Why do so many people struggle to stick with their goals, even when they start with the best intentions? What if the problem isn’t your willpower, but how you design and pursue your objectives?
Ayelet Fishbach’s Get It Done: Surprising Lessons From the Science of Motivation reveals science-backed strategies for achieving what matters most. Fishbach’s approach shows how to craft compelling objectives, push through the inevitable middle slump, and balance competing priorities without burning out.
Read on to discover how small changes in your goal-setting strategy can improve your success rate and help you finally accomplish what you’ve been putting off.
Overview of Get It Done: Surprising Lessons From the Science of Motivation
Ayelet Fishbach’s Get It Done: Surprising Lessons From the Science of Motivation explains how to make your goals easier to pursue using the science of motivation. She provides tips for setting goals that motivate you, maintaining that motivation throughout the journey, and juggling multiple goals at once. Whether you want to exercise more, save money, or advance your career, Fishbach’s strategies can help you finally get it done.
Fishbach is a psychologist and expert on motivation and decision-making, and a professor of behavioral science and marketing at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. She also served as the president of the Society for the Science of Motivation and the International Social Cognition Network (ISCON). She holds a PhD in psychology from Tel Aviv University and has been recognized with the Provost’s Teaching Award from the University of Chicago.
In this overview of the book Get It Done: Surprising Lessons From the Science of Motivation, we’ll start by explaining what makes goals motivating and how to create them. Then, we’ll examine strategies to stick with your goals, including how to overcome the middle-phase slump and strengthen your self-control. Finally, we’ll discuss how to balance multiple goals by finding activities that serve multiple purposes and working with others.
How to Set Motivating Goals
Fishbach says that the way you design your goal matters and that you’re more likely to succeed when you set goals you’ll feel motivated to pursue. This is because goals guide your actions and decisions: Well-designed goals help you stay focused and show you how to achieve them. In contrast, poorly designed goals don’t make it clear what you need to do and cause you to get frustrated and give up on them.
Fishbach provides three tips for creating a motivating goal: Focus on outcomes, frame your goals positively, and add specific numbers. Let’s explore each of these tips in detail.
Tip 1: Focus on the Outcome
First, Fishbach suggests you make your goal an outcome, not a stepping stone toward an outcome. This is because outcome-focused goals paint a picture of what you want in life, which excites you and makes you more motivated to do the work to achieve them—you’re more likely to stick to your goals when you think about the good things that will happen rather than the difficult steps you’ll encounter.
To create an outcome-focused goal, frame it in terms of the benefits you want instead of the costs of getting there. For example, instead of saying “My goal is to write 500 words a day” (which focuses on the work), say “My goal is to become a published author” (which focuses on the reward). However, be careful not to make your goal too abstract. When a goal is too vague, it turns into a fantasy rather than something you can work toward. The best abstract goals describe what you want to achieve while still helping you see the steps you need to take to get there.
Tip 2: Frame Goals Positively
Fishbach’s second tip for designing your goal is to frame your goals positively rather than negatively—that is, to focus on things you want to achieve instead of what you want to avoid. This is because we tend to feel more motivated when working to achieve something good because it feels rewarding, whereas avoiding something unpleasant feels like a chore. For example, “I want to be more productive” is typically more motivating than “I want to stop being lazy.”
However, avoidance goals can still be effective in certain situations, such as when safety is at stake—like quitting smoking to prevent health problems. Your personality also plays a role in which type of goal motivates you more. Fishbach explains that people tend to fall into two categories: pursuers, who are driven by the chance to achieve or gain something, and preventers, who are motivated by avoiding mistakes or setbacks. For preventers, avoidance goals can work well.
Tip 3: Add Numbers to Your Goal
While your overall goal should focus on an outcome, Fishbach recommends adding numerical benchmarks to help you track progress toward that outcome. Numbers support your goal by creating clear milestones and helping you understand how to use your time, money, and energy most effectively to reach the goal.
Fishbach explains that numbers motivate us because of how our brains work: We naturally fear falling short of a target more than we enjoy going over it—a psychological bias called loss aversion. Therefore, a specific number serves as a clear marker of whether you succeed or fail, and your brain treats falling short of that number as a loss. This fear of loss pushes you to work harder than if you had a vague goal.
Fishbach says you can create numerical benchmarks for your goals in two ways:
- Amount: This focuses on the quantities you want to achieve.
- Time: This focuses on deadlines or duration.
For example, your outcome goal might be “become a published author,” but you could add numerical benchmarks like “write three chapters each month” (amount) or “complete my first book by December” (time).
Fishbach suggests you decide which is better to use for your goal. For example, if you want to become a better runner, setting an amount benchmark (running for three miles) might work better than a time benchmark (running for 30 minutes). Choose numbers that challenge you enough that success isn’t guaranteed, so you know you’ll need to work to achieve it.
Fishbach says you should set your numbers rather than letting others set them for you. She acknowledges that it can be helpful to get advice from experts, but make sure you have the final say. This is because we often feel more committed to benchmarks we set for ourselves. In contrast, those that others impose on us make us feel like we’re being controlled, which can give us the urge to do the opposite, even if those benchmarks are good for us—a phenomenon called psychological reactance.
