Supriya Venkatesan, Founder & Master Coach, Samskara.co.
Our whole lives we are taught to set goals in the same, straightforward way. Create an outcome, and identify the milestones to get toward that path. Implement. Somewhere along the learning-how-to-accomplish-goals journey, you learn the S.M.A.R.T. way or the F.A.S.T. way or the objectives and key results (OKRs) way. And they all have the same pattern of creating a desired future and working intently toward that future.
But actually, it turns out our brains are wired for something different. Since our cavepeople days, our brains have been primed for survival. More than anything, we want to avoid danger, pain and suffering. We don’t naturally crave to have 10 times the productivity, increase key performance indicators (KPIs), meet deadlines or, say, sit down and write an article. On a primal level, we don’t yearn for progress; we naturally seek avoidance. This neural predisposition was a primary survival strategy for our ancestors, and it still is for us today, where it has been dubbed the “negativity bias.”
The almond-shaped amygdala buried deep within the brain is known for processing emotional responses, especially those related to fear and anxiety. When we envision potential pitfalls, the amygdala activates and we’re compelled to take action to avoid the negative outcome. But if we set a goal based on some achievement we want, the brain doesn’t activate with the same level of urgency. While the reward centers of the brain may light up, the response is not as intense as when the amygdala is involved. The need for survival is simply more powerful.
Proven Efficacy
The efficacy of anti-goals isn’t theory, it’s supported by empirical evidence.
Ample research studies highlight our innate negativity bias, which influences our motivation to complete tasks. This bias manifests as a stronger reaction to negative stimuli and a tendency to remember traumatic experiences more vividly. Therefore, when we frame an incentive as a means to avoid the loss of something, it significantly increases our motivation to pursue a goal.
Additionally, research on avoidance goals shares similar findings. A study from the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology showed that people acted more quickly by taking more immediate action steps and felt more driven when their goals were framed as something to avoid as opposed to something to approach.
It’s not just in the laboratory; in the business world it’s been proven as well. Charlie Munger, the renowned business partner of Warren Buffett, swears by the power of using anti-goals. Inspired by Munger and Buffett, Andrew Wilkinson and his partner, Chris Sparling, focused on what they didn’t want instead of what they did while building their venture.
They identified their worst possible day at work and then set up anti-goals to avoid such a day. Their anti-goals included avoiding things such as long meetings, packed calendars, dealing with people they didn’t trust and being out of control. They then devised strategies to avoid these scenarios, such as limiting scheduled time per day and refusing business or obligations with people they didn’t like. By avoiding undesirable scenarios, they maintained control over their businesses and enjoyed their work more.
The How
So how can you implement this seemingly strange goal-setting approach in your life? Here are some steps.
Identify The Negative
Start by identifying what you want to avoid (i.e., stress, conflicts, financial loss or some other negative outcome). Be specific and don’t hold back—this is your chance to focus on your fears and concerns.
Outline Your Anti-Goals
Once you know what you want to avoid and their consequences, you can create your anti-goals (i.e., if you want to prevent burnout, your anti-goal might be “I won’t work on weekends”).
Envision The Consequences
Visualize what will happen if you don’t avoid these outcomes. How will the negative outcomes affect your life? Your work? Your relationships? This step is critical because it heightens the urgency and compels your brain to take action.
Take Action
The final step is to take action. Remember, the whole point of setting anti-goals is to provoke a strong response from your brain that drives you to act immediately.
Here is an example of a fictional scenario:
Let’s say you’re the founder of a startup, and your normally created business goal is “increase annual revenue by 15%.” This is certainly clear and measurable, but you are struggling to meet this KPI, so you lean into the power of anti-goals.
The first step would be to think about the conditions that are preventing goal achievement. For example:
• Wasting time on unproductive meetings
• Taking on projects with a low profit margin
• Having poor communication within the team, which leads to project delays
Then you’d want to turn these potentially negative situations into anti-goals:
• Avoid unproductive meetings.
• Avoid accepting low-profit projects.
• Avoid inefficient team communication.
Then, you’d devise strategies to ensure these anti-goals are met:
• Limit meetings to only essential topics, and ensure they have a clear agenda and end time.
• Establish a minimum profit margin for the projects you accept.
• Encourage open communication and regular feedback, and use project management tools to enhance team collaboration.
By focusing on these anti-goals and visualizing their painful consequences, you help ensure that the conditions that would prevent you from reaching your revenue goal are avoided. By leveraging the natural negativity bias of the human brain, this approach stretches your mind, provides a wildly different perspective and increases motivation to achieve your ultimate business goal of increasing revenue by 15%.
By setting anti-goals, we can harness our brain’s inbuilt survival mechanisms and use them to achieve our goals faster and easier. And isn’t that what we all want—to reach our objectives while avoiding unnecessary strain and struggle along the way? What’s more human than that?
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