This year has come and gone along with my yoga goals. I vowed to master crow pose as part of my 2018 New Year’s resolutions but in fact I’ve done little yoga at all this year. With no group classes close by, I had decided to practice on my own but it soon became clear that I should probably have resolved to become more disciplined first.
Or maybe I just took the wrong approach?
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It’s widely accepted that setting specific goals is the best way to develop an exercise routine. The strategy is based on conducted over 30 years ago. The World Health Organization as well as personal trainers, who will often ask people to set a weight-loss goal and commit to a set number of gym visits per week. It’s also the idea behind wearable fitness trackers.
But researchers are now finding that flexible objectives can be motivational too. In fact, vague goals – such as
“do your best” – were found to be just as effective as specific ones in a by , then at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, and his team, and now at the University of Bath, in the UK. Others agree. “Setting planned goals is almost wasted effort,” says  at Southern Cross University, New South Wales, Australia, a researcher in sports and exercise psychology. “In physical activity, that’s a recent idea.”
Broad goals seem to work especially well for people new to an activity. Swann thinks that precise goals can be detrimental at this stage because the focus should be on learning the basics. If someone is riding a bicycle for the first time, for example, they need to achieve balance and figure out how to steer straight without worrying about pedalling a certain distance in a given time. “That’s where the contradiction arises,” says Swann.
Although I’ve practiced yoga for a few years, acrobatic moves are new to me. In January, I did repeatedly try to get into crow pose but soon got discouraged because I didn’t seem to be progressing. And I wasn’t enjoying yoga as much either.
Swann and his colleagues are finding that different types of goals can affect how a person engages psychologically with an activity. His team is interested in open goals: vague goals that are exploratory in nature such as “see how well you can do” and “see how active you can be”. In interviews with elite athletes, Swann and his team found . Their follow-up research suggests that psychological factors may be at play. “Confidence is higher when pursuing an open goal compared to an equally difficult specific goal,” says Swann.
Open goals can also make people feel less pressured, causing them to stick with exercise. Whereas goal planning is typically focused on outcomes, adherence rates are also an important measure of success. “Someone might stick to a goal-setting intervention, but could be completely sick of it by the end and therefore not be any more active six months later,” he says.
In fact, only 10 per cent of New Year’s resolutions last until December and most are abandoned in March.
Enjoyment seems to play a major role in maintaining an exercise routine. Many people may be motivated by the buzz they get afterwards, but . “If someone feels horrendous while they’re exercising, they’re not as likely to stay active longer term,” says Swann.
Personally, I find that doing yoga with others makes it more enjoyable and distracts me from the frustration – or pain – of getting into certain poses. Swann says that incentives, reward and self-monitoring can help too, and that using multiple strategies is more effective than just one.
This year, I plan to take Swann’s advice and take an exploratory approach. My goal is to take different classes in my area, see which ones I enjoy and take it from there.
As for Swann, he says setting open goals is the only way he can get himself to exercise regularly, whether it’s running or swimming. “I don’t find it easy to follow programmes mapped out in advance, because you’re essentially trying to control the future and we know it’s completely unpredictable,” he says. ”All sorts of things can happen.”
Happy Open 2019!
