Use learning goals instead of performance goals on novel tasks
When the skill is new, a "figure out how to do X" goal outperforms "achieve X by date."
Key takeaways
- What it is: When the skill is new, a "figure out how to do X" goal outperforms "achieve X by date."
- Why it works: On complex or novel tasks, setting a specific performance outcome too early directs attention to outcomes before the person has the strategies to achieve them, producing anxiety rather than adaptation. Learning goals ("identify three effective approaches") direct attention toward strategy acquisition, which is the actual bottleneck. Once strategies are in place, performance goals become productive.
- Evidence: Backed by randomized trials / meta-analyses.
- Avoid: Jumping to an ambitious performance target on a skill you have not yet learned, then interpreting early failure as lack of talent rather than a sequencing error.
Why it works
On complex or novel tasks, setting a specific performance outcome too early directs attention to outcomes before the person has the strategies to achieve them, producing anxiety rather than adaptation. Learning goals ("identify three effective approaches") direct attention toward strategy acquisition, which is the actual bottleneck. Once strategies are in place, performance goals become productive.
How to do it
- 1Before setting a performance target, ask: "Do I already know how to do this well?"
- 2If no: set a learning goal — a specific number of strategies or approaches to identify and test.
- 3Once you have tested at least two approaches and have a working method, shift to a performance goal.
- 4Keep the learning and performance phases explicitly separate.
What the evidence says
RCT / meta-analysisSeijts and Latham’s experimental research found that learning goals outperformed specific performance goals on complex novel tasks, with the advantage attributed to strategy development that performance goals inadvertently suppressed.
Honest caveat: The advantage of learning goals is most pronounced in early-stage or genuinely complex tasks; for well-practised skills, performance goals remain superior.
- — Seijts & Latham (2001), "Learning versus performance goals: When should each be used?", Academy of Management Executive
Common mistake
Jumping to an ambitious performance target on a skill you have not yet learned, then interpreting early failure as lack of talent rather than a sequencing error.
IX Coach distinguishes whether you are in a learning phase or a performance phase on each goal and matches the goal type to the phase — learning goals when you are building, performance goals when you are executing.
Practice this with IX Coach →