Master Shifu to Po, "You actually thought you could learn to do a full split in one night? It takes years to develop one's flexibility, and years longer to apply it in combat." Goal setting - without realistic goals, we're set up for failure before we start.
Actually, Po, the big fat panda who became the Dragon Warrior in "Kung Fu Panda," did know his skills weren't up to advanced practice. He even wanted to start at "level zero" when he first began his training, but suffered the bumps and bruises of not being allowed to do so. Poor Po.
However, Po had one main attribute that brought success (besides his deep kindness), and that was his attitude. "A real warrior never quits; I will never quit Master!" - and he didn't. We can learn a couple of important lessons from Po and Master Shifu related to our own goal pursuit.
Lesson 1: Structuring our tasks
It's such common advice to people who complain about their procrastination - break down your tasks into smaller, more manageable sub-tasks. These should be as concrete as possible. I think it's a skill that receives less attention than it should.
If you can really break down a task effectively, you can take "baby steps" to reach your goal. You can achieve your goal over time, like a marathon, not an "all-nighter sprint." This is particularly relevant for students writing theses and major research papers. These are marathon tasks, not sprint races. Many tasks in life are like this.
Perhaps with our own goals of this type, we should hear Master Shifu's voice,
"You actually thought you could write a whole research essay in one night? It takes days to do the research, and days more to work through a good draft." (With graduate theses, perhaps I could have left Master Shifu's quote as it was - it can take years!)
Why is this so important?
Earlier research that one of my doctoral students, Allan Blunt, completed showed that tasks that aren't structured well are aversive to us. If we don't know how to manage the task, and structure it in a way that leads us to believe we know what to do, we find we're more likely to put it off.
Interestingly, Allan's research showed that in the planning or "intention" phase of a goal, whether it was aversive to us or not was related to how meaningful a goal was. More specifically, goals that were seen as important and enjoyable were more likely to be rated low on aversiveness. Of course, with a meaningful goal, we'd be quick to set an intention to pursue the goal, however this intention may not lead to action if, at the action phase, this goal was not structured well.
Lesson 2: Persistence at getting started
After each fight, especially early in his training when Po was really taking a beating, he simply got back up and did it again. Sometimes he did so with great enthusiasm, "That was awesome, let's do it again!" . . . "Yeah, bring it on!"
Just getting started over and over again is such a simple, yet effective route to successful goal pursuit. Before you know it, a habit has formed. You might even find that you're waking before the alarm that's set for that 5 a.m. run, anticipating the endorphin high and positive effects on your well-being (rather than focusing on the comfort of the bed and the perceived negative attributes of the dark morning awaiting - only time and commitment develops this change in focus as a practice in your life).
There are certainly other issues with respect to goal setting. One is our tendency to be overly optimistic in our planning - something known as the "planning fallacy." I'll come back to this soon.
