PDF Summary:Barking Up the Wrong Tree, by Eric Barker

What is the key to success? It's hard to tell when so much success advice is contradictory: Should you be kind, or is being nice for losers? Should you spend every waking hour at work, or focus on work-life balance? In Barking Up the Wrong Tree, peak performance expert Eric Barker examines the research on every option—and shares what he believes are the secrets to success.

In this guide, you'll learn why context is king—in other words, why the rules for success depend on who you are—and examine interpersonal relationships, reviewing the importance of kindness, networks, and your attitude towards success. We'll also present Barker's views on persistence and hard work, namely why you need to stick to some things and quit others, and how you can achieve the ideal balance of work and play. Along the way, we'll examine how Barker’s ideas compare with those of other thought leaders and introduce even more ways to implement his suggestions.

(continued)...

Why You Shouldn’t Expect Gratitude in Return

Don’t start expecting others to be thankful for your presence in their lives just because you’ve gone out of your way to express gratitude to them. In How to Stop Worrying and Start Living, Dale Carnegie explains that ingratitude is part of human nature, so expecting gratitude from others will only lead to your frequent disappointment. Rather, Carnegie recommends that you focus on the joy of giving without expecting anything in return.

That said, Carnegie also posits that by consistently and earnestly expressing gratitude, you’ll naturally cultivate a stronger sense of gratitude in others and show them how to meaningfully express it—so you may still eventually receive the gratitude you desire, which would boost your happiness and likely deepen your relationship.

Become Self-Compassionate

You’ve learned why being kind to others can help you succeed, but how should you act towards yourself? Conventional wisdom dictates that being confident is key to success—and that if you aren’t confident, you should act as if you were. However, Barker argues that confidence is overrated. In this section, we’ll discuss why projecting confidence isn’t always the best idea—and what you should do instead.

Barker admits that confidence has many benefits: Notably, confident people often become successful because they’re willing to take advantage of potentially risky but ultimately rewarding opportunities. (Shortform note: Barker argues that confidence leads people to take risks, but one expert suggests that the reverse is also true: Taking risks increases your self-confidence by proving to you that even if you fail, you can still get through that failure.)

However, Barker contends that we focus too much on the benefits of confidence and not enough on its negative consequences: the reality that just because we’re confident (or pretend to be confident) in our ability to do something doesn’t necessarily mean that we’re able to do that thing. As a result, being confident can lead us to believe that we can do things we can’t and thus make poor decisions.

To illustrate, Barker tells the story of martial arts expert Yanagi Ryuken. Ryuken was confident that he could defeat his opponents without engaging in physical contact with them and agreed to test this ability in a fight—which he promptly lost, along with his credibility.

Why Ryuken Didn’t Have Self-Esteem

Barker never explicitly defines confidence or its related terms. The closest he gets is when he equates confidence with self-esteem and implies that being “overconfident” involves a surplus of self-esteem that leads us to overestimate our abilities and thus make bad decisions. However, in The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem, psychotherapist Nathaniel Branden emphasizes that self-esteem consists partly of trust in your own capability—a trust you develop by repeatedly proving that you’re capable.

By Branden’s definition, Ryuken—and others like him—didn’t suffer from an overabundance of self-esteem (as Barker argues) but rather a lack of it. Branden contends that understanding your reality and responding appropriately to it is essential to your self-esteem. Moreover, he implies that by repeatedly making good decisions that take reality into account, you repeatedly prove yourself capable and thus improve your self-esteem. Since Ryuken was unable to accept the reality that his fighting abilities were not as magical as he wanted to believe, he didn’t have high self-esteem in the way Branden describes.

How to Avoid the Drawbacks of Confidence

So how can you avoid the negative consequences of confidence? According to Barker, the best way is to ignore confidence entirely. Instead, try to become more self-compassionate—in other words, be kinder to yourself when you fail. Self-compassion improves your performance and boosts your mood—just as self-confidence does. However, self-compassion has one major advantage over self-confidence: When you’re self-compassionate, you don’t overestimate your abilities. Rather, research indicates that being self-compassionate encourages appropriate judgments so you see your true self—flaws included.

