A HACK to reach your Goals that actually WORKS!

Has your new year's resolution ever gone wrong? Have you ever decided to read "52 books" a year just like every successful person does! and then some how didn't even manage to read one?!

No worries, in one way or another, we are all guilty as charged! In the era of "Five minutes hacks!" here is a theory that ACTUALLY works as a goal achieving hack! It has already been put to use by many companies and successfully influenced our decisions more than you can imagine! From our favorite coffee place that we get our morning coffee from, to our favorite music app that helps us focus more on our work while listening to our favorite tracks, online and offline, almost every business have used it to create more profit, engagement and most importantly loyalty. So I thought it's about time we use it in our own advantage, don't you agree?

We are motivated by how much is left to reach our goal, not how far we’ve come!

Goal gradient effect was first coined by the behaviorist Clark L. Hull in 1932. Clark hypothesized that humans (although he experimented on rodents) have a tendency to increase their efforts when approaching a goal that's in proximity. In more relatable words, imagine yourself as a marathon runner, once you see the finish line, suddenly all the pain, fatigue, tiredness you felt a second ago, fades away! Your urge to hit the finish line kicks in, magically a source of energy you never knew you had appears. Somehow you start hearing "Eye of the tiger" theme song (or Rock's verse in face off for Gen Zs) urging you to give all you have in a one last push resulting in a mad dash to the finish line!

To put this theory to test, Rajesh Bagchi and Amar Cheema (2011) conducted an experiment asking participants to sustain their grip on a hand dynamometer for 130 seconds, meanwhile a gauge recorded the force they exerted. Those shown a countdown clock squeezed harder as the 130-second mark approached than those who couldn’t tell how much time was left.

In attempts to find more ways to influence consumer's decision making, Clark's theory was resurrected by Kivetz, Urminsky and Zheng in 2006. In their paper?"The Goal-Gradient Hypothesis Resurrected: Purchase Acceleration, Illusionary Goal Progress, and Customer Retention" they stated:

"We found that members of a café RP accelerated their coffee purchases as they progressed toward earning a free coffee. The goal-gradient effect also generalized to a very different incentive system, in which shorter goal distance led members to visit a song-rating Web site more frequently, rate more songs during each visit, and persist longer in the rating effort."

"Not only do customers accelerate toward rewards (in terms of timing, quantity, and persistence of effort), but their acceleration also predicts loyalty and future engagement with similar goals. For marketers, the goal gradient may provide profitable opportunities; In addition to facilitating segmentation, targeting, and promotions, the goal gradient may lead to a sales lift that exceeds the cost of the reward."

The most common practices in UX design, using goal gradient effect are badges and progress bars motivating us to complete a task, such as LinkedIn profile strength bar, encouraging us to complete our profiles .

The general Idea behind progress bars or loyalty programs is: "The closer users are to completing a task, the faster they work towards reaching it; therefore providing them with a clear indication of progress towards a goal, increases the probability of users having the motivation to complete that task."

Uber has benefited from goal gradient effect in tackling one of their user's most crucial pain points, The Wait! Waiting is one of the most tedious tasks in the world and never have I ever heard anyone say they enjoy waiting! Unfortunately for Uber, each minute users wait for their ride to arrive, affects their satisfaction and general experience with Uber. In addition to other methods, Uber used?a car animation on a map to indicate progress thus by providing a transparent waiting process, they changed their customer perceptions of time.

As always, the question arises, "how can I take advantage of this?" Clearly, we are programmed to accomplish tasks and reach goals! Rather than setting goals that are so far away that even the most powerful telescope cannot help us see them! Setting smaller attainable goals will get us there much faster. So, this year, instead of 52 books, lets aim for 10 pages a day. By the end of the year, we might not have read 52 books, but the result will be much more than we have achieved thus far! Or instead of aiming for loosing 20 pounds by June, let's make an effort to eat healthier at least one meal per day. In addition, instead of running in circles searching for secrets to a better life, lets find one skill we enjoy, learn it and afterwards implement it in our job or daily life, before moving on to the next skill!

Research has shown that once a goal is reached, a slowdown occurs which is called Post-reward resetting. "... in both incentive systems, we observed the phenomenon of post-reward resetting, whereby customers who accelerated toward their first reward exhibited a slowdown in their efforts when they began work (and subsequently accelerated) toward their second reward." (Kivetz, Urminsky & Zheng, 2006) To accelerate goal-gradient behavior in the beginning or in between goals, customers are motivated by bonus events designed to speed up their progress towards reaching their reward. Another way of encouraging customers is to use "Endowed progress effect"; Which means motivating your customers to complete a goal by providing them with some type of artificial advancement toward their goal. Just like that time when the barista at your favorite café ACCIDENTALLY stamped your coffee card twice!!

To avoid the set back caused by post reward resetting, we need to find incentives to keep us motivated. Another thing we need to keep an eye for is the fact that too many sub goals may also shift our focus away from our main goal.

While "Delay discounting" explains why many of us fail to accomplish our New Year's resolutions, the Goal Gradient Effect provides a way to achieve them!

"The easier a goal is to see, the closer it seems...We process visual representations in a manner similar to distance, influencing perceptions of proximity and effort as we pursue everyday tasks or make decisions about investing time and effort for a particular outcome, ... unpacking a goal into sub goals can make the tasks more manageable and may increase effort and performance" (Bagchi & Cheema, 2011)

Lastly, let's imagine a runner reaching a cross road with a finish line in sight at the end of each road! is it possible to run towards all of them at the same time? Nope! By setting to many goals, all at once, the only thing we manage to accomplish is setting ourselves up for failure.

Give this goal achieving hack a try and update me on the results or if you have already tried it, share your experiences with me.