How to Maintain Your Motivation
Once you’ve set a goal, you must maintain your motivation to achieve it. According to Fishbach, most people follow a predictable pattern when working toward goals: They feel excited at first, lose steam in the middle, and get motivated again near the end.
The middle phase is when people struggle the most because the initial excitement has worn off, but the end still feels far away. During this phase, people tend to lower their standards—middle actions don’t feel as meaningful as starting or finishing, making it easier to justify cutting corners. For example, if you’re trying to eat healthier, you might initially stick to your meal plan, but as time passes, you might indulge in junk food, skip meal prep, or ignore portion control.
Fishbach provides five tips for overcoming this motivation slump and rekindling your drive to reach your goal.
Tip 1: Create Ends and Beginnings
Since we naturally feel more motivated by ends and beginnings, Fishbach suggests you use this tendency to your advantage:
1. Break goals into smaller pieces. For example, instead of setting a year-long fitness goal, you might set monthly targets. This gives you more chances to feel the excitement of starting fresh and finishing strong.
2. Create personal starting points. For example, instead of seeing Wednesday as just another workday, you could think of it as the start of a new half-week. This mental shift can give you fresh energy and motivation, similar to how you feel at the beginning of a new week.
Tip 2: View Your Progress Differently
According to Fishbach, how you track your progress affects how motivated you feel. When working toward a goal, you can either focus on how far you’ve come or how far you still need to go. She writes that it’s typically more motivating to focus on whichever amount is smaller, but you should consider some other factors when deciding which approach is best for you.
When to Focus on How Far You’ve Come
Fishbach writes that looking back at what you’ve accomplished works best in three situations:
- When you’re learning something new (like learning to play the guitar)
- When you’re unsure about your commitment to the goal (like trying out a new sport)
- When the goal doesn’t feel that important to you (like decluttering your apartment)
Fishbach explains that looking at what you’ve already done has two benefits in these situations: First, it increases your commitment. Once we invest time and effort in something, we want to continue doing it to avoid wasting that investment. Second, focusing on your progress boosts your confidence. For example, if you’ve written several short stories, you’re more likely to commit to writing a novel because you’ve proven to yourself that you can write complete stories.
When to Focus on What You Have Left to Accomplish
Fishbach suggests you focus on what you still need to accomplish in three situations:
- When you’re experienced (like having played the guitar for several years)
- When you’re already committed to the goal (like improving your skills in a sport)
- When the goal is very important to you (like buying a house)
Fishbach writes that in these situations, you already care deeply about a goal, so you don’t need to remind yourself that you’re committed to it. Instead, to stay motivated, you must look at what you still need to accomplish. This prevents you from becoming too complacent with your current progress and pushes you to keep working hard. For example, if you’ve written a novel and want to get it published, you should focus on the remaining steps, like editing and finding an agent, rather than celebrating the completed draft.
Tip 3: Make Goals Enjoyable to Pursue
According to Fishbach, another way to overcome motivation slumps is to make your goals more fun to pursue. She explains that you’re more likely to achieve your goals when you’re driven by intrinsic motivation—when you do an activity because it feels enjoyable in itself, not because you want some separate reward or outcome.
Fishbach explains that activities feel more intrinsically motivating when they provide immediate rewards. For example, if you start gardening to get fresh vegetables but find that you enjoy tending your plants each day, you’ll likely stick with your hobby longer than people who only garden for the vegetables they’ll get months later. The instant enjoyment motivates you to continue the activity more than delayed rewards.
There are several ways you can increase intrinsic motivation:
1. Choose enjoyable paths toward your goals. If you want to improve your diet, picking nutritious foods you actually like, such as sweet berries or crunchy nuts, works better than forcing yourself to eat foods you hate.
2. Add fun elements to boring tasks. For example, you can arrange colorful vegetables into patterns on your plate or try new recipes with friends to make healthy eating more pleasant.
3. Enjoy the moment. When eating healthy foods, focus on the taste and texture if you enjoy them or appreciate how it feels to nourish your body rather than just thinking about the health benefits.
Use Rewards Wisely
According to Fishbach, rewards can also make goal-pursuit more enjoyable, but you should use them wisely. While rewards can motivate you, they shouldn’t be your only reason for doing something. If you only work for rewards, you might lose your natural interest in the activity.
According to Fishbach, the best rewards are uncertain: Research suggests we tend to be more motivated when we don’t know exactly what reward we’ll get. When rewards are unpredictable, we remain interested even after getting small prizes because we think a bigger prize might come next time. Fixed rewards, like getting the same allowance every week, eventually become boring and lose their motivational power.
Tip 4: Strengthen Your Self-Control
Fishbach says that, to push through motivation slumps and stick to your goals, you must strengthen your self-control. She defines self-control as choosing between what you should do versus what you want to do in the moment.
