How Daffodils Can Turn Your Good Intentions into Actual Results
5 simple actions to help turn your New Year’s resolutions into reality.
“I’ll do it tomorrow”. It’s the first line of an inner dialogue we are all familiar with.
Around this time of the year, we start to reflect upon our goals for 2021 and dream up ambitious New Year’s resolutions for 2022. We also know that many of them will be dropped in February at the latest.
The daffodil experiment explains why it’s so difficult to turn good intentions into actual results. Avoid this trap through five simple actions to realize your goals in 2022.
The Daffodil Experiment
Every year in May, students at Ivy League universities can buy daffodils on campus, and all proceeds go directly to cancer research.
Two researchers asked students whether they would buy any daffodils before the annual drive to predict sales. They then checked in with the participants afterwards to see if they had actually done so.
Before the daffodil days, 83% of students said they would buy a flower. However, only 43% ended up doing it.
The experiment illustrates something we intuitively all know: following through on good intentions is difficult.
How to turn your intentions into results
“Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work.”
— Peter Drucker
Realizing an aim requires hard work, but this is no simple task. Use these five simple actions to stay focused in achieving your goals.
1. Where to start.
Ambitious intentions can often seem overwhelming. Self-doubts creep in from the very beginning: “I’ll never manage this. There’s no point in trying”.
I see this in my students when they are first confronted with a new challenge in school. They are discouraged and often don’t know where to start.
Make your goals manageable by breaking them down into small achievable steps.
Think of running a marathon. You would never start by trying to run 42km on the first day of training. You start small and build up your conditioning day-by-day. The end result is the sum of small, continuous efforts.
Focus on the process, rather than the final achievement. You will find yourself moving forwards step-by-step.
2. Done is better than perfect.
Ambitious intentions require us to leave our comfort zone and engage in something new. This often leaves us feeling vulnerable and open to criticism.
Publishing my first article online left me feeling completely exposed. But, if I had expected myself to produce something perfect, I wouldn’t have written anything at all.
Progressing towards a goal requires accepting imperfection. Aiming to be perfect will hinder you from starting because you set yourself up to fail.
Instead of setting unachievable standards for yourself, focus simply on doing something towards the achievement of your goal.
3. How to stay positive.
Realizing ambitious intentions requires a number of micro-steps which might not show any visible progress. To keep a positive attitude, avoid pressuring yourself with an overloaded to-do list. Instead, ensure to reward yourself for actions taken in progressing towards your goal.
Rewards allow you to switch off and feel good about yourself. This could be taking a day off or just buying a good coffee, but make sure to give yourself a break.
Do something you enjoy as a reward for working on your goal and create a positive feedback loop for yourself.
4. The key to motivation.
Doing the actual work towards realizing a goal can be tedious. It can involve hours of training, studying, or writing and staying disciplined can be difficult. Identifying what really motivates you can help you remain on-track.
The strongest forms of motivation are intrinsic and tie into our basic needs. They link with what we truly want from life, for example:
- Helping others
- Socializing
- Being competitive
If you understand what truly motivates you, you can trick your mind by including it in your intentions. If your goal is to do more sports and you are motivated by being competitive, find a sports buddy to contend with.
Frame your intentions within your overarching needs to keep up your motivation.
5. Non-critical essentials.
The daffodil experiment is not without flaws. The researchers themselves write that many more students may have bought flowers if they had been “calmly greeted by a charming fraternity brother at the precise moment when they happened to be carrying some “extra” cash”. This framing is idealistic, but it shows the importance of environment in following through on good intentions.
Building an environment that drives you forward is key to achieving your goals. This may mean buying a new high-tech watch to get yourself excited about running or finding a mentor you trust to guide you in your career.
Surround yourself with the right people and get access to the resources you need to create an environment that not only allows you but rather one that requires you to succeed.
Takeaway
The daffodil experiment shows that simply having good intentions is not enough. It takes a lot of effort and will to follow through on them. Remember the five simple actions to ensure you belong to the 43% who do:
- Break down your goals into smaller actions until you reach one that feels manageable.
- Do something imperfectly rather than nothing perfectly.
- Reward yourself for progress.
- Link your intention to your most basic needs to stay motivated.
- Create an environment that drives you to success.