It takes more than "lock in"

We obsess over goal-setting but miss what actually gets us to the finish line.

Photo by Michael Carruth on Unsplash

Hello from the great city of Chicago, where my wife is running in the Chicago Marathon today. Soon I’ll hit the streets to cheer for her and the tens of thousands of other runners.

I’ve always been in awe of anyone who runs a marathon. And when my wife became a runner, my admiration deepened as I saw firsthand the preparation one needs to do to prepare oneself for those 26.2 miles.

You set the goal months in advance, declaring it to family, friends, and importantly, yourself. I’m running a marathon. Then you have to train, day in and day out. That means getting in your miles through frigid winter, rainy spring, and scorching hot summer days. Head colds and body aches. Busy work days and vacations. As the weeks and months roll on, the runs become increasingly more daunting as you grind out 10-, 13-, 15-, and 20-milers. Until race day comes.

How do runners do it? How do any of us endure the grueling gauntlet between declaring the goal and completing it?

The Great Lock In challenge of 2025 would have you believe that it’s all about the step of setting the goal. State that you’re going to do it and make it happen—lock in. Sounds simple enough. And yet, that strategy usually doesn’t work. Many of us are great at goal-setting, but far fewer of us are great at goal-completing.

So what gives? A recent study found that goal-setting—the “locking in” part—is not enough to get us there. And when we fixate on goal-setting, we miss what actually gets us to our objectives.

The study, which was published in Psychological Science last summer, focused on motivation. What are the forces that propel us across the finish line? The study centered around two types of motivation: extrinsic and intrinsic:

• Extrinsic motivation: “the extent to which goal pursuit is experienced as a means to an end.”

• Intrinsic motivation: “the extent to which the same goal pursuit is experienced as an end in itself.”

In other words, extrinsic motivation is all about pursuing a goal to achieve some kind of reward, like weight loss, a new skill, or a work promotion. Intrinsic motivation is about finding reward in the pursuit of the goal.

Here’s how these two types of motivation play out for a runner:

• Extrinsic motivation: Driven by the end result of completing a marathon.

• Intrinsic motivation: Driven by the experience of training for a marathon.

The study found that you need both types of motivation to improve your odds of reaching your goal. Extrinsic motivation is great for getting you started—you’re motivated to set a goal because you want to get healthier or check something off your bucket list. But intrinsic motivation will help you actually follow through—you genuinely enjoy the steps needed to make progress toward the goal.

You can think of the two types of motivation as two different types of fuel for a rocket ship. The first one (extrinsic) is the fuel that launches the rocket. The second one (intrinsic) is the fuel that sustains the entire space journey.

This study helped me understand how marathon runners achieve such extraordinary feats. My wife loves to run. The pursuit of the goal is rewarding to her. That is how she is able to endure the long, difficult stretch of training. She is intrinsically motivated. The work is not just a means to an end—it is an end in itself.

Here’s how the researchers described it: “For example, the degree to which runners associate running with long-term health captures their extrinsic motivation; the extent to which they find running inherently enjoyable captures their intrinsic motivation.”

This is why so many of us are so bad at achieving our goals. We fixate on the destination but give less thought to the journey. And if you hate the journey, you’re less likely to arrive at the destination.

One reason for this is something called present bias. We give preference to the rewards we can have right now over the rewards we can have in the future. Goal-setting is about pledging to get a long-term reward, like the feeling of having a big savings balance. But as you pursue the goal, your present bias kicks in and pushes you toward rewards you can get now, which may conflict with that long-term reward. But if the process of getting to your goal is a reward in and of itself, then present bias will work in your favor.

Which begs the question: What if you really want to achieve a goal but are dreading the steps needed to get there?

Researchers offered tips for making the journey more rewarding.

They suggested using a strategy called temptation bundling. This works by pairing one activity you don’t want to do (go to the gym) with one you like (listening to audiobooks). When you bundle a temptation with an arduous task, you make the less appealing experience more rewarding. It also helps to simply give more attention to the parts of the process that you will enjoy. Sure, a long run on a cold day isn’t going to be all that fun. But it will give you ample time to yourself to listen to your favorite music.

Good luck to anyone running a marathon today and in the future.

Eric