Walled and Roofed
Hell isn't merely paved with good intentions,
it is walled and roofed with them” --Aldous Huxley
Just what the world needs. Yet another, how to keep your New Year's resolution article or blog post. Okay, so here's one with a twist to it. How about a "How Not to Keep Your New Year's Resolution" post.
This post goes out to all the perfectionist readers of this blog (you know who your are!). I ran across an interesting study that looked at the relationship between achieving our goals and perfectionism. Specifically, the researchers looked at whether the pursuit of one's goals can be facilitated by the development of specific action plans for how the goal will be achieved.
At face value this seems obviously so. However, the researchers took a particular interest in people who were "socially prescribed perfectionists." A socially prescribed perfectionist is someone who strives to be perfect and is highly self-critical and concerned with the expectations and standards of others.
In one part of their study, the researchers looked at a sample of 50 participants who had set at least one New Year's resolution. They instructed half of the group that
People who commit themselves to specific plans of action may be more successful with their goals. These individuals decide when and where to perform the necessary actions and also anticipate potential obstacles that may arise and ways to handle these obstacles should they arise.
They then told the group to specify a time and a place for pursuing their resolution and identify three distractions that could occur and a counterbehavior for each distraction. This "plan" for accomplishing goals is called in technical jargon an implementation intention. The other group recieved no instruction.
What do you know? The implementation intervention backfired for the socially prescribed perfectionists in the group. Furthermore, the authors maintain that "for those with pervasive, critical, evaluative concerns, the implementation intentention manipulation appears to be triggering a process that obstructs goal progress."
The researchers suggest that the socially prescribed perfectionists' self-criticism and conern about the judgment of others may interfere with things like selecting appropriate strategies, staying on task, effective resource management, and self-monitoring.
This however, is only part of the story. The other side is that there is a whole body of research that demonstrates that even a simple 5 minute implementation planning exercise can generally improve people's ability to follow through on their goals.
Does this mean you should forget what sports psychologist tell you about the importance of goal setting and planning? Not at all. If you can avoid concern about what others will think if you don't achieve your goals and not engage in overly harsh self-criticism, setting goals and a plan for implementing can be an excellent way to organize your training season and get things accomplished.
If you are a self-critical perfections, however, beware. As the study's authors say in the conclusion of their article
Although the road to hell may not necessarily be paved with good intentions, for some individuals, implementation intentions may be a path to the purgatory of self-criticism and unfulfilled goals.
Okay, enough from me. Now it's your turn. Any thoughts on perfectionism or goal setting or both? I'd love to hear from you!
Reference: Powers, T.A., Koestner, R. & Topciu, R.A. (2005). Implementation intentions, perfectionism, and goal progress: perhaps the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 31, 902-912.
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