PDF Summary:Anatomy of a Breakthrough, by Adam Alter

We’ve all felt trapped at some point in our lives, when our motivation falters and all our hard work grinds to a halt. In Anatomy of a Breakthrough, Adam Alter argues that everybody hits roadblocks in life, and because we hide our frustration, we’re unaware that everyone else goes through the same thing. However, there’s hope even when you feel trapped, and Alter proposes a range of solutions that might help you find your way out of the woods.

In this guide, we’ll explain what it means to be “stuck,” the barriers that often cause this, and how reacting poorly to a perceived lack of progress can only dig you in deeper. We’ll then describe Alter’s remedy—slowing down, exploring new perspectives, and making your own luck through persistence. We’ll also connect Alter’s ideas with those of other motivation experts, what other writers say about perseverance, and how exploring uncharted terrain can turn failures into opportunities.

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(Shortform note: Alter and other writers discuss learning from failure, but how to go about it may not always be clear. In Can’t Hurt Me, Navy SEAL David Goggins breaks the process down into actionable steps. He says you should keep a journal to reflect on your failures when they happen, asking yourself what you did well as you prepared for whatever you attempted, as well as how well you handled the failure. After that, you should list everything you could have done differently and then, if possible, schedule a time to make another attempt at your goal.)

Coping Tactic #3: Look Beyond Failure

The problem is that many of us see failure as the end of the line. This is wrong. Alter writes that since failure is a necessary step toward success, you have to reframe your attitude toward it. Choose not to beat yourself up when you fail. Simply look at your failure and figure out what it can teach you. Meanwhile, look at all the progress you’ve made. After all, if you “fail” and feel your progress has stopped, it means that you’ve been making an effort, and you’ve probably come a long way from where you started. When you reflect on the progress you’ve made and learn the lessons that failure can teach you, you prime yourself to climb out of your rut and break through whatever wall is holding you back.

(Shortform note: Alter offers reflecting on past progress as an antidote to feeling stuck, but in The Gap and The Gain, Benjamin Hardy and Dan Sullivan argue that looking back on your progress is a mindset you should adopt all the time. Examining your past and looking forward to the future are both exercises in self-comparison, but comparing yourself to an imaginary future is doomed to lock you into a cycle of disappointment. On the other hand, comparing your present to your actual past and measuring the gains you’ve achieved along the way can prime you for a happier life and help you reframe the disappointments you’ve experienced.)

Getting Unstuck

As anyone who feels like they’ve hit a wall knows, the hard part is picking yourself up and pushing on. Alter says that when you feel like progress has ground to a halt, there are a variety of ways to kickstart it again. These include remaining calm and being deliberate about your choices, resisting the urge to find a perfect solution, doing whatever it takes to keep moving, exploring a wide range of options and viewpoints, and increasing your odds of a lucky breakthrough by persisting even when you feel you’re going nowhere.

Stay Calm and Slow Down

The first thing to do when you feel you’ve hit an impasse is to center yourself and calmly evaluate your situation. The anxiety that feeling trapped provokes can lead to rash and reckless decisions, but Alter says the antidote is to slow down even more, taking stock of your options as you do. Alter offers two strategies to deal with the anxiety brought about by feeling trapped.

The anxiety you feel when your progress gets stalled—whether you’re writing a grant proposal or training for an upcoming race—comes from an exaggerated need to perform. Your fight-or-flight instinct will try to kick in, pushing you to act and make choices before you’ve had time to fully think them through. Instead, when you start to feel stuck you should stop and explore exactly what’s slowing you down. This practice can negate your fear-based reactions and give you time to come up with a well-thought-out next step.

(Shortform note: Breaking free from the anxiety Alter describes may take more than an intellectual exploration of the problem. It will likely require a degree of self-compassion to avoid unproductively blaming yourself for whatever is holding you back. Impartial, self-compassionate curiosity about your situation creates a clear mindset and permits better choices. Things not to do include trying to bury your feelings altogether, focusing on your anxiety too much, or failing to engage with your struggles at all.)

Stress Relief Tactic #1: Mindfulness

Alter says that mindfulness is a good approach to grappling with anxiety. Mindfulness, traditionally learned through meditation, is a deliberate moment-to-moment awareness of your mental and physical state. Whether or not you explore meditation, it’s vital to acknowledge the anxiety you’re feeling and recognize how it manifests in your body. The hard part is letting yourself feel your anxiety rather than trying to run from it or quash it. By letting your anxiety sit and be examined, you’ll be able to root out the cause of your fear. Perhaps the barrier holding you back isn’t as insurmountable as it seems, or maybe you’ve mentally framed your situation in such a way that not moving forward feels like more of a threat than it is.

