Choosing to lose it: The role of autonomous motivation in goal disengagement.

When people hit roadblocks with their personal goals, goal disengagement is an adaptive response associated with improved mental and physical health. However, people can have trouble letting go of goals, even when pursuing them is problematic. We introduce a motivational model of goal disengagement by proposing that having autonomous motivation to disengage (a sense of truly identifying with the decision) as opposed to controlled motivation to disengage (feeling forced to let go) allows for people to make greater progress disengaging from specific goals, and prevents people getting stuck in an "inaction crisis" where they feel torn between disengaging further or re-adopting the goal. Using prospective longitudinal designs, we tracked the goal disengagement of personal goals in university students (Study 1, N = 510) and a general adult sample of Americans (Study 2, N = 446), finding that autonomous motivation for goal disengagement facilitated making disengagement progress. This work expands our understanding of the role of autonomous motivation throughout a goal's lifecycle and helps integrate different theoretical frameworks on goal motivation and self-regulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]