Understanding Self-Compassion

In The Confidence Code, journalists Katty Kay and Claire Shipman elaborate further on the benefits of self-compassion, which they define more explicitly than Barker as judging yourself by the standards that you judge your friends by. They explain that self-compassion allows you to accept failure because it reminds you that you’re human and that humans aren’t perfect.

Kay and Shipman add that self-compassion encourages you to take positive action by reminding you that it’s OK if a risky action doesn’t work out. This may explain why self-compassion improves your performance and boosts your mood: As we’ve seen, risk-taking often leads to success, and research suggests that risk-takers are happier.

But what if you’re not willing to prioritize self-compassion over self-confidence? In that case, Barker says you can avoid the worst consequences of confidence by never pretending to be good at things you can’t do: When people discover that you’ve lied to them, they’ll stop trusting you. Instead, work on improving your skills: Doing so will increase your confidence, but this is deserved confidence that reflects reality—and so doesn’t lead you to make poor decisions.

The Relationship Between Vulnerability and Lying

It seems obvious that someone who learns you’ve lied to them would stop trusting you—so why lie in the first place? One possibility is that you lie because you feel vulnerable. In Dare to Lead, researcher Brené Brown explains that when people feel vulnerable, they automatically resort to defensive behaviors that protect them from negative emotions. Similarly, if you’re put on the spot and feel vulnerable about admitting you can’t do something, you might lie to protect yourself from embarrassment.

To avoid resorting to defensive behaviors in moments of vulnerability, Brown explains that people depend on “grounded confidence,” confidence based on a proven ability to face your vulnerability rather than a belief that you probably should. So if you struggle to improve the skill you’re tempted to lie about, try improving your levels of grounded confidence instead. One way to do so is to approach your work with curiosity: By taking the time to examine problems instead of panicking, you’ll recognize and take advantage of valuable learning opportunities.

Of course, improving your skills takes time. So what if you haven’t yet improved your skills but are in a situation where you have to get someone to admire you—like in a job interview? Barker suggests you don’t lie, but rather be the “best version of yourself” so you present yourself in a positive but accurate light.

(Shortform note: How can you present the best version of yourself in a particular situation? Experts contend that, in addition to actually having the skills you claim to have, you must also determine what version of yourself the situation requires and be driven to act like that version of yourself. For example, in a job interview, you must determine what the interviewer wants, want to be that ideal, and present a version of yourself that’s close to the ideal but remains true to you.)

Work Hard at the Right Things

Now that you’ve learned about how your attitudes towards others and yourself affect your success, let’s talk about the work itself—and more specifically, about the grit it requires. Conventional advice around grit—our ability to persevere through setbacks and continue working towards long-term goals over years or even decades—often contradicts itself. As Barker notes, we tend to believe that grit is essential to success; however, we also warn each other about clinging to our dreams for too long—like the man who’s convinced he can become a pro basketballer long after his joints have started to wear away. So which is it?

(Shortform note: Experts differ on what grit actually is. Some psychologists contend that grit is the same as conscientiousness, the tendency to be responsible, organized, persistent, goal-oriented, and self-controlled. However, psychologist Angela Duckworth, who popularized the term “grit,” argues that it differs from conscientiousness because it also incorporates passion—the adherence to high-level, long-term goals—rather than a short-term commitment to goals.)

Barker argues that this isn’t an either/or question. Rather, he contends that if you want to succeed, you have to work hard at the right things—which means you have to stick to some things but quit others. In general, grit is essential to success: It’s associated with greater optimism and happiness. But you can only find the time you need to consistently work on your long-term goals—in other words, to display grit—if you prioritize the endeavors that matter. And to do that, you must stop—or quit—the endeavors that don’t.

How Your Ego Stops You From Quitting Things

In Ego Is the Enemy, philosopher Ryan Holiday posits that we often struggle to quit the wrong things in our careers due to the sunk cost fallacy: We’ve invested time, energy, and money into a project (sunk costs), so instead of admitting that those costs are irretrievable, we continue to throw good money after bad trying to make those costs mean something. Holiday contends that we fall victim to this fallacy because our egos see career failures as personal failures and want to fight these failures at all costs.

