Should you set ambitious or easy goals?
Should you set an easy goal, like doing one push-up, or an ambitious goal, like playing tennis for one and half hours? It depends on a few factors:
First, your psychology: one person told me that he’s not motivated unless he has a goal more ambitious than can be achieved in the given time. On the other hand, I get stressed in such a situation. You already know your psychology and what’s right for you.
Second is the deadline: an easy goal lets you set a shorter deadline. I may not be able to play tennis for one and half hours before dinner, since it’s already 8:50 PM, but I can do one push-up. So, depending on the time available, an easy goal may be that all that’s feasible.
Third, I don’t exercise at all, so doing even one push-up is a start. When getting started and maintaining regularity — doing something, anything, every day — is more important, an easy goal with a shorter deadline works better. On the other hand, some goals, like flying to the other side of the world, can’t be broken down into small pieces. So, if a goal can be broken down, have an easy goal with a short deadline. This is a key insight of agile — split a gigantic project into hundreds of easy tasks, each of which launches when it’s done.
Fourth, an easy and an ambitious goal can go together: do one push-up before dinner, and play tennis for one and half hours by tomorrow. So it can be an easy and an ambitious goal, not or.
Fifth, are you making a commitment to others, say at work? If so, you want to err on the side of caution, since failing to deliver what you’ve committed will hurt your reputation as well as cause the client to ask for a financial adjustment. There’s some amount of grey area in what’s achievable next month. Commit the lower. In fact, ambitious projects have a greater chance of derailing, and the relationship is more than linear: A goal that’s twice as ambitious is more than twice as likely to derail. That’s all the more reason why you should be conservative in sharing commitments at work.