Recommendation
The human brain prioritises survival above achievement. Thus, fear is naturally more compelling than hope, and loss is a more potent motivator than gain. Executive coach Supriya Venkatesan recommends leveraging this human weakness to help you reach your objectives. Counterintuitively, by working toward your “anti-goals,” your ultimate goal might just be within reach.
Take-Aways
- Research confirms an inherent “negativity bias” in humans, which makes the fear of loss more motivating than the anticipation of reward.
- To set “anti-goals,” begin by imagining your worst possible day.
- When you start with what you don’t want, you examine your goals from a fresh vantage point.
Summary
Research confirms an inherent “negativity bias” in humans, which makes the fear of loss more motivating than the anticipation of reward.
Popular methods for setting and reaching goals usually involve determining your destination, deciding upon the milestones you must reach to get there, and then executing. Alas, your brain is not wired to achieve goals in such a linear way. The human brain, specifically the amygdala region that is responsible for fear and anxiety, is programmed for survival. Thus, it responds more urgently to avoiding pain and suffering than to working toward an achievement. Scientists call this phenomenon the “negativity bias.”
“On a primal level, we don’t yearn for progress; we naturally seek avoidance.”
Multiple studies confirm the presence of negativity bias in humans. But research published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology took the theory a step further. It examined whether subjects could harness the negativity bias in order to reach their ultimate goals. Participants were encouraged to frame their goals in terms of avoiding negative outcomes rather than achieving positive results. They reported higher levels of motivation and a greater readiness to take action to reach their goals immediately than people who focused exclusively on desired results.
To set “anti-goals,” begin by imagining your worst possible day.
The late Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett’s close friend and business partner, credited much of his success to the formulation of anti-goals. So how can you harness the power of anti-goals? Instead of filling your head with fantasies of success, imagine your worst possible day. What would that entail?
“When we frame an incentive as a means to avoid the loss of something, it significantly increases our motivation to pursue a goal.”
Andrew Wilkinson and Chris Sparling, co-founders of Tiny Capital, used the anti-goal method to shape their decisions. When envisioning their worst workday, they pictured back-to-back meetings with people they neither liked nor trusted. From there, they made goals to limit daily meetings, and they vowed to do business only with people they liked. When your default is set to evade unpleasantness, you ultimately wield more control over your decisions and reap more enjoyment from your work.
Emulate Wilkinson and Sparling by applying this offbeat goal-setting tool to your work:
- Identify the negative – Determine the aspects of work you want to avoid – for example, stress.
- List your anti-goals – Define how you can avoid the negative scenario – for instance, choosing not to work on weekends.
- Visualize the repercussions – Picture the worst-case scenario if you fail to realise your anti-goals.prioritises
- Execute – Anti-goals encourage you to take immediate action, so respond to that impetus.
When you start with what you don’t want, you examine your goals from a fresh vantage point.
Imagine you’re an entrepreneur, and you’ve been aiming to increase annual revenue by 15%. But despite repeated efforts, you continually fail to reach this metric. To transform your goal into an anti-goal, lean into the conditions that are keeping you from attaining your objective. Are you wasting time in pointless meetings? Are you taking on projects with low profit margins? Perhaps communication problems hinder your projects’ completion. Congratulations! You’ve identified your anti-goals: You want to avoid futile meetings, unclear communication and low-profit projects.
“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?”
By figuring out what you don’t want, you begin looking at your goals from a fresh perspective. From here, you can brainstorm strategies to sidestep negative consequences. For instance, to avoid pointless meetings, you could establish rules on meeting etiquette: They must be necessary, and have a clear agenda and schedule. To avoid projects with low profit margins, define the minimum profit margin for the projects you accept. To eliminate poor communications, develop a culture of feedback within your company, and use project management tools to heighten collaboration and communication.
Ultimately, anti-goals harness the brain’s negativity bias to help you overcome obstacles and sidestep adversity on the path to achieving your goals.
About the Author
Executive coach and serial entrepreneur Supriya Venkatesan is the founder of Samskara, a leadership coaching company that employs neuroscience tools to unlock individual potential.
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