Put your imperfections behind you: Temporal landmarks spur goal initiation when they signal new beginnings
Five laboratory experiments with 165 to 399 participants each. Describing 20 March as the first day of spring rather than the third Thursday in March raised the share choosing an email reminder from 7.23 to 25.61 per cent among 165 participants. Describing 14 May as the first day of a university summer break rather than an administrative day raised it from 4.35 to 28.57 per cent among 278 participants. In a writing task with 216 participants, heightening the meaning of New Year's Day raised goal-related website clicks from 0.21 to 0.62 on average and time reviewing from about 28 to about 41 seconds. Two further experiments tested goals that fit or clashed with a landmark and an imagined first move after nine years; in the latter, a mediation analysis linked higher goal motivation to psychological distance from a past self.
Five laboratory experiments with 165 to 399 participants each. Describing 20 March as the first day of spring rather than the third Thursday in March raised the share choosing an email reminder from 7.23 to 25.61 per cent among 165 participants. Describing 14 May as the first day of a university summer break rather than an administrative day raised it from 4.35 to 28.57 per cent among 278 participants. In a writing task with 216 participants, heightening the meaning of New Year's Day raised goal-related website clicks from 0.21 to 0.62 on average and time reviewing from about 28 to about 41 seconds. Two further experiments tested goals that fit or clashed with a landmark and an imagined first move after nine years; in the latter, a mediation analysis linked higher goal motivation to psychological distance from a past self.
Written from the full text, PubMed Central author manuscript, 2026-11-02.
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Dai, H., Milkman, K. L., & Riis, J. (2015). Put your imperfections behind you: Temporal landmarks spur goal initiation when they signal new beginnings. Psychological Science, 26(12), 1927-1936. doi:10.1177/0956797615605818 https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797615605818