Give Yourself the Option of Doing Nothing

Inc.:

Should you write that blog post or tackle your budget mess? Go for a run or take that spin class? Make that sales call or work on your presentation?

The daily life of a business owner is filled with questions like these. But what if you could make it more likely that you would stick with whichever option you chose simply by reframing the question slightly?

A recent study from a pair of marketing professors out of Wharton and Georgia State University that will soon be published in the journal Psychological Science suggests that such a thing is actually possible. Rather than simply give yourself the option of A or B, the researchers suggest, you should give yourself the option of A, B, or do nothing.

“Though it may sound like a small change,” Knowledge@Wharton reports, the research “proved that…having the choice of not doing something can actually transform people’s likelihood of accomplishing their goals.”

Read the whole story: Inc.