The Magic of Aiming for 80%
A few years ago, when I was working through a life envisioning/goal setting program, I came across the factoid that workers at Google (I believe) set goals where they were only likely to hit 80% of them.
Why 80% and not a 100%?
Because this allowed individuals to make goals that felt like a stretch while removing the pressure of perfection (by making 80% good enough vs. 100% the ultimate goal), allowing spacious room for error/growth, while still aiming really big and increasing the likelihood of further innovation.
Absolute Genius
And vice versa; if they set too high of goals that they knew they only had a 40 or 60% chance of hitting, for example, they would already feel discouraged out of the gate by the likely results and feel like they were ‘failing’ at their goal…which is not so motivating.
So they learned that aiming to hit 80% of a goal seemed to be the sweet spot for growth, progress and innovation.
What does this mean for us?
Let's Go with This Example:
Say we set out to work out 4-5 days a week at the beginning of January.
[Math time, woohoo!!]
4 weeks in January x working out 4-5 days a week=16-20 workouts goal total; If we completed 16-20 workouts, we hit 100% of our goal.
And if calculate the 80% completion mark, that would be ~13-16 workouts total in Jan!
We can use this rad concept to not only review our goals/progress for the month, but also use this as a metric to set up our goals for the following month.
But what if you hit 50% of your goal or less?
Well first, we absolutely wanna give ourselves props for what we did and from there, can adjust our plan for Feb to set ourselves up for that 80% success rate.
Continuing to use the workouts as an example, let’s say you hit 50% of what you planned to do. So you wanted to do 4-5 workouts a week in Jan, but perhaps it looked more like 1-2 workouts a week (again, BRAVO!!).
So now, for the month of Feb, you want to BUILD on what you’ve already been doing, so instead of aiming for the same 4-5 workouts a week, as you planned to do in Jan, you decide to plan on doing 2-3 workouts per week in Feb (because it's based on what you've been doing, and involves that bit of stretch to eventually get you were you want to go, which is that original goal of 4-5x a week).
2-3 workouts per week x4 weeks in Feb= 8-12 workouts total in Feb to aim for, and this would equal 100% (your NEW 100%)
80% would be: 8 or 12 x 0.80= 6-10 workouts total in Feb.
So adjusting your goal to aim for that 80% completion rate gives you that edge and room to improve, progress and continuing to challenge yourself in that healthy way, and releases some of that pressure to aim for 100% (and if you hit it 100%, cool!!)
Also, notice how I included a range. I.e. the “6-10” workouts instead of simple “10 workouts” because sometimes life happens, and our best looks different on different days and different week. Giving ourselves a range to hit gives us room to breathe and space to grow and who doesn't love that?
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So as we’re about to head into a new month together, this can be a great time to reflect on how our Jan progress and use it to set ourselves up for a fantastic Feb!!
So now I’d love to hear from you! Comment below or send a line to hello@jasmineraecoaching.com to let me know how the first month of your year went, and your range/80% for the next month :D
