What do highly motivated people know? Balancing goals, prioritizing actions

Abstract

Highly motivated individuals are healthier, more academically and professionally successful, and have stronger relationships. What sets these individuals apart? We propose that highly motivated individuals know when to balance versus prioritize goals. Specifically, they seek harmony between their multiple goals: they see these goals as advancing or complementing each other (e.g., balancing work and family, finding foods that are both tasty and healthy). They also seek to prioritize pursuing a subset of these goals within a given time and place. They make consistent action choices that highlight more important goals (e.g., prioritize studying over social media while in class). The intuition to balance goals and prioritize actions is acquired through social learning and can be enhanced through mindfulness. In turn, it enables self-regulatory success.