Just Try to Do Your Best!

Telling someone, or yourself, to just "do your best" is believed to be a great motivator. It isn't. Theoretically, it encourages without putting on too much pressure. In reality, and rather ironically, it is more-or-less permission to be mediocre.  

Edwin Locke and Gary Latham, two renown organizational psychologists, have spent several decades studying the difference between "do your best" goals and their antithesis: specific and difficult goals. Evidence from more than 1,000 studies conducted by researchers across the globe shows that goals that not only spell out exactly what needs to be accomplished, but that also set the bar for achievement high, result in far superior performance than simply trying to "do your best."  That's because more difficult goals cause you to, often unconsciously, increase your effort, focus and commitment to the goal, persist longer, and make better use of the most effective strategies.