However, to display grit in the right endeavors and achieve happiness, you must be willing to admit your losses and move past them. To do so, Holiday recommends that you face each failure, determine honestly whether your errors are redeemable, and ask yourself whether it’s worth continuing or if you should move on to fight another battle.

How to Find the Right Things

So you now know that you have to stick to the endeavors that matter—but how do you discover what those are? What are the long-term goals that you want to fight for? If you have no idea, Barker recommends performing small experiments: Test out things you’re interested in to see if you want to pursue them in the long term. For example, if you dream of opening a café, get a part-time job at one to see if it’s right for you.

(Shortform note: In Designing Your Life, Stanford professors Bill Burnett and Dave Evans also recommend testing out things you’re interested in to see if you want to pursue them in the long term. Like Barker, they recommend performing small experiments. But they add that you should conduct interviews with people who already do the thing you want to do. You can thus learn the pros and cons of their choices in detail and evaluate whether their path is for you.)

Once something piques your interest, try the WOOP method: Define your wish, envision the ideal outcome, review what obstacles you might encounter, and plan how you’ll overcome them. Research indicates that if your wish is achievable, doing this mental exercise will inspire you—so you should focus your efforts on whatever wish inspires you the most.

(Shortform note: Barker focuses on how using the WOOP method can help you determine what to work on. But other experts explain that using the WOOP method can re-inspire you to work on goals you’ve already decided on but are having trouble actually doing. This is because the method combines two proven goal-setting techniques: mental contrasting, in which you visualize both your desired future and your current reality, and setting implementation intentions, which you do by clearly stating, “If X happens, I’ll do Y.”)

How to Overcome Setbacks

Once you’ve decided what to work on, how can you ensure that you persevere through setbacks? Barker argues that one key is to tell yourself a good story. By nature, your brain tells stories about the random events in your life—doing so gives you a sense of control. These stories are often objectively untrue, as they lead you to ignore information that doesn’t fit into the narrative you’ve created.

However, Barker contends that when it comes to grit, ignoring facts is a good thing: A good story provides you with a sense of meaning that motivates you to surmount obstacles. If you didn’t have this story and focused instead on the facts, you probably would realize you were unlikely to surmount these obstacles—so you wouldn’t even try.

When Telling Stories Is Harmful

Barker focuses on how inaccurate stories about the obstacles you’re facing can help you—but inaccurate stories can harm you, too. In Crucial Conversations, the authors agree that stories are how we explain the world. However, they add that as we develop these stories, our body responds with strong emotions—so once these stories are told, they control us and dictate how we feel and act. Since the same set of facts can be used to spin infinite stories, telling a bad story could demotivate you and cause harm—like if you convince yourself you’ll never survive an easily survivable obstacle.

Telling the wrong story doesn’t just cause emotional harm: In The Psychology of Money, financial writer Morgan Housel explains that it can also cause us to make poor financial decisions. Like Barker, Housel posits that we tell stories about the random events in our lives to help us feel more in control—but since finance is subject to the whims of human emotions, we don’t have as much control over our money as we tell ourselves. When we overestimate how much control we have, we’re more likely to ignore factors such as chance or others’ decisions and may make poor financial decisions as a result.

Specifically, Barker recommends that you tell yourself two stories. First, write your own eulogy: Creating a story about how you want people to remember you when you’re dead will motivate you to strive towards that legacy when you’re alive.

(Shortform note: Writing your own eulogy may help you in your professional life—but to be romantically successful, one psychologist suggests imagining your future partner’s eulogy instead. He explains that people seeking a partner focus on that person’s achievements—like their wealth. However, you’re more likely to find a happy relationship with someone who has traits that one might praise in their eulogy—like kindness.)

Second, Barker recommends turning your journey into a game—which is a type of story because it involves reframing reality. Gamifying your journey makes it more enjoyable and thus motivates you to push through setbacks and stick to your plan even when you get bored.

(Shortform note: Why does gamifying your journey make it more fun? In A Theory of Fun for Game Design, game designer Raph Kosta contends that learning in games is fun because games have no real consequences and let players exist in unpredictable environments without causing anxiety. But gamifying something you do in real life does have real consequences—so why is it still fun? As Barker states, the key may lie in the story you tell yourself: By acting as if something serious is a game, you reduce your anxiety around it and thus increase your enjoyment—which in turn motivates you to stick to the right things.)