Since you won’t always feel motivated, you should strengthen your self-control by:
1. Keeping distractions out of reach. Identify what usually distracts you and remove it from your environment. For example, if you want to eat healthy, don’t buy chips and cookies when grocery shopping; if you’re studying for finals week, delete social media apps from your phone. When you can’t completely avoid a temptation, Fishbach suggests you distance yourself from the temptation by imagining what you’d tell someone else to do in this situation or imagine looking back on the choice from the future.
2. Focusing on the benefits. Instead of thinking about what you’re missing out on, remind yourself of the benefits of sticking with your goal. For example, think about how saving money now will help you take that dream vacation next year. This simple change in thinking turns your focus from what you’re giving up to what you’re gaining.
3. Making important choices early in the day. Your self-control becomes depleted throughout the day, making it harder to make good choices later in the day. Schedule important decisions and challenging tasks for the morning when your self-control is strongest.
Tip 5: Deal With Criticism
Lastly, Fishbach recommends you learn how to handle criticism and failure, which can be demoralizing and challenge your motivation.
Your response to criticism can be affected by two factors:
- Commitment: When you deeply care about a goal, criticism pushes you to work harder. However, if you’re unsure about a goal, criticism makes you doubt whether it’s worth pursuing.
- Skill: When you’re new to something, you need encouragement to keep going, while experts usually seek constructive criticism because it helps them improve.
When you understand these patterns, you can adjust your expectations and responses to criticism. If you’re a beginner, don’t be surprised if criticism is demotivating. Remind yourself that harsh feedback doesn’t mean you should quit—it just means you need more practice. If you’re experienced, you can actively seek out criticism to improve faster.
How to Improve Your Chances of Success
Now that you understand how to set effective goals and maintain motivation, let’s discuss how to realistically pursue your goals. We often struggle to achieve our goals because life is complex: We have limited time and energy, competing priorities, and many distractions. However, you can improve your chances of success. In this section, we’ll cover how to make progress on multiple goals at once and leverage social support to work toward your goals more effectively.
Tip 1: Find Activities That Serve Multiple Goals
Fishbach challenges the idea that people should focus on just one goal at a time. She says that trying to complete goals one at a time isn’t practical because most of us don’t have enough time to accomplish everything we want to do. For instance, you can’t realistically wait to finish your education before starting to date or put off exercise until after establishing your career—many important life goals need to happen in parallel.
To pursue multiple goals, understand how your goals affect each other. Some goals naturally work together, like eating healthy and training for a sports competition. However, other goals can work against each other, like wanting to spend more time with family but also wanting to work extra hours for a promotion.
Fishbach suggests you look for opportunities where you can work toward multiple goals at once. For example, when you join a tree-planting volunteer group, you get to exercise, meet new friends, and have fun all at once.
Manage Conflicting Goals
When your goals conflict with one another, Fishbach explains that you can either compromise or prioritize one goal over the others.
1. Compromise: Find a middle ground where you partially satisfy multiple goals at once. For example, if you want to be a novelist, you might choose a part-time job to make some income while still allowing time to write, giving some time to each goal rather than fully committing to one. This approach works well with goals with diminishing returns (where additional effort produces less benefit). For example, after studying for several hours, the value of each additional hour decreases, making it sensible to switch to another activity like exercise.
2. Prioritize: Choose one goal over others, at least temporarily. If a goal connects strongly to your identity or ethics, prioritization often makes sense, like prioritizing creative work over financial stability. Prioritization is also helpful for goals that require completion to be useful. For example, when pursuing a medical degree, you can’t become half a doctor—the program requires your full commitment to complete it.
Tip 2: Work on Goals With Others
In addition to learning to juggle multiple goals, you can also get motivation and support from other people. Fishbach explains that we tend to adjust our behaviors around other people’s behaviors, preferences, and goals. This can be both helpful and hurtful: It can be helpful if others working toward similar goals alongside you motivates you to increase your efforts to match theirs. On the other hand, it can be hurtful if you relax your efforts because you feel satisfied by the progress someone else made, blurring the line between their achievements and your own. For example, if a business partner lands a big client, you may share in the sense of achievement and feel like you don’t need to work as hard to find new clients yourself.
To ensure that other people will help you instead of hurt you, Fischbach gives two tips.
Leverage Social Facilitation
Fishbach writes that we often perform better when others are watching—a phenomenon known as social facilitation. Observers make us more alert and energized, which helps us do simple tasks better. (However, this doesn’t apply when we’re doing something difficult or new because having people watch us can make us nervous and cause us to perform worse.)
Fishbach adds that people watching us also makes us take our actions more seriously. This is why making a promise in front of others (like declaring a New Year’s resolution at a party) usually motivates us more than making the same promise to ourselves—we feel a stronger need to follow through when others know about our commitment. Research suggests you don’t even need real people watching you to feel this effect; simply having a photo of someone on your desk or being on a video call can make you work harder.
Find Role Models and Anti-Role Models
Fishbach recommends you identify role models and anti-role models to encourage you as you pursue your goals.
- A role model is someone you want to be like. They embody qualities you aspire to develop and help you believe you could achieve similar success, giving you the confidence to pursue your goals.
- An anti-role model is someone you don’t want to be like. For example, watching a friend struggle with credit card debt could motivate you to manage your money more carefully.