(Shortform note: The mindfulness meditation that Alter recommends forms the basis of many modern mental health approaches, originating in contemplative faith traditions from all over the world. Shortform’s Master Guide to Choosing a Meditation Practice points to a variety of mindfulness options, including non-faith-based techniques to improve your memory and focus. If you choose the mindfulness route, experts agree that you should try to start small, incorporate a support network if you can, and make mindfulness an active part of your daily routine.)

Stress Relief Tactic #2: Plan for the Worst

The most basic fear behind every impasse is usually the fear of failure, so Alter argues that you should mentally rehearse your failure before it becomes an existential problem. This goes against most self-help advice, which states that you should always visualize success. But, Alter argues, if you spend time thinking through worst-case scenarios—what happens if the thing you’re hoping for doesn’t happen—you’ll emotionally prepare yourself for the milder-than-worst-case difficulties you’re bound to run into. By fully thinking through the consequences of failure, you may also realize that not achieving your goal exactly how you want isn’t the end of the world.

(Shortform note: Psychologists normally consider ruminating on worst-case scenarios, also known as catastrophizing, to be an inherently negative and irrational mode of thought, usually because people who do so not only play through unwanted outcomes in their minds, but they tend to assume that the worst will happen. Especially when catastrophic thoughts are intrusive, turning them off requires deliberate effort to rewrite the narratives running through your head. If you follow Alter’s advice to consider the worst case, it’s also important to plan for a solution and remind yourself that you’ve devised one when the worst-case thoughts come back unwanted.)

Reject Perfectionism

It’s easy to get mired on the road to success if you expect your achievements to live up to your dreams in every perfect detail. Perfectionists, especially in creative fields, often feel stymied when their work doesn’t live up to their very high personal standards. Alter frames the escape from the perfectionism trap in several different ways.

Anti-Perfectionism Tactic #1: Lower Your Standards

To a perfectionist, lowering your standards might feel like betraying your ideals, but Alter says that instead of looking at it that way, you should view it as playing with new ideas. For instance, a songwriter trained in complex music theory might, when their ideas run dry, fool around with simple rhythms and clichéd chord progressions until something workable clicks. Doing this doesn’t lower the value of your efforts; rather, it gives you the freedom to explore. While toying around with “substandard” progress, you might stumble on an insight you’d never have arrived at when holding all your work to a higher bar.

(Shortform note: While Alter’s advice to lower your standards may be an effective tool for freeing your imagination, not everyone recommends it as a long-term strategy. In The 10X Rule, Grant Cardone argues the exact opposite—that the major reason for people’s failure to achieve is that they don’t set their goals high enough. Cardone believes that goals need to be outsized so that they can inspire you while holding your attention. For this to work, he also recommends aligning your goals with your overall sense of purpose in life. Cardone says that these factors—scope and purpose—work together to carry you through any slowdowns in your progress.)

Anti-Perfectionism Tactic #2: Quantity Over Quality

Another way to leverage imperfection in any kind of creative project, whether writing ad copy or painting landscapes, is to try to produce as much work as possible without getting hung up on how good it is. This “shotgun approach” to creativity is sure to result in lots of ideas that’ll end up on the garbage heap, but it also increases the likelihood that something truly dazzling will emerge. Alter also points out that increasing your output results in lots and lots of practice—which means that good ideas and well-crafted work will start to flow more naturally.

(Shortform note: Alter’s suggestion to value “quantity, not quality” is the unofficial motto of National Novel Writing Month, an annual challenge during the month of November to encourage aspiring authors to write—and finish—a short novel in only 30 days. To accomplish this, writers are encouraged to put whatever words come to mind on the page without going back to make edits or corrections. Mistakes are not only valued but encouraged as a means to keep creativity flowing. Over 400,000 authors participate each year, and though some of their work has gone on to be published, the goal is no more than to complete a preliminary draft of a book.)

Anti-Perfectionism Tactic #3: Aim for “Good” Instead of “Great”

In the end, the key to escaping the perfectionism trap is to know the difference between “perfect” and “good.” Alter writes that in psychology, these two modes of thinking are known as satisficing—settling for “good enough”—and maximizing—seeking the best possible outcome. Though maximizing holds itself to a higher ideal, it’s restrictive, limiting, and correlated with a host of negative mental states, including overall unhappiness. On the other hand, a satisficing mindset offers the freedom and flexibility to let go of dead ends, chalk up failures to learning, and move on when reality doesn’t live up to an imagined ideal.

(Shortform note: Alter isn’t alone in giving maximizing a bad rap. In The Paradox of Choice, Barry Schwartz writes that maximizers feel more regret for their decisions, even those that lead to better outcomes. The difference lies in how those outcomes are measured. Maximizers rely on objective standards, such as higher pay or greater recognition, whereas satisficers focus on the subjective experience of making decisions with less effort and more enjoyment. Studies have backed this up by showing that maximizers graduating from college earn more than their satisficing classmates but end up feeling more dissatisfied with their careers.)

