Our goals are usually framed in one of two ways. Either they’re about doing more of something good, or they’re about doing less of something bad. A wide range of research suggests that the first type (known as “approach” goals) are better than the second (“avoidance” goals) at encouraging high performance—even if they’re pursuing the same broad outcome. In fact, when psychologists Andrew Elliot and Marcy Church worked with a large group of students at the University of Rochester to track the effects of different types of personal goals on the students’ grades, they found that avoidance goals
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