How to Gamify Your Journey

You’ve now learned the importance of gamifying your journey—but how do you actually do it? Barker contends that you must include four features to stay motivated and stick to your goals:

1. Make sure it’s possible to win your game. In other words, pick realistic end goals. Trying to defeat a game you can’t win is demotivating and thus won’t help.
2. Regularly increase the difficulty. Otherwise, the game will get too easy and you’ll grow bored.
3. Clarify your lower-level goals. When you know exactly what you’re trying to do at each step of the journey, you make the best possible choices to help you reach lower-level goals and ultimately your end goal.
4. Incorporate regular feedback. Like in games, you stay motivated in real life when you know if you’re making good choices—and you can only know that if you have feedback on the impact of those choices.

For example, say you’d like to develop your piano skills. First, your realistic end goal might be to win a local piano competition instead of to become the next Mozart. Second, you might regularly increase the difficulty by choosing progressively harder pieces to play. Third, you might clarify your lower-level goals by deciding to master a specific section of a piece so that you can boost your chances of winning the competition. Fourth, you might incorporate regular feedback by performing for a piano teacher. By incorporating all four features, you’ll be able to enjoy the learning process and stick with it even when you hit a slump.

How the Gamification Model Relates to Habit Formation Models

Barker recommends that you gamify your journey so you stay motivated even when you hit setbacks. But interestingly, the steps that he recommends for doing so are also essential to creating habits—which, once developed, drive you to automatically perform specific behaviors without requiring any motivation.

So how do you create habits? In Tiny Habits, behavioral expert BJ Fogg recommends the following process: Pinpoint your exact aspiration, brainstorm several behaviors that would achieve that outcome, repeat the tiniest version of one of those behaviors, celebrate when you succeed, then progressively upgrade that behavior. Each of these steps reflects a feature of gamifying your journey that Barker emphasizes.

For example, say you wanted to be less tired during the day—but after further reflection, you realize you actually want to get better sleep. This is a more specific and thus more realistic goal. During the brainstorming process, you discover that taking a lavender-scented bath before bed would help you reach your end goal—you now have a clear lower-level goal. You decide that the tiniest version of that behavior is taking out the lavender oil and unscrewing the cap. Each time you do this, you celebrate your success by, for example, pumping your fist—this is a form of feedback: You make yourself feel happy by succeeding. Once you habitually take out the lavender oil, you then upgrade the behavior by unscrewing the lavender oil and running hot water. In this way, you’re progressively increasing the difficulty on your way to developing a nighttime bath habit.

Work Smart and Hard

You've learned that it's essential to work hard—to be persistent and stick to your goals so you can achieve them. But most modern experts also tout work-life balance...so which is it? Barker agrees that working hard is essential, but he also approves of balance. In other words, you should work hard—but work smart.

Barker explains that if you want to succeed, you have to spend several hours on your goals—ideally, at least 10,000 hours to become an expert. In fact, research suggests that as long as you're relatively smart, greatness is determined by how long you work intensely at something.

Why 10,000 Hours Might Not Be Enough

Working 10,000 hours doesn’t guarantee that you’ll become an expert—you have to spend those hours on “deliberate practice,” a term Barker never explicitly defines. In Peak, psychologist Anders Ericsson explains that deliberate practice has five main features: It’s competitive, requires maximal effort, involves repeating time-tested skills, is performed under the tutelage of coaches, and can be measured objectively.

But, as Malcolm Gladwell points out in Outliers, spending 10,000 hours on deliberate practice is often a luxury afforded only to the privileged because having money can buy you that time. For example, someone who can afford to hire a cleaning service can spend more time practicing a skill than someone who has to clean their home themselves.

Despite this, Barker argues that work-life balance is also essential because spending all your time working comes with trade-offs. Notably, people who spend all their time working often struggle to maintain good relationships—which, as we saw in our section on networking, are essential. Moreover, working too much often leads to exhaustion—which reduces your health and creativity and can lead to burnout.