Keep Inching Forward

Alter’s next piece of advice may seem to contradict his earlier statement to stop what you’re doing and assess your situation. Nevertheless, when you’re stuck in a rut, nothing but action will get you out—so long as that action is well-considered and productive after taking a pause to review your best options. Continually taking action toward your goal turns progress into a habit that makes future slowdowns easier to avoid.

Action Tactic #1: Break It Down

Breaking down projects into smaller goals is a common strategy recommended by productivity experts, but Alter says that it’s even OK to create arbitrary benchmarks where none logically exist, such as rewarding yourself for every hour worked rather than completing specific tasks. Dividing a long-term task into smaller units lets you defer the emotional weight associated with your overall goal. Instead of being hampered by that weight, you can focus on the practical details of simply doing the next step without agonizing over your total progress.

(Shortform note: One way to follow Alter’s advice to break large goals down into bite-size units is to use Ryder Carroll’s “Bullet Journal Method.” Carroll says that it’s a common mistake to try to accomplish sweeping goals all at once, and that reducing those goals to small, self-contained projects can prevent you from being overwhelmed. Carroll’s approach is a customizable notebook journaling system that gives your efforts structure and helps set priorities while keeping work toward overarching goals contained to individual, manageable tasks.)

Action Tactic #2: Discard What’s Inessential

One way to ramp up your progress is to discard any inessential steps when you break your project into its components. After all, as stated earlier, everyone slows down in the middle of a project, whether it’s designing a month-long training program or building a business that’s years in the making. Alter suggests that wherever possible, you should cut out as much of that middle as you can. Plus, reducing a task to digestible chunks creates many more “beginnings” and “ends,” those points when your energy and motivation are strongest, while shrinking the drawn-out middle of your journey into smaller paths that are individually easier to cross.

(Shortform note: In When, business columnist Daniel Pink concurs with Alter about the motivating power of beginnings and ends, but he writes that they’re tied more closely to our biological rhythms than Alter suggests. Pink writes that you can maximize the power of beginnings by either timing them to your energy peak of the day or to a moment that carries special meaning, such as the completion of some other goal. While Pink favors powering through the middle “slump,” others agree with Alter that you should eliminate every inessential step you can—a tactic that works for organizations as effectively as it can for individuals.)

Action Tactic #3: General Housekeeping

Sometimes the next step toward your goal still won’t be clear, but there’s still productive work you can do. Every project has some tedious aspect that often gets put to the side—some of which grow into the pitfalls discussed earlier in this guide. When you’re stumped, Alter writes that one way to keep moving is to do preventative maintenance on the less-than-thrilling aspects of your work. For example, a writer stuck on her next chapter might spend time double-checking her royalty statements. Not only does this type of work let your creative mind rest, it also prevents potential future roadblocks by stopping small tasks from blooming into big ones.

(Shortform note: According to Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project, preventative maintenance does more than give your creative mind a break: It actively helps remove mental clutter by eliminating distractions that can pull your focus away from where you want it. Rubin recommends this in a literal sense—tidying up the clutter in your home—as well as in the figurative sense of cleaning up the overwhelming mental mess from a too-long to-do list. Whereas Alter suggests doing this when you’re bogged down in the middle of a project, Rubin recommends removing clutter first, before you launch yourself on a new endeavor.)

Explore New Directions

Despite all your efforts to keep moving forward, sometimes your plans simply won’t work out and you’ll discover that a goal isn’t as achievable as you’d originally thought. Alter argues that rather than throwing your hands up and quitting, you might need a change in direction. He says that you can sometimes change failure into success by pivoting from your original goal, experimenting with a variety of options, and seeking outside ideas on where to go next.

Just as slowdowns are inevitable, so is the need to periodically change course, especially when something you’ve worked for doesn’t happen. Alter says the first step when facing failure is to ask questions. Can any part of your work be saved? Are there adjustments that can turn things around? Suppose you’ve worked hard to start a new business, but customers aren’t flocking to your store. Before declaring a total loss, ask if anything could be changed about your merchandise, marketing, or location that would make your business more successful.

(Shortform note: Whereas Alter talks about questioning your work at or after the point of failure, business experts argue that you should be measuring and questioning your progress at every step along your path. In The Lean Startup, Eric Reis highlights the importance of measuring progress in the right way so that if the time comes when you need to change direction, you’re already prepared with the answers you’ll need. Likewise, in The Infinite Game, Simon Sinek suggests that as you’re working toward a goal, you should assume that a change in direction is inevitable and prepare to explore new directions in advance instead of putting it off until a crisis.)

