For newbies to physical workouts (and there will be a lot of those come New Year’s resolutions), research now suggests that non-specific, do-your-best goals may be more effective than getting too specific.

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In one study, participants were asked to walk for 6 minutes. They were either asked to set open goals (see how far you can go), asked to do their best (DYB), or asked to set SMART goals. No matter which approach was used, there was no difference in how far (and therefore how fast) people walked.

Those “who were assigned open and DYB goals were more likely to report psychologically adaptive experiences (i.e. flow states, intrinsic motivation, confidence, challenge perceptions)”.

When it comes to creativity, Simon Pietsch from the University of Adelaide, with colleagues from Perth, Denmark and Norway, have just published the results of a study on goal setting and creativity in the journal Educational Psychology. Participants had to come up with alternative uses for a paperclip.

In two minutes, they either had to “see how many” ideas they could generate, do their best to generate alternatives, or they had to choose a specific goal of how many they aimed to generate. Turns out there were no differences in performance between the three approaches.

Given the ubiquitous and largely uncritical embrace of SMART goals at work, at the very least the increasing body of research (that actually dates back to the 1980s or before), suggests it is time for a rethink. And that time is now.

Maybe, if you are lucky enough to have some time over the summer to consider your life direction and career, or are forced to if your employment has ended, you might wish to explore how many alternative career paths you can think of, or failing that, do your best to think up as many alternative careers as possible.

There you are, I’ve set you some nice open and do your best goals to kick off your new year!

Dr Jim Bright, FAPS, is a director at IWCA Pty Ltd and director of Evidence & Impact at BECOME Education. Email to [email protected]. Follow him on Blue Sky @DrJimBright.bsky.social