(Shortform note: Work-life balance is especially important for women: In Invisible Women, Caroline Criado Perez explains that long work hours are particularly damaging to women’s health because women probably also do most of the unpaid care work at home. So, as Sandberg points out in Lean In, if you’re a woman who wants a good work-life balance (including a husband and family), you should pick a good partner: someone who doesn’t spend all his time working and is willing to share equally in home and childcare responsibilities.)

The problem? Barker explains that it's difficult to achieve work-life balance today in ways that it wasn't in the past. Thanks to technology, we can now work anytime we want—and we feel pressured to do so because if we don't, someone else might. When we always have the option to work—and we’re worried that if we don’t work, we’ll fail because someone else worked harder than we did—we tend to work. Unfortunately, however, this often leads us to neglect other important areas of our life—like our relationships.

(Shortform note: In The Psychology of Money, Housel also contends that we struggle to achieve work-life balance today—but not because we always have the option to work. Rather, Housel believes that the nature of work now forces us to work constantly: Most of us perform knowledge work that intrudes upon our thoughts long after we leave the workplace. This makes us feel like we’re always working and that we don’t have control over our time—and this lack of control has reduced our happiness and, as Barker notes, impaired our relationships.)

How to Build a Balanced Schedule

So what should you do? Barker argues that the most important thing is to decide what your successful life looks like. By doing this, you'll be able to ignore the world's unrealistic demands and feel less guilty focusing on working when you need to and playing when you need to. Research suggests that a successful life should have four main elements: pursuing joy, reaching your goals, connecting with others, and making an impact.

Then, Barker recommends ensuring that you're spending time on all four of those elements. Don't try to be perfect; just figure out what's adequate in each category. To do so, first determine what your current schedule looks like—how much time are you spending on each element, and how much time are you wasting? Then, jot down how many hours you'd like to spend on each element, and adjust your schedule accordingly.

How to Build a Schedule That Reflects Your Values

Like Barker, productivity expert Nir Eyal recommends building a schedule that reflects your priorities in life and adjusting it as necessary. However, in Indistractable, Eyal recommends a different method for doing so.

First, instead of focusing on activities that build joy, goals, connections, and your legacy, Eyal recommends that you focus your schedule on the three responsibilities that take up all of your time—you, your relationships, and your work—and your values in each. These values represent what’s important to you and who you want to be. For example, your value in your relationship may be to spend quality time together, so you might schedule a date night.

Then, Eyal recommends that you timebox: dedicate specific blocks of time to specific activities, ensuring that you schedule enough time for yourself, your relationships, and your work. Every minute of your day should be timeboxed because it’s the only way to accurately gauge how often you do what you planned. Live by this schedule as much as possible, but keep a distraction tracker: Each time you deviate from the schedule, note why and how you got distracted.

Finally, Eyal recommends that you spend 20 minutes each week with your schedule and distraction tracker to reflect on two questions: When did you stick to or deviate from your schedule and what schedule changes might help you avoid distractions? By frequently reflecting on your schedule, you’ll become more aware of when you get distracted—and can slowly adjust your schedule so that it meets all your values and works with your life.

Worried that you can't spend your time in your desired way because you might not be able to get all your work done? Barker proposes two solutions. First, speak with your supervisor if you need to. Ask her what she wants you to prioritize, then present a plan that makes you both happier. Say she wants you to check your email every hour, but you find doing so unproductive. When you discuss her priorities, you might learn that she simply wants to remain in the loop. You might then suggest scheduling a daily five-minute phone call with her so you can update her more efficiently without spending hours on email.

Second, Barker recommends that you schedule your workday: Pick the time you want to stop working, then decide exactly when you'll do which projects, scheduling the ones that require the most focus early in the day. Setting aside dedicated time to do the most important work ensures that it gets done—and still allows you the time you need to enjoy other aspects of your life.

How to Schedule Your Workday Effectively

In Indistractable, Eyal makes more detailed recommendations on both how to schedule your workday and talk to your manager so you can get your most important work done and maintain work-life balance.

Eyal recommends first that you create a schedule that includes both your plan for your work and any non-negotiable work commitments. Then, regularly share this schedule with your manager. When your manager has a clear idea of how your time is being spent, she gains greater context on potential issues (like a productivity slump), can suggest areas where you can reprioritize tasks as necessary, and can discern when it’s appropriate to ask you to do more work.