Many Ways Forward

Alter writes that changing course on a long-term ambition requires flexibility and a willingness to experiment. The whole basis of experimentation rests on the idea that there’s more than one potential path to success. Instead of being trapped by one guiding idea, be curious about alternatives and explore every viable option until you find a way to make progress again. For example, some people who feel stalled in their careers often leverage their skills to switch career paths into a whole new field. The same holds true for organizations, as evidenced by the many established companies that explore new markets by funding start-up ventures.

(Shortform note: Just as it’s important to measure progress long before your progress grinds to a halt, it’s key to cultivate a flexible mindset before the time comes when you need to switch gears. For example, in The Essential Drucker, Peter F. Drucker says that business leaders should always be asking what their company’s mission will be in the future in the event that some disruption to the market renders its current services obsolete. The same holds true for people whose jobs may be altered by new technologies such as artificial intelligence. With strategic foresight and a little preparation, you can leverage your skills to pivot your career around any coming roadblocks instead of letting change drag your work life to a halt.)

Businesses look outside themselves for new ideas, either by hiring consultants or recruiting new talent with a diversity of backgrounds. Alter suggests that individuals who feel their progress waning can do the same thing. If you’re out of ideas, reach out to somebody else. You can do this through your personal circle or via many networks online, but it’s important that when you seek outside ideas, they should come from perspectives that differ from your own. Even if the ideas aren’t from experts in your field, seeing your work from a different angle will disrupt your status quo and may spark inspiration you wouldn’t have received in any other way.

Role Models and Organizations

In The Motivation Myth, Jeff Haden offers some practical suggestions for finding outside ideas as a way to jumpstart your progress. One is to find an exemplar to emulate, preferably someone who’s a high achiever in your field of choice—whether that’s your professional career or another aspect of life you’re working on. Haden suggests that you pick one thing your role model does that would push you toward your goal, even if it goes against your normal behavior, and add that to your daily routine. Doing so will stretch you out of getting stuck and develop your skills in ways you might not expect.

Another of Haden’s recommendations is to join a social group, such as a club of experienced hobbyists or a professional organization. Being in such an atmosphere will put you in touch with many people whose personal experiences you can draw from. In the same vein as Reis, Sinek, and Drucker, Haden proposes that you take these steps as you work toward your goal long before you find yourself in a rut. However, should your progress start to flag, then emulating a role model or joining a group can spur you along for the reasons Alter mentions.

Persist and Get Lucky

For all the practical and psychological tricks to get yourself moving when progress has stalled, the most basic one to cling to at all times is simple perseverance. Persisting even when you feel like you’re not making any headway at all provides the surest guarantee that you’ll overcome whatever obstacles are in your way. Alter discusses how to think about your progress in order to give your perseverance a boost, as well as the way that persistence and luck go hand in hand to guide you toward success.

Alter argues that there’s nothing worse than giving up on a goal just before you achieve it. For that reason, for whatever you’re working on, take time periodically to evaluate your progress. Even when it feels like you’re not moving forward, looking back will show you just how far you’ve come. And though sometimes redirecting your energy is important, Alter recommends that when you hit a barrier, you should devote 150% as much time and energy as your gut says is reasonable before giving in. More often than not, you’ll find a way through when you keep pushing beyond where you feel you should have quit.

(Shortform note: Alter’s yardstick of how much time and energy to devote to a project may be hard to measure in practice. In Rework, Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson point out that people are notoriously bad at estimating how long goals will take and how difficult they are to achieve. As a result, when you break your process into small components—Alter’s action tactic #1—you should estimate how much time and effort each of those steps should take on its own. Measuring how accurate your small guesses are will give you a more reasonable expectation for your overall progress. Fried and Hansson also suggest that you constantly review the value of your efforts to determine if you should keep persisting or redirect your energy elsewhere.)

Alter acknowledges that luck plays a part in success—it’s not just persistence. However, the more you persevere, the more likely you are to have a lucky breakthrough. The person who applies for 200 jobs is more likely to stumble into their dream career than the person who gives up after only 20. Studies show that most creative people enjoy one peak period of maximum performance at some point during their lives—but that it can come at any time in their career. Only by holding fast to your goal will you be ready when the chance to realize it comes. As the saying goes, fortune favors the bold, but it smiles more often on those who stick with it.

(Shortform note: While Alter’s assertion is technically true—the longer you stay in the game, the higher your chances of winning—you can’t assume that any win is guaranteed. In Fooled by Randomness, Nassim Nicholas Taleb says that we often downplay the importance of luck in the careers of those whom we see as successful. Much of this is due to survivorship bias, which we discussed earlier. However, Taleb is in agreement with Alter in that luck brings short-term success, but long-term success comes from hard work and persistence.)