Stop Saying “Stop”: Approach Goals Help Social Teams Stick to Strategy

A PLOS One study separating “avoidance” goals (stop doing X) from “approach” goals (start doing Y) found people stick with approach goals more consistently. The key takeaway here: social programs are habit machines, and consistency compounds. Framing your objectives as positive, repeatable actions is more likely to survive the grind of weekly content calendars and stakeholder edits than a list of don’ts. What this means for creators and social teams: replace “stop doomscrolling” with “block two 30-minute creation sprints daily,” “don’t post salesy content” with “publish three educational posts and one community prompt per week,” and “don’t miss comments” with “reply to the first 10 comments within 30 minutes of posting.” These are actions you can schedule, assign, and measure. They also line up with platform-friendly behaviors-regular publishing, fast responses, and meaningful interaction-without hand-waving about algorithms.

Worth noting for brands: measure inputs you control, not just outputs you wish for. Swap “reduce low-quality reach” for “run one content experiment weekly based on the prior week’s insights,” “stop being inconsistent on Stories” for “post Stories five days a week with one poll or question sticker,” and “quit chasing vanity metrics” for “20-minute insights review each Friday to identify one action for next week.” The bigger picture: approach goals reduce mental friction and make progress visible, which keeps teams engaged and creates cleaner data for optimization. When the goal is “do this,” you can build checklists, automate reminders, and coach to completion; “don’t do that” is harder to track and easier to rationalize away. What this means for creators is simple: codify the behaviors that lead to compounding signals-publishing cadence, early comment replies, collaborations, and saves/DM-worthy content. Over time, those inputs reliably move the outputs. You don’t need a new algorithm hack; you need a better goal frame.