Is your best good enough?

When it comes to working out, you might think trying your best
would be theway to make the most of your exercise time. But you'd be
wrong. For a study at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
that pitted several motivational techniques against each other,
researchers had 56 female undergraduates attempt to do as many sit-ups as
possible in 90 seconds. Those who were given the vague directive "do your
best" averaged about 43 sit-ups on each day of the four-day study. On the
other hand, women assigned specific long-or short-term targets--"do 10
percent more than you did last time"--managed 56 sit-ups by the last
day's session.

While previous research hasn't proven that setting concrete goals
enhances athletic performance, Virginia Polytech graduate student Jeffrey
Smith, M.A., believes that's because the goals set in those studies were
too easy. To truly improve performance, Smith suggests, the goals we set
must be difficult enough that there's a good chance we'll fail. While
that approach will often deprive us of the satisfaction we feel in
reaching our objective, we're likely to perform better in "failure" than
we would in successfully meeting an easy goal.

ILLUSTRATION