ten pounds, finish your college education, learn a language, or whatever else you can think of, the system works.