Uploaded July 2020 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago

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Q: How do you get people to improve their performance in whatever it is they might be doing? A: Simply get them to set themselves a short-term goal and write it down. According to Professor Jonah Berger, it helps focus our efforts.
So what this means is that it is fine to sit down to do a listening task or a gap-filling activity say, but it is much better if before starting we tell ourselves: ‘I am going to get at least 7 out of the 10 questions right’ or ‘I am aiming for filling in 15 out of the 20 gaps correctly’. The ratio of effort expended in this small tweak in relation to the benefits is simply huge!


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