Goal Setting and Achieving Them

Kaitlin Woolley, PhD candidate at the University of Chicago school of Business. She'll be joining the marketing faculty at Cornell University this summer as an assistant professor. The importance of delaying gratification is universally recognized. Being able to forgo immediate benefits in order to achieve larger goals in the future is viewed as a key skill. For example, consider the classic “marshmallow test” experiment: children’s ability to delay eating one marshmallow so that they can get two marshmallows later is linked to a number of positive life outcomes, including academic success and healthy relationships.  Kaitlin Woolley discusses what separates goals we achieve from the ones that we don’t.