Get it Done: Surprising Lessons from the Science of Motivation

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Rewards and punishments motivate action by creating immediate mini-goals to your main goal. Let’s go and grab a coffee at your favorite coffee spot for this little example. How much is your latte these days, or your flat white or whatever else you like? Does your inside voice tell you: this is too much? P100 “While most people are enthusiastic and conscientious at the beginning and at the end of goal pursuit, in the middle, both the motivation to get it done and the motivation to do it right tend to suffer.”

Here’s another example. Imagine you’re doing yoga. You’re at home, on your mat. And while you’re in downward dog you come eye to eye with a giant dust ball. Maybe that’s the last straw. Maybe it’s at this point that you realize it’s actually been forever since you’ve last cleaned. And so, you get up and whip out the vacuum cleaner. Right. Now. In this case, your sense of falling behind ended up motivating action. Whether starting a new diet, running a marathon, or gunning for a promotion, Get It Done illuminates invaluable strategies for propelling yourself in whatever direction you want to go—so you can achieve your goals while staying healthy, clear-headed, and happy. Setting and achieving goals—at work, at home, and in relationships—is harder than it seems. And while countless books and articles have been written on the subject, most are not penned by serious behavioral scientists at the forefront of this discipline. Fishbach explained that goals are more likely to be successful in the long term if they’re intrinsically motivated (a concept many misunderstand). Intrinsic motivation means that an activity feels good as you’re doing it and you’re pursuing the task as its own end. In other words, you’re doing it just to do it. I mean it wasn't as heavy on the theory part, but towards the end, there was a lot more examples of this type of motivation than this other one and they just became like a numeration and not quite a manual on how to get motivated.This is called the “goal gradient effect” in motivation science. It just means that the more progress you’ve made, the more excited you are to continue. Basically, the glass-half-full motivator. Role models are important figures in your life for your model is selling to whom you feel close into this place of qualities you'd like to see in yourself. ... you feel you have somewhat overlapping identities. You could potentially be like them, so they inspire you." You can only become truly accomplished at something you love. Don’t make money your goal. Instead pursue the things you love doing and then do them so well that people can’t take their eyes off of you.”

When you find yourself facing a goal that's highly important, framing your progress based on what you haven't yet accomplished may be more motivating than thinking about what you've already done." In Get It Done, psychologist and behavioral scientist Ayelet Fishbach presents a new theoretical framework for self-motivated action, explaining how to: A great deal of ink has been spilled on the subject of motivating and influencing others, but what happens when the person you most want to influence is you? great goals: are not proxies/means to other goals, are specific, have potential to fail, great incentives, intrinsicFinally, think about times that you’ve been successful and unsuccessful in achieving your past goals. Thinking about successes is kinda easy, right? But we’ve all messed up at one point. I know I have. I’ve tried, I’ve failed, I’ve tried, I’ve failed again. So, how about learning from those failures? If you’re someone who struggles to lean into your mistakes, you’re not alone – but you are missing out on a bunch of important information. P40 “According to the dilution principle,” the more goals, including incentives, a single activity serves, the more weakly we associate the activity with our central goal and the less instrumental the activity seems for this goal.” Book Genre: Audiobook, Business, Nonfiction, Personal Development, Productivity, Psychology, Self Help We can use this principle to increase patience. All we need to do is introduce more time before the smaller-sooner option becomes available.