The Growing Market for Self-Control
WE INVITE THE READER TO PAUSE FOR A MOMENT and think of instances in which you set out to accomplish a particular goal or task, but failed. We suspect that it would not be difficult for most people to identify more than one such instance. Indeed, our research and work with organizations in business, government and welfare domains has convinced us that failing to adhere to our good intentions is a hallmark of being human.
Setting and accomplishing goals has always been a fundamental driver of human behaviour. Goals can run the gamut from running a marathon to learning a new language to completing an exercise or weight loss regimen. They can even be as relatively mundane as waiting in line to obtain a service, completing a transaction at a bank, or finishing up the draft of an article by its deadline. Indeed, there is a very active section of human enterprise—productivity gurus, ‘life hackers’, personal coaches, apps, advisors and self-help books—dedicated to helping us set goals, make plans and execute on those plans.
Yet, as indicated, we do not often succeed at completing the things we set out to do. Some of us never described this common ‘flagging motivation’ in a recent essay:
