Can’t get no satisfaction? Your problem may lie in how you set goals, according to new research published in the Journal of Consumer Research. If you’re a cautious person who tends to set conservative goals, you have a harder time being satisfied than those who set lofty, ambitious goals. Seems that even though you reach your goal, you start to raise your expectations and start comparing yourself to higher standards.
The lesson here? Aim high. Go for gold. That’s what I’m taking from it, anyhow.
June 27, 2011
Tips from my weekly running clinic. Last week, Bryan Smith of the Running Room came to speak to us about goal-setting. Here’s some of what I jotted down:
- Don’t wait until after your spring goal race to start thinking about what’s next. Start thinking now so you can start crafting the plan that will set you up to reach your next goal. You’ve already reached a certain level of fitness so don’t just let it drop right off.
- If it’s your first time doing a half-marathon, you may not want to have a certain time goal in mind given it is your first time running that distance.
- If you’re considering training for a marathon, consider how much time you have to devote to training, and know that you will slow down, and that there will be a bigger discrepancy between your long runs and short runs (and you will feel like you are working much harder at it).
I have already decided I want to train for a fall half-marathon. And I’ll see how these May races go in terms of helping me make a decision if a full marathon (gulp) is in my near future. Even just thinking about the possibility of doing a marathon scares the begeezus out of me–although I found it interesting to learn that the Running Room marathon clinic brings you up to a distance of 32k. I’ve run 32k before–really, really slowly and with much, much, much effort, but I’ve run it…
April 25, 2011
