Many of us have, at times, failed to pursue a goal, even an important one. We want to get in shape and join a gym, only to let our membership lapse and spend our evenings on the couch instead. Or we buy the ingredients to cook better food, only to revert to our expensive take-out habits soon enough. Such goal-pursuit failure is so common that we make New Year’s resolutions that we commit ourselves publicly to follow through on, only to admit defeat just a few weeks into the new year.
One of the most common reasons why we fail is lack of time. I found in my own research that people believe time to be a crucial ingredient in pursuing the most frequently pursued goals, such as working out, eating better, or learning a language or instrument (Steinmetz, 2024). The feeling that we don’t have enough hours in the day has become such an integral part of our lives that we almost take it for granted to never feel like we have enough time.
New research, however, shows a simple trick that allows us to get back some control and bounce back from goal-pursuit failure: Instead of saying that we didn’t have the time to go the gym, we can say that we didn’t make the time. This simple shift in language allows us to feel like how we dealt with our lack of time was a choice, and that we can change our approach in the future and regain motivation. We go from a helpless mindset about our busy schedules to a more active mindset of managing our time.
Luis Abreu and colleagues investigated this idea in a set of studies in a paper that is now in press. In a study with 300 online participants from the U.S., those instructed to speak about a goal-pursuit failure in terms of not having made the time to follow through (vs. the more common phrasing of not having had the time) were more motivated to get back on track with their goal. This effect even lasted some time, as people were still more motivated a week later. This interesting effect occurs because people feel more in control of their time when they talk about making the time, or even not making the time.
How we speak can have a powerful effect not only on others, but even on ourselves. When we fail at something, it’s up to us to tell ourselves a story about what happened, and how we can do better in the future. One way to help is to talk about time in a way that makes us its active managers, so we can find the motivation to make time to pursue our important goals.
