10 suggestions for creating functional goals to prevent procrastination:
- Determine your goal. Break your general goal into smaller parts by turning it into a specific goal.
- Take note of how long you have been aiming for this goal and how difficult it is to achieve it.
- Think about what may or may not be an obstacle to realization.
- Think about what you can do to remove these obstacles and get support from your social circle or an expert.
- Take note of why this goal is important to you.
- Think about whether this goal is something you really want or a goal that has been imposed on you.
- Make sure your goal is attainable.
- Make sure your goal is measurable.
- Put time into your goal.
- Reward yourself for every small progress.
Let’s consider these steps with a general example:
Your general goal is “Improve my foreign language.” I want it to happen.
First, transform your general goal into a specific goal. For example, ‘I want to improve my English. However, this goal also needs more specification. In order to develop this skill, you need to determine what the skill is, how long you want to develop it and how you will measure your progress.
Therefore, in this example target, increasing my English language level to B2 level by the end of 2024 can be made a functional target. It is very important to think about what can be done for this and the obstacles in front of you. For example, “Learning 50 new words a week.” and “Taking an online course twice a week.” are intermediate small goals that lead to the main goal. You can reward yourself at these steps.
These timings you set should be suitable for your lifestyle and achievable. For example; One of the obstacles for this person in improving his English may be not finding the time to go to the course. Although such a situation sounds simple, it can be overlooked if it is not specifically thought about. Online education will be an option that can overcome this obstacle for the person. ‘TOEFL’ can be a measure of your goal. Remind yourself from time to time why this goal is important to you. For example, passing the exam may be important to getting a promotion.
As a result, creating your goal functionally and realistically will increase your chances of achieving your goal and will curb your procrastination behavior.
How to create functional goals:
Functional goals are a critical component of strategic planning. Here are some steps to help you create functional goals:
- Outline expectations: Define the enterprise and business context upfront for all stakeholders to prevent misunderstandings and derailing the process. Identify which stakeholder(s) will ultimately sign off on your strategy and budget plans1.
- Commit to being strategic-minded: Before you even start your functional planning process, commit to keeping a strategic mindset. Don’t allow yourself to be hijacked by short-termism, tactical execution plans, and other check-the-box activities. View your function’s cost architecture through the lens of business value, and view cost optimization as a continuous discipline focused on directing resources (time, capabilities, and budget) to differentiating growth initiatives, such as digitalization1.
- Take a methodical step-by-step approach: The best functional plans identify select initiatives that will drive enterprise ambitions and commit the capacity (time, budget, talent, and technology) necessary to execute successfully. These nine steps provide a guide by which functional leaders can ensure a rigorous approach to planning, however adaptive their enterprise’s strategy:
- Outline expectations
- Commit to being strategic-minded
- Identify the most critical business outcomes
- Identify the most critical capabilities
- Identify the most critical processes
- Identify the most critical technologies
- Identify the most critical talent
- Identify the most critical risks
- Develop a comprehensive plan
- Be clear and concise: Ensure that your functional goals are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART). Use clear and concise language to communicate your goals to all stakeholders.
Goal-oriented rewards as key factors in decision-making
Groundbreaking research from UC Berkeley’s Department of Psychology is shifting the understanding of human decision-making processes by highlighting the importance of goal-oriented rewards. Conducted by Berkeley Psychology Professor Anne Collins and Berkeley Psychology doctoral student Gaia Molinaro, the study[1] suggests that the value people attribute to outcomes is subjective, and heavily influenced by their personal goals and the context of the decision.
“Value isn’t just determined by an objective reward or outcome,” Collins said. “Our research suggests that people’s perception of value is largely shaped by their personal goals and the context in which the decision is made.”
For example, you might order a chocolate ice cream cone and be perfectly satisfied with your choice. But if you then find out that there’s another flavor available, you might feel less satisfied with your initial selection. In this case, the objective value of the ice cream cone hasn’t changed. What’s changed is your subjective perception of its value relative to the newfound best option, thus highlighting the impact of goal achievement on decision-making.
Using data collected from over 1,000 individuals by various laboratories, the Berkeley team has confirmed this theory by developing an “intrinsically enhanced” reinforcement learning model. While other theories propose that subjective value is simply adjusted based on different observed alternatives, the model developed by Berkeley researchers offers a new perspective: it centers around the concept that achieving a goal is crucial. The intrinsically enhanced model is not the first to examine this phenomenon, but it does provide a new way to understand the problem.
“Our study proposes a paradigm shift in how we understand decision-making,” Molinaro said. “It shows the critical importance of considering goal-dependent rewards, which may significantly alter our understanding of decision-making processes.”[2]
References:
- Kenny Ma, Psychology study reveals goal-oriented rewards as key factors in decision-making, UC Berkeley Letters & Science. (July 17, 2023)
- Molinaro G, Collins AGE (2023) Intrinsic rewards explain context-sensitive valuation in reinforcement learning. PLoS Biol 21(7): e3002201